Matching Automotive Speakers To Amp
My car came with a factory amp that i would like to replace, (I will also be replacing the head unit) the good thing is that all the wires from the head unit to the amp, and then from the amp out to the speakers are all located in one spot under the back seat (where the amp is mounted).
Amplifiers and loudspeakers. Two devices that go together 'like a horse and carriage,' as the Sultan of Swoon would have said. After all, you can't have one without the other, assuming you actually want to listen to your music and movies in an actual room. But if speakers and amps were a Facebook couple, there's no doubt that their relationship status would be 'It's Complicated.' Despite being quite dissimilar devices (one being an electrical device designed to increase the amplitude of a signal from a preamplifier or preamp stage; the other being a mechanical device designed to convert that electrical signal into acoustical energy), the performance characteristics and capabilities of both loudspeakers and power amplifiers are described using many of the same words: primarily, watts (both RMS and peak) and impedance (usually denoted as Ω, or ohms). As such, you might think it would be reasonably simple to match a speaker with an appropriate amplifier: make sure the numbers match, and you're in good shape, right?
Well, sorta yes and sorta no. To understand why, we need to take a look at what those terms mean.Additional Resources. at HomeTheaterReview.com. at HomeTheaterReview.com. at HomeTheaterReview.comBut first, a caveat: this article is intended as a quick primer for beginners.
As such, it contains a number of simplifications, many of them bordering on grossness. The goal here isn't to write the definitive treatise on the subject, but rather to give budding audio enthusiasts a foundation of knowledge on which to build. To keep things simple, we'll mostly be focusing on the characteristics of your typical solid-state amplifier and ignoring things like OTL (output transformerless) tube amps.
Still, even a simple discussion of the relationship between speakers and amps can get a bit mathy; so, if you're merely looking for a cheat sheet to help you find a new amp for your favorite speakers (or vice versa), you can skip straight to the conclusion.With that out of the way, let's discuss some of the common terms listed in the specifications for most amps and loudspeakers, and what those specs mean when shopping for components that play well together. Since wattage is the spec that most people look at first (and the only spec that some shoppers consider), we'll start there.Watts It All About?Wattage is a measure of electrical power described most simply as voltage (volts) times current (amps). But what does that mean when it comes to speakers? Despite conventional wisdom, it really isn't a good indicator of how loud a speaker will play.
Instead, it's an indicator of how much power a speaker can physically take without distorting or physically breaking (whether that be from fried voice coils, blown speakers, or cooked crossovers).An amplifier's rated wattage, by contrast, is calculated a little differently: by throwing numbers into a hat and pulling them out until one sounds impressive.I'm kidding, of course. The power output of amplifiers is usually listed as RMS and Peak. The former (which would be more simply described as continuous power) is calculated by playing a sine wave signal and measuring the average (root mean square) voltage and current that the amp can deliver without clipping (which is usually measured in terms of Total Harmonic Distortion, but can be seen on an oscilloscope as a flattening out of the curved tops and bottoms of a sine wave).A good amplifier can, of course, deliver more powerful, albeit brief, bursts of clean energy than its continuous power output rating without clipping, and good speakers can likewise handle such brief bursts.
Matching Speakers Resistance To Amp
How much more? It really depends on the speaker and the amplifier. I recently spoke with Larry Reagan, vice president of sales for Pro Audio Technology, about his company's LFC-24sm subwoofer, whose power-handling capabilities are rated as 1,000 watts (AES) / 2,000 watts continuous. When I asked him what that meant, exactly, he had this to say: 'The AES test is 1,000 watts of constant pink noise for two hours straight.
It's the Audio Engineering Society's torture-test rating. With real musical or movie content, the thing can handle up to 2,000 watts constant easily, but you could actually throw 10,000 watts at one of these things in one of those momentary bursts, and it wouldn't flinch.' Needless to say, what's true for subwoofers isn't necessarily true for all speakers, but what is undeniably true is that most everyone seems to have an opinion on exactly how much amplification you should feed a speaker given its rated power handling. And almost none of them agree. Some recommend an amp with a 10 percent higher RMS power rating than the speaker's continuous power-handling capabilities.
Other suggest 1.5 times. Others still recommend doubling or even quadrupling the speakers' RMS power-handling rating.Why such high recommendations? I think that notion comes from the mistaken belief that what blows up drivers is a lack of power, not an excess of power. It's easy to see why this canard is so commonly accepted as gospel, though. What's actually happening when an underpowered amp blows up a speaker is that the amp is being asked to deliver more voltage or current than it's physically capable of doing safely and cleanly, which sends the amp into clipping.
