sorry Dave i don't agree
lets say we have a 50w amp and 100w speakers running the amp hard its going to clip and send square waves to the speakers
square waves = speaker death Ah, but you are falling into the age old trap - you will NOT be running the amp flat out at 50W and you will NOT be running the speakers flat out at 100W. Whilst I agree about clipping and square waves completely, you are believing that the figures are going to be achieved.
This is a real bugbear of my industry. Figures quoted for amplifiers are generally more realistic, so if your unit says 50W RMS then realistically you are goint to get no more than about 35W of decent sound from it (thats still incredibly loud and will rattle the car) but over that it will clip and distort and send some nasty signals to the seakers long before it goes bang at 50W.
Now lets look at the speakers. Again, Assuming that they are 100W RMS (forget the max power ratings - To actually achieve that would burn the speaker out within seconds. So as we are virtually always running the speaker in an environment that it was not intended for (Checked the volumetric litreage of the door have we?) its safe to assume that the speaker may burn out long before this.
As the amplifier is generally going to be cranked up beyond the levels it should (most will set the gain and levels incorrectly believing its a volume control) the chances of sending the square waves to the speakers has now increased. By going for a higher rated speaker, you have now introduced a "buffer" where the speaker can actually take the abuse of these square waves, not to say its not going to sound awful, but its not going to instantly destroy the speaker.
my advice would be to buy a efficient speaker and a good quality amp that puts out clean power and not some mitsuspratzan no name brand amp
Agree entirely, but you are fogetting something here. If you are knowledgeable enough to understand power ratings etc, the gap between speaker and amp power ratings can be reduced, and if going for a ultra high quality system, with very expensive item, you could even achieve a near like for like ratio, but if you are answering a wider general question to somebody that does not know and understand, and will probably mix and match brands, then it is far safer to introduce a tolerance level. As far as efficiency ratings - we can`t get people to understand power ratings yet - most will know the wattage of their equipment, but I bet less than a handfull could quote the efficiency figures! - one step at a time.
I have always found the alpine v12 range to be great at the price
Agreed, I like Alpine, Seldom seen in our repair centre because it just doesn`t go wrong, but then good equipment always commands a higher price. You get what you pay for, and if someone sees a flashy amp with 1 million watt power rating on it for 50p and an Alpine amp with 200W for £300 you know which one is going to outsell the other. Most people will have wasted their money on several nasty amps before appreciating that they should have spent more on a good one in the first place.
Sticking to good quality and well known brands is important, sticking with the same brands can generally give better results (as the equipment was designed to work with each other) and above all else, make sure it is set up and calibrated correctly.
Gain controls need to be set properly.
As I said on my original post, everyone is going to have a different opinion, which is good, and this is what we have come to believe after 17 years of retailing amps and speakers.
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Topic: new speakers (Read 2796 times)