Author Topic: would this kind of power be overkill? (Read 2000 times)

craziechild · « **on:** December 15, 2009, 02:24:45 AM »

hi all,

there is a question of giving out headroom in my head...
situation is like this, my component set is around 70wrms running on 2nd order custom passives... would feeding them 300wrms x 2 be a good idea?

would like inputs on:
1. would giving that huge amount of headroom be a good idea?
2. would it socically change the speaker responces?
3. would it gives me more dynamic music?
4. 300wrms vs 70wrms 2ch amps, which one would perform better, considering both amps are giving real clean power...
5. some discussion says that giving headroom is good... but how much is enough? or how to determine whether its enough or it needs more power?

or basically any pros and cons are welcomed...

enlighten me sifu and sikung...

thanks, cheers!

mnkh27 · « **Reply #1 on:** December 15, 2009, 11:02:17 AM »

seriously depends on the quality of the amp you are using. if you actually play the music loud, especially difficult to play materials, and measure the output programme, you'll noticed that you are only using between 3wrms-30wrms at most even at insane volumes.

most importantly, you need to maximize the amplifier's capability rather than add an extra load to your charging system and not utlizing it. having said that, more power is actually better but look out for bottlenecks in your system first.

Zenn · « **Reply #2 on:** December 15, 2009, 03:26:32 PM »

perhaps better to disclose what amp is it just to make sure theyre in the same league or not.

usually i overpower all my speakers, around 50% more than the rated rms of the speaker

since youre running passives, the extra power will help, since some passives do eat up a bit of power, but in my mind 300 is a bit too much la, 200W will be nice, at least 150W is good.

i dont know what u mean by socially change the speaker response, but as far as dynamics, have to see what amp it is first

craziechild · « **Reply #3 on:** December 15, 2009, 04:38:52 PM »

sorry typo.... its sonically

amp is a PPI 2300AM old school amp... the art series that is selling in mycarhifi... reason i am very fond with this amp is because i am a old school PPI collector and also user...

now powering the front with PPI PC2150 which is 2x150w rms... its nice for me now... but as i like dynamic music so i am thinking if adding more power would be nice or not... i mean based on experience, real experience in my car would only be known when its up and running...

so mike, you are suggesting that i check on my charging/power supply system before thinking of upgrading my amps? i run on a rebuild 150A alternator and also a NS60 battery... NS70 is nice but its too big for my engine bay...

cheers...

ero · « **Reply #4 on:** December 15, 2009, 06:26:16 PM »

NS70L can fit in Proton Wira`s engine bay perfectly. Perhaps u`d changed your car engine? Or other major modification?

craziechild · « **Reply #5 on:** December 16, 2009, 01:54:35 AM »

will try that... just scare it hits my bonet cover... then dented... haha...

ero · « **Reply #6 on:** December 16, 2009, 09:53:27 AM »

no need to scare, u can ask the installer 1st... mostly ppl driving Wira (i know OEM engine la) can perfectly fit NS70L for SURE!

ckmoy007 · « **Reply #7 on:** December 17, 2009, 09:11:22 AM »

having headroom is alwez gud. but i heard dat too much headroom might not be gud as well, dunno how true is it. my personal preference is 30-50% extra power for midbass and sub. can't afford more, haha.

craziechild · « **Reply #8 on:** December 18, 2009, 11:32:26 AM »

ck...

what are the pros and cons we are talking about here?

ckmoy007 · « **Reply #9 on:** December 18, 2009, 05:37:30 PM »

i have no personal exp in this, but i will translate wat i've read. take phoenix gold MS2125 and 2250 for example. powering a 100w mid and tuned by the same ears. MS2125 sounded better in a AB test, it has more controlled mid bass, punchy, and better midrange response. MS2250 gives too much rumbling, still has punch but unnatural and midrange not as gud as the MS2125. making the mid to sound more like sub, maybe this is oso up to personal preference la.

craziechild · « **Reply #10 on:** December 18, 2009, 10:31:09 PM »

hmm... good point... didnt thought of the rumbling problem up to date... and my door panel are pretty "loose" to start with...

thanks for reminding...

mnkh27 · « **Reply #11 on:** December 19, 2009, 01:00:28 AM »

come to think of it, there is no such things as "too much headroom". with power comes responsibility. that merely means you must know how to use the headroom and most importantly, not overdrive the amplifier to clipping. as simple as that. remember too that any midrange/woofer needs a highpass and that the drivers are not meant to play sub frequencies, especially with a freeair configuration.

craziechild · « **Reply #12 on:** December 19, 2009, 03:04:29 AM »

mike...

so with what you are saying, its safe for me to say that giving more clean power is good, not enough power is always bad...

i guess with the tons of headroom i am giving, i would hardly need to turn on the gain knob... it would probably be set to the very min... so i guess amp clipping doesnt happen in my "planned" setup... unless i missed something here... again...

cheers...

mnkh27 · « **Reply #13 on:** December 19, 2009, 12:51:56 PM »

Quote from: craziechild on December 19, 2009, 03:04:29 AM

mike...

so with what you are saying, its safe for me to say that giving more clean power is good, not enough power is always bad...

i guess with the tons of headroom i am giving, i would hardly need to turn on the gain knob... it would probably be set to the very min... so i guess amp clipping doesnt happen in my "planned" setup... unless i missed something here... again...

cheers...

yes giving more clean power is good and power supply to the amps is equally important as not to "choke" or "suffocate" the amps. not enough power is not necessarily bad per se but you will be limited to how loud and how complex the type of music you can play.