And when an amp clips, it subjects your speakers to a not-insignificant amount of direct current. So, technically, if you've ever fried your speakers with too small an amplifier, the murder weapon was too much DC power, not too little AC power.Perhaps that's why a number of knowledgeable speaker manufacturers have started to eschew RMS and peak power ratings in favor of a broader 'recommended amplification' rating.
Skyrim legacy of the dragonborn patches. Activate the station a second time to begin crafting.Upon exiting the crafting station your supplies will be stored again as long as auto-sorting is active.I googled 'Legacy of the Dragonborn crafting' in case you were wondering which inter-dimensional portal I pulled the information from. I actually did stumble across a small video series that deals strictly with the museum, which was was what I was after. Setting up sorting categories can be done through the ledger or alternatively through the MCM menu.Every crafting station will upon use take all crafting supplies from their containers and notify you when it has them.
GoldenEar Technology is one such company, so I called head honcho, Sandy Gross, to ask why his speakers are rated this way and how, exactly, the 'recommended amplification' rating relates to RMS and peak power handling. 'The truth is,' he told me, 'RMS and peak power specifications don't really relate to anything in terms of real-world listening material. You can blow up speakers with virtually any size amp, or you can use them safely with virtually any size amp, depending on how you drive them.' To make his point, Sandy told me that he's currently driving his pair of GoldenEar Triton Two towers (which carry a recommended amplification rating of 20 to 500 watts) with a 22-watt-per-channel tube amp from Line Magnetic. 'I had David Chesky over recently to listen to the setup, and he was blown away by how good it sounded,' he told me. 'I've even driven the Triton Two with amps as low as six watts per channel, and it did a pretty good job. You'd be surprised.'
Click on over to Page 2 to find out why Resistance Is Not Futile, Sensitive Speakers and Wrapping Up.
Hi,Previously I posted looking for speakers and amplifier recommendations for my Audio Technica AT-LP160 turntable. Now I just like to ask if the speaker and receiver that i decided to buy are compatible.Speakers: Pioneer SP-BS22 Bookshelf speakers (6 ohms / 80w / 2.83V: 85dB)Receiver: Harman Kardon HK-3390 Steareo Receiver (8 ohms / 80w x2)I have read somewhere that I should not match a speaker with lower impedance rating than the amplifier. I just like to check with people in this forum because I'm afraid that I may have the wrong understanding of matching amp and speaker ohms. In essence commsysman said that the HK3390 will have no problems driving those Pioneer speakers.
FWIW, I agree with him.For most contemporary speakers and receivers/amps there is no need to be concerned about whether a speaker is an impedance match. In addition, I'll add that speaker wattage ratings are for the most part worthless. As long as you pay attention to signs/sounds of distress and lower the volume when they are present you can safely use just about any amplifier/receiver with just about any speaker. All things considered more power is almost always better.If you're under powering the speakers the amplifier will sound strained-Turn down the volume.If you're overpowering the speakers the speakers will sound strained-Turn down the volume. In the quote below, you imply that 8 ohms is the 'the impedance rating' of the amplifier section of the receiver.This is absolutely not true. What it says is that the amplifier was tested, as the US government requires, to see how much power it will put out to an 8 ohm RESISTOR connected across its output terminals.
Matching Amplifier To Speakers Guide
This is a standard test mandated by the FTC. ALL amplifiers are tested with an 8 ohm load for power output. THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM 8 OHM AMPLIFIERS!The actual output impedance of the amplifier is probably between 0.5 ohms and 1 ohm, which is as it should be; MUCH LOWER than the impedance of the speaker it will drive. WE DO NOT WANT THE IMPEDANCES TO MATCH.The only place 'impedance matching' is desirable is between an antenna and a transmitter, at radio frequencies, so that maximum power transfers to the antenna at one specific frequency. This principle does not apply in audio.In audio we are not after maximum power transfer, but trying to maintain a fairly constant power transfer to the speaker over a wide range of frequencies. The concepts and applications are completely different.QUOTE:Speakers: Pioneer SP-BS22 Bookshelf speakers (6 ohms / 80w / 2.83V: 85dB)Receiver: Harman Kardon HK-3390 Stereo Receiver (8 ohms / 80w x2)I have read somewhere that I should not match a speaker with lower impedance rating than the amplifier. I just like to check with people in this forum because I'm afraid that I may have the wrong understanding of matching amp and speaker ohms./quote.