[andyr]

more power means to drive the speakers with less stress or effort, thus providing more sound goodness.

Ray Bronk

I would have expressed it slightly differently.  One's power requirement is driven by 2 factors:

1.  How much RMS power you need to drive the speakers to the dB level you listen at.

2.  How much headroom you believe is required, to faithfully deliver the leading edge of transients.

Re. 1: Obviously, if you have very inefficient speakers, this will be many times what, say, horns require.    So we could be talking about (RMS) 50 watts instead of 2 watts. 

Re. 2: Some people proclaim that all you need to allow for is 6dB headroom ... however, I read somewhere that to faithfully reproduce the sound of someone tearing a piece of paper takes 1,000w! 

This issue is complicated by the fact that it's the instantaneous power delivery which is the crucial factor - not the RMS rating.  Obviously, a 100w amp which is only being run at 2w (at the required listening level) because the speakers are very efficient, will have plenty of headroom ... but so will a 50w amp whose PS has been configured to deliver 500w over 1/10th of a second. 

Regards,

Andy

[guest1632]

I would have expressed it slightly differently.  One's power requirement is driven by 2 factors:

1.  How much RMS power you need to drive the speakers to the dB level you listen at.

2.  How much headroom you believe is required, to faithfully deliver the leading edge of transients.

Re. 1: Obviously, if you have very inefficient speakers, this will be many times what, say, horns require.    So we could be talking about (RMS) 50 watts instead of 2 watts. 

Re. 2: Some people proclaim that all you need to allow for is 6dB headroom ... however, I read somewhere that to faithfully reproduce the sound of someone tearing a piece of paper takes 1,000w! 

This issue is complicated by the fact that it's the instantaneous power delivery which is the crucial factor - not the RMS rating.  Obviously, a 100w amp which is only being run at 2w (at the required listening level) because the speakers are very efficient, will have plenty of headroom ... but so will a 50w amp whose PS has been configured to deliver 500w over 1/10th of a second. 

Regards,

Andy

Hi Andy,

Well, I wasn't intending to be technical. In theory, you double the power/wattage, and you only get a 3DB increase in sound. Of course, what you said also applies. Bob Carver was once to have said, "in order to reproduce a fingernail scratching a blackboard, it takes about 500 watts to correctly reproduce this sound." Now, before you hold me to that exact statement, it was an approximate quote. There's other factors, such as the bandwidth of the amplifier in question. Now, I am not an EE, and I certainly don't pretend to be, so I'll let Hugh chime in on this subject. But if we take this any further then we need to put this in another thread.

I have to say, reading this thread for the past several hours was a most delightful time. Frankly, the other circles could learn from this one thread in how to conduct themselves. This is a testament to all the participants here in this thread. i thank you. So now when I get rich, and eventually get my GK1 and Naksa, and maybe the Vsonics, I'll be able to enjoy some real goood stuff for a long long time. Thank you again.

Ray Bronk