headroom has little to do with setting the gain knob levels low but nevertheless, headroom of an amp is gain knob dependent. confusing huh? best levels for a good quality amp is still around 9-11 o-clock depending on the pre-outs fed to it.

craziechild · « **Reply #14 on:** December 19, 2009, 06:44:55 PM »

would you say a hard rock music is complex music?

iamkroll · « **Reply #15 on:** December 19, 2009, 08:19:28 PM »

oh yeah, ive asked the same question to craziechild before. won't giving too much power/headroom to a component make it freak out? it cant possibly take all that power and still be stable, can it?

craziechild · « **Reply #16 on:** December 19, 2009, 11:16:56 PM »

i think the answer is it could... but you just have to make sure it does through tuning...

correct ah mike?

mnkh27 · « **Reply #17 on:** December 20, 2009, 01:38:41 AM »

i mentioned earlier on that the programme material only takes 3watts - 10watts to peaking at most 30watts of the amps output, so i do not really understand what "Freak out" means. ehehehe!

alamak... perhaps you guys should google it first to understand the basics before discussing further -

for example, this article is useful and layman enough to understand:
http://www.audiojunkies.com/blog/1306/overpowering-underpowering-distortion-clipping-and-everything-in-between

basically, you can overpower the speakers all you want but do not "mechanically" over-drive it.

it is not that easy to fry a speaker driver unless you're talking abt 100-1000x more than rated specs or if the electronics is giving out clipping signals that fry/overheats the voicecoil.

crazychild: difficult/demanding tracks are those with many instruments playing + vocals? at the same time at different dynamic peaks. can your system resolve all of it and remain poised and controlled?

mnkh27 · « **Reply #18 on:** December 20, 2009, 02:01:06 AM »

ok just before i turn off my lights to zzzz, i thought of this analogy... had to post it before i forget, since it's funny...

if you had a mustang with 500bhp and you drive it normally, you will not likely kill the chicken crossing the road BUT if you drive it without care and floor it, most likely the chicken will not have a chance.

correct?

if you however, have a boeing 747 with a 125,000 horsepower engine and drive it on the road, you will probably not even know you killed the chicken since it's so darn hard to see.

you will just see a splat on the road (i.e. burnt/toasted speaker with burning smell/hangus) beyond any possibility of life saving or repair. geddit?

always remember that when you look at your speaker drivers, besides the rated power handing, there are other specs to see such as sensitivity, peak power handling (i.e. 1000w on a dynaudio/morel) and mechanical xmax etc.

mnkh27 · « **Reply #19 on:** December 20, 2009, 02:08:01 AM »

alamak, turn off my lights again then i thought of this:

i was at a scott buwalda seminar some years ago and i remembered scott was running his pair of midrange alone (3-way active) with 300w x 2 and we are talking about not via a passive. so, go figure... time to sleep.

nite nite!

iamkroll · « **Reply #20 on:** December 20, 2009, 02:08:36 PM »

Took this from the article, but written by someone in the comment box.

"You can overpower a speaker all you want, just dont over drive it. Assumidly say you have a 100 watt rated speaker (assume it bottoms out at 100 watts real input) and you hook it into a 200 watt amp. no one is making you turn the 200 watt amp up all the way, just keep it under control and know the limits of the system, and know what it sounds like when the speaker bottoms out, or the tweeter freaks out (yes thats a technical term)."

lol apparently "freak out" is a technical term hehe.

but im still a little confused. what does power do anyway? to amplify signal? coz im thinking of it this way, even if u amplify signal, volume can be kept low. so the benefit of having more power (amplified signal) is that you hear more detail?

do you guys play electric guitar? can we use the electric guitar as an analogy? if u notice there is a gain knob on the guitar. turn it down, it will sound 'muffled' = not detailed. turn it up, u get the full spectrum. in essence does that mean that the gain knob is the 'power/wattage' knob?

craziechild · « **Reply #21 on:** December 20, 2009, 04:22:48 PM »

i thhink the guitar amp gain thingy is what we termed gain matching...

power in my layman definition: energy needed to move the speaker via the speaker voice coil.

yes having more power, you could have the volume kept low, but the speaker voice coil remained "controlled"... the higher the power, the more energy is used to control the speaker voice coil. hence more musical details...

just my 2 cents... flamming welcomed..

cheers...

rbl84 · « **Reply #22 on:** December 20, 2009, 06:29:54 PM »

I always believe having more "quality" power is better than "quantity" power, and also by having more power your speaker driver is more controlled hence produces quality sound :D n not to leave out a clean power supply to the amp is equally important as amp providing power to speaker :D

jst my sharing peeps:D dun tembak me ya

izso · « **Reply #23 on:** December 22, 2009, 10:11:11 AM »

Wow.

You guys too high tech for noobies like me liao. I just put in amps because it sounded better than the previous amp.

Last time testing one A/D/S/ vs the Helix A2 in Mike's office on his Scans, the A2 was obviously the higher powered amp. Gain turned up a tiny little bit and listening to my preference of music - dance / techno and the A2 had pretty obvious sound differences.

So I bought the A2 instead of the A/D/S/. Just to power my Dyn MD100 tweeters. PHD2200 for the mids.

To the dude asking about the power, chill la. Try it, like it, buy it, use it. Don't care power overkill or not la. Like what Mike said - as long as you're not clipping it.

craziechild · « **Reply #24 on:** December 22, 2009, 11:09:46 AM »

hehe.... problem is... the amp is a sea away from my ride... and not available off the shelves...

hahahahaha....