amplifier DB meters

Hello, Atmasphere and Shadorne, thanks for your responses. Meters are good and useful I believe, just perhaps we should have better ones on our amps.
My woofer system is wired - parallel groups in series. There are 32 drivers in total. 8 forward facing and 8 rear facing per channel, each bank gets its own channel from one amp. This way one stereo amp drives the front 8 with the "left" channel and the rear bank is driven by the "right" channel. Each bank is then 4 ohm. So am I actually seeing double the power than on the meters? If the meter is reading 4 watts it is actually 8 watts, is that correct? I am using two 200 watt per channel amps.
Also FYI after really studying the meters since I wrote my original post the most I see is quite a bit more than 4 watts I originally cited, it is actually 18 watts. Going by Atmaspheres example of 4X and then doubling that, I need 144 watts to be safe. Guess I need to have my 200 watt amps. Though I could get away with 100 to 150 watt amps perhaps.
The interesting point also is just how small the excursion is at each driver, just a few millimeter at the most. The sound is also quite different due to this, ultimately giving great bass detail and no room shaking.

Atmasphere, I understand that you have/like Laverda motorcycles is that correct? I have a few and have ridden them since the early eighties.
Bob

Bob,

Are you saying that you have a bank of 8 drivers wired in parallel or in series?

One more thing- if you listen to pop/rock, there will be no peaks and you will never need more power than you see on your meters. Why? Because the mastering engineer has basically compressed the recording to have less than 5dB of dynamic range. Play a CD on your computer with a sound program and watch the "peaks" and you will see that 90% of the song is at the maximum volume you can have.

Classical is different- lots of dynamic range there.

HI Shadorne, I believe each bank is wired in just that- parallel groups in series. I have the wiring diagram and paramaters somewhere but I did this 8 years ago so I kind of forgot the details. I needed to keep it 4 ohms where my friends are wired to 2 ohms owing to the different amps we are using. I also believe it is the way Marshall stacks are wired.
An internet friend designed the speaker system and had enough custom drivers made for 3 sets (96 drivers, plus 4 to make an even 100 which was required for a price discount). He and a friend are using them with the big Soundlabs.
Bob

I needed to keep it 4 ohms

That's cool. Given your amps there should be absolutely no problem with that kind of load.