rcd@opus.UUCP (03/24/84)
<>
The matter of the AR-11's has digressed quite a bit. I'll buy the idea
that the original poster had a genuine problem with the tweeters - fine.
Now we've gotten into a different matter - that of having the right
correspondence between amp power and speaker capability. Everyone is
absolutely right - DON'T use an underpowered amp; it will clip and fry
tweeters. BUT there's another problem - it IS possible to use too large an
amp and actually overdrive speakers with enough clean signal that you
actually burn them out. It takes a whole bunch of power to do this, but it
can be done.
I was looking at an ad for a reasonably well-known speaker in a recent
issue of an audio magazine. The ad made a point of the fact that this
speaker has a "power handling capacity" of 400 watts! <<FLAME ON>> This
is first-order BS, and it's one of the stupidest things speaker
manufacturers have ever done to us. You don't care how much power the
speaker can handle, you care about being able to give it enough power to
make the sound as loud as you want it. The goal is accurate sound
reproduction, not space-heating. The lower the efficiency of the speaker,
the more power it must handle in order to be able to reach the same sound
level. No responsible speaker manufacturer should publish power handling
capacity without a corresponding efficiency rating. <<FLAME mostly OFF>>
It would be most useful to combine the two - give the maximum SPL (in
appropriate units under appropriate conditions) that the speaker can
produce and the power input to the speaker required to produce it.
For those who doubt the argument against "power handling capacity", I
submit the following non-proprietary, non-patented Magic Power Capacity
Enhancer (8 ohm design). (Sorry about the graphics):
o-------------/\/\/\/-------+---/\/\/\/---+
R1 | R2 |
o |
From amp To speaker |
o |
| |
o---------------------------+-------------+
To double power capacity, R1=4 ohms, R2=8 ohms.
To triple power capacity, R1=5.3 ohms, R2=4 ohms.
Both resistors should be rated for a s***load of watts.
Not only will this simple network increase the power handling capacity of
your speakers, it will actually improve the loading characteristics of the
amplifier! The effects of varying speaker impedance as a function of
frequency are reduced, at the amplifier output terminals, by approximately
the same factor as the increase in "power handling capacity."
--
{hao,ucbvax,allegra}!nbires!rcd