Made me laugh a lil.
^He's right though.

Its not like your going to loose any SQ with just 150 watts-and if SQ is all you are worried about, then 150 will be fine. Your just not going to get quite as loud as with, 350 watts say. If you plan on getting LOUD, 150 watts might be a problem. Of course if you want to get loud a 10w3 in a stealth box might be a problem too

On a side note, I see one of you is from NE. What part? And hows the weather there Snow up the wazoo in my part. Havent had power for 2 days either, been running a genorator non stop since 7:00 AM yesterday .

Extra---darnit, to many smilies. I kinda get carried away with them fellers sometimes : )

 

Hows the weather? god how bored are you? j/k. ya that gave me the giggles too 97.

Just look for a higher powered 2-channel to bridge, that will propablly be your best bet, since it seems like most mono amps around 300 watts arent 1 ohm stable.

 

Haha, dude, the weather is pretty crazy here in NE right now. 55 MPH winds, like 80 feet of snow, no power, no phones, schools have been closed all week, 100 feet snow drifts. He!!, today was the first day Ive seen any civilization for 4 or 5 days







Ok, there might not be 80 feet of snow and 100 foot drifts........but close.












Oh yeah-JBL BP300.1 - 300wrms at 1 ohm. Hehe

 

Man foo JBLs old school now. I think diamond makes one too, not sure tho. Like theres a few around.

Ya in Georgia if one road ices, its no school, lol. Then its slip n slide time for me and old truck,and an empty parking lot.

 

I'm in Omaha and we only got a couple of inches of snow, but dang that wind is cold! To think just a couple of weeks ago I was on the lake catching bass...I'm ready for Spring already
Well I found out today that my Stealthbox came in and I'm having it all installed Tuesday morning. So I'll be sure to let you know how my little 150watt RF amp pushes it. I'm not looking to wake up the neighbors w/the vibrations from my truck so I think I'll be happy.

 

Learn about the 3db law and some general acoustic principles.

Doubling power will only result in a 3db increase in loudness. Which is hardly noticable.

Remember that we hear in sound as air pressure. 2 speakers will create 2wice the sound pressure level where it will take a 10x power change to double loudness in a single speaker.

Why do you think SPL meets have TONS of speakers and not just 1 super speaker with a HUGE amp.

It is absolutely true.

Any acoustical engineers want to help me out here?

 

So even if I pushed 300watts to my sub instead of 150watts, I probably wouldn't be able to notice it...thats an interesting fact to know.

 

That is correct.

Since sound pressure level is linear, a 100 watt amp will be twice as loud as a 10 watt amp (all other factors the same) given the same speaker. Not 10 times as loud as many would think.

You have to remember that 150 watts is still alot. My guess is that you will be happy with it.

a 150 watt amp at 50% volume driving a jl audio 12w6 will be half as loud as a 1500 watt amp driving the same speaker at 50% volume.

A 300 watt amp may be more suitable for high volume applications beause you have less harmonic distortion when driven harder.

Some amp companies get away with saying 1000 watts because they get 1000 watts at 25% THD. Which is horribly bad.

You also must remember that acheiving the desired SPL in a car or truck is much easier because its a small closed box that gets pressurized easily. Why do you think its so hard to get good bass in a Jeep that has the top down .

 

Not trying to get on your case or anything, but that is incorrect.

Doubling your watts to a single speaker will pretty much always make it louder. I say almost always because very very few times, you might not notice MUCH of a difference.

You present some interesting info, but not all of it relates to the "double power=louder" idea. If watts didnt make a difference of how loud something got, and only the number of speakers did, why are there 1000+ wrms subs out their? And if that is true, why arent people with 1000 watt subs buying huge amps to power them, and not saving money any buying a 200-300 watt amp?


If you want to get into teh SPL meet thing, why do you think they burp their subs about double their RMS rating, or more. Its not just to say "hey look how many watts I have" Its becasue it makes a hella difference.

