On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 20:56:50 -0700, "Mike Rehmus"
<mike@no-spam-byvideo.com> wrote:
>The suggested 1 watt won't do much to create sound. Acoustic Suspension
>speakers required a lot of power to create their
sound. I'd guess you won't
>be happy with less than 60-100 watts or so.
>
>I use 60 watts on a set of bass-reflex near-field
monitors and it is more
>than adequate.
But Acoustic Suspension speakers are about 10% efficient
>IIRC.
Actually, 1 watt goes much further than most believe,
assuming it is provided by a stable power amp...;-)
My TV of 10 years ago, with 1 watt/channel, drives
a "2 cubic foot" old pair of Genesis 2-way
acoustic-suspension speaker nicely, to satisfying
levels with DVD movies, with plenty of clean bass
(some top and bottom end EQ applied...), with no
signs of clipping. Most people (EXCLUDING teen-age
boys!) listen to music at levels going up to
satisfying, realistic acoustic-music levels without
ever approaching 1 watt power use (regardless of
what the meters say on the amps), even with inefficient
speakers. 1 watt will easily produce about 85db levels
in most rooms, with most speakers - and for most
people, this is loud. "Earbashing" power
requirements
are different, though, and can easily require peak
power in the hundreds of watts, even with efficient
speakers - but this is different from the requirements
for near-field monitoring of video tracks, where
1 watt/channel is generally quite sufficient. If
you do not believe me, try listening at a good
"average" monitoring level in your current
monitoring set-up, and measure the voltage across
the speaker terminals on peaks. You may be
surprised how little power is being used...;-)
>These and other Acoustic Suspension speakers from that
era have pretty bad
>response curves for monitoring and mixing sound. Stereo speakers and
>near-field monitors are different animals with different
designs. Still,
>the Acoustic Suspension will be better than most
computer speakers.
I agree with this (as I said earlier...;-).