The skinny on RMS??
Question: Since mae and a few others, don't understand the reasoning behind matching the total watts RMS between an amp and sub(s) is to prevent the unaware user from potential clipping or the importance of impedance matching, I will explain.
Yes, the RMS rating as it is, is meaningless, however, to people who don't know what clipping is or how a load affects the overall performance of an amplifier, I always suggest to match these to protect the user from causing serious damage resulting in spending more money than they already have.
It's all a learning curve, as these people get more familiar with how systems work or not, it's the beginner I'm looking out for. It's better to be safe than sorry even if it means sacrificing SQ.
If anyone who doesn't know, were to buy a relatively small amp with high watt subs and try to overcompensate getting more power to the subs by making the gain more sensative, you know and I know that this will cause clipping (bad).
Answers: I agree with you 100%. People buy equipment only to feel later that they should have spent 100 more bucks to get the definite matching product. Research is key to satisfaction and to reduce the risk of damge to the newly bought product or to the individual.
I understand your reasoning and admire the help you give. I am sure that you advice is appreciated by those without the know .
My suggestion to you is to not dictate that an asker match power. Today's subs have a greater power handling than yester-year. But that does not mean that they can reproduce all of the power that they are being fed.
Just for poops and chuckles, take a low to mid level sub that has a RMS power handling of say 1000 watts. Feed that sub with 400watts and then 1000watts. I bet with 400 watts, it starts to burp and produces about about 130dB. With 1000watts, the sub's cone is probably reaching max excursion constantly and burping like a trucker. And you may get 131dB out of it with 1000 watts, but the voice coil is still holding up due to good heat dissipation designs. Is it really worth the extra money to feed it 600 additional watts to gain 1 or 2 dB? The newbie is either going to burn-up the amp with clipping or blow up the sub with extreme excursion.That is what the unaware user doesn't realize. They are going to make mistake no matter what. The people with the deep wallets are the ones that never learn. I guess I just learned real fast. By the way, don't most newer amps have built-in clipping protection now?
Yes, the RMS rating as it is, is meaningless, however, to people who don't know what clipping is or how a load affects the overall performance of an amplifier, I always suggest to match these to protect the user from causing serious damage resulting in spending more money than they already have.
It's all a learning curve, as these people get more familiar with how systems work or not, it's the beginner I'm looking out for. It's better to be safe than sorry even if it means sacrificing SQ.
If anyone who doesn't know, were to buy a relatively small amp with high watt subs and try to overcompensate getting more power to the subs by making the gain more sensative, you know and I know that this will cause clipping (bad).
Answers: I agree with you 100%. People buy equipment only to feel later that they should have spent 100 more bucks to get the definite matching product. Research is key to satisfaction and to reduce the risk of damge to the newly bought product or to the individual.
I understand your reasoning and admire the help you give. I am sure that you advice is appreciated by those without the know .
My suggestion to you is to not dictate that an asker match power. Today's subs have a greater power handling than yester-year. But that does not mean that they can reproduce all of the power that they are being fed.
Just for poops and chuckles, take a low to mid level sub that has a RMS power handling of say 1000 watts. Feed that sub with 400watts and then 1000watts. I bet with 400 watts, it starts to burp and produces about about 130dB. With 1000watts, the sub's cone is probably reaching max excursion constantly and burping like a trucker. And you may get 131dB out of it with 1000 watts, but the voice coil is still holding up due to good heat dissipation designs. Is it really worth the extra money to feed it 600 additional watts to gain 1 or 2 dB? The newbie is either going to burn-up the amp with clipping or blow up the sub with extreme excursion.That is what the unaware user doesn't realize. They are going to make mistake no matter what. The people with the deep wallets are the ones that never learn. I guess I just learned real fast. By the way, don't most newer amps have built-in clipping protection now?
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