If I didnt know from experience I probably wouldnt be pulling your chain so bad, but I had 600 watts between 2 12 inch Eclipse subs. I pulled them out long ago, but awhile back, I stuck ONE in the SAME box, and ran 600 watts to it. That sum beach would knock your sock off. Easily JUST as loud at the two, if not louder.

And about the w6 off a 150 watt amp at 50%, vs a 1500 watt amp at 50%-total BS. Go try it. Tell me the results.

Want to learn something else? Guess what the average gain is by adding another driver............3 db. Pretty much the exact same as doubling the watts. And yes, 3 db is noticable. You sure the hell notice it when you add a second speaker, dont you?

 

Bartak is correct. Yes doubling the power to a single sub will provide a 3db increase. But, adding another woofer to the same power will only provide the same 3 db increase. You gain 3 db for any doubling basically. You have to double power and subs to get a 6 decibel increase.

 

Ok, lets draw this out just to see. We will use theoretic subs with a sensitivity rating of 90 and single 4 ohm coils, which the coils mean nothing in this case. Remember, the 2 subs will only get 75 watts each.




1 sub 90 db sensitivity
1 watt 90 db
2 watts 93 db
4 watts 96 db
8 watts 99 db
16 watts 102 db
32 watts 105 db
64 watts 108 db
128 watts 111 db
256 watts 114 db
500 watts 116.5 db (estimate)


2 subs with 90 db sensitivity
add 6 db for two subs 96
1 watt 96 db
2 watts 99 db
4 watts 102 db
8 watts 105 db
16 watts 108 db
32 watts 111 db
64 watts 114 db
75 watts 115 db (maybe)


Sorry but, you will not get twice as loud with 2 subs and a 150 watt amp as a single sub with 500 watts. You said learn db well here they are.

 

Hey rutherk1...Can you send me an email about the 500/1? I am interested.

 

I think the other thing you have to remember here in the db debate is that decibles are measured in.... bah, the word escapes me now. Anywhoo, a 3db increase is actually a BIG increase in some cases. When you're dealing with high power high performance subs it can be quite noticable indeed.

http://www.zyra.org.uk/db.htm

Then if we look at the dynamics of the subs themselves. Some subs work ok with low wattage but perform MUCH better with a high amount of power in some cases. It can be almost as important as the quality of power (distortion). So, doubling power can cause a huge increase in overall volume. There is no guaruntee however. Combine that with amp quality also.

Back to the original topic. If the 150watt amp sounds like crap a GOOD 250+ watt amp should rectify that situation. I'm thinking it'll sound ok, but not near the potential of what the sub can really do. IMHO

 

To add confusion to my last statement.....

http://www.classictruckshop.com/club...eo/systems.htm

A good read for general terms and stuff.

It deosn't really answer the db debate, but it does reference amplified wattage and it's effects.

I think what has to be kept in mind is that subwoofers, amplifiers and the combination thereof is an extremely complex animal based on many variables. Anyway, I didn't want to be seen as discounting anyone's knowledge of audio components. I'm not a know all either.

 

Is this thread still going on?

This is from one of my Acoustical Engineering books.

1db is a number, when x multiplied by itself 10 times = 10

1db (1.261) 1.26
3db (1.263) 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 = 2
6db (1.266) 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 = 4
10db (1.2610) 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 x 1.26 = 10

Example.

26db is (1.2626) 1.26 x by itself 26 times = 400

26db is (20db is 100) and (6db is 4) 100 x 4 = 400

Understanding db for sound
Our ears expand when it is quiet to hear detail and contract when it is loud.

1db = x 1.26 power change we only hear as smallest loudness difference.
3db = x 2 power change we only hear as a bit louder.
10db = x 10 power change we only hear as double as loud.

Audibly
Difference between 100 - 200 watt sound system, is minimal (3db)
Difference between 100 - 1,000 watt sound system, is twice as loud (10db)

Im not trying to argue... Im just spitting out what I have learned.