Confused about power ratings....

[Daniel.B]

Im a little confused about the power rating of my speakers. I brought a pair of Kicker LS series, 6x9's. It say's rated input power is 100watt RMS, so does this mean 100watt RMS per speaker, or is that the rating of both speakers together as a pair? To get the most out of these speakers, how much power should i give them. ??

[eurekamad94]

that is each speaker

[holdenboy]

Mate if their installed and tuned properly i would imagine anything from 100-150wrms EACH will be ideal.

[commsirac]

Im a little confused about the power rating of my speakers. I brought a pair of Kicker LS series, 6x9's. It say's rated input power is 100watt RMS, so does this mean 100watt RMS per speaker, or is that the rating of both speakers together as a pair? To get the most out of these speakers, how much power should i give them. ??

Will depend on how efficient they are and what sound level you demand. The rating given will just be a guestimate on how much power they will take without being damaged, that is all.

[trentvy]

Will depend on how efficient they are and what sound level you demand. The rating given will just be a guestimate on how much power they will take without being damaged, that is all.

I think your talking about peak power. He said 100watts RMS. RMS is 0.707 times the peak value. In a nutshell its the constant power being delivered to the speaker. Have a look at a sinewave!

[Daniel.B]

yeah that was RMS not peak, im still curious cause there was another thread about a set of alpine typr-r's, rated at 70 watt rms, but coming alive with sound when given 150-200 watt rms, i just want them to work at their full potentioal i guess. Seeing as i forked out over $200 for them, i want them to sound thier best...

[commsirac]

I think your talking about peak power. He said 100watts RMS. RMS is 0.707 times the peak value. In a nutshell its the constant power being delivered to the speaker. Have a look at a sinewave!

Why would I be talking about peak power and how does it affect the advice Ive given? I haven't even quoted any numbers that could be to be out by a factor of 0.7071 etc.

All we have to go on is 100 wrms rating. In the absence of any other info, my best guestimate is that is referring to the constant load that the speaker can handle without being damaged. Is that okay?

It could mean how much power is needed to give just a reasonable volume, it could mean the rms value that the speaker can tolerate for a short period of time etc....we dont know, because they are no standards in the world of car stereos.

BTW, you are wrong with your little lesson above, though it may be correct in your own little "nutshell".....please keep it there. You have mistakingly confused continuous ratings with rms.
Possibly this comes from issues with understanding peak to peak voltage and the actual power that the system was able to "peak" for, commonly given the acronymn "pmpo"
Unless the words continuous are written after the rms then we could be talking about an rms value that is only achievable for a couple of milliseconds. Which could be then interpreted as the peak rms rating, which in "proper" testing is actually what they do report on.

[commsirac]

yeah that was RMS not peak, im still curious cause there was another thread about a set of alpine typr-r's, rated at 70 watt rms, but coming alive with sound when given 150-200 watt rms, i just want them to work at their full potentioal i guess. Seeing as i forked out over $200 for them, i want them to sound thier best...

I wouldnt mind betting that they were not subjected to 150-200 watts of power, but they may have sounded better with the particular amp used. My key thought would be that it was all in the mind of the person making the post.

[holdenboy]

I hate to say it commsirac as i do generally agree with most of your posts, but in the situation i described the Type R splits were originally powered of a Alpine 2 x 60wrms amplifier, i then installed the same brand amplifier, same series etc but just with 200wrms. I agree with when you say the speakers wont be receiving 200wrms, infact i know they werent getting near that much. But it never hurts to have more power than what your speakers are rated at, just like driving a V8 with 300 odd kw, youre very rarely going to use that amount of power, but its just nice to have it there as "headroom".

[commsirac]

I hate to say it commsirac as i do generally agree with most of your posts, but in the situation i described the Type R splits were originally powered of a Alpine 2 x 60wrms amplifier, i then installed the same brand amplifier, same series etc but just with 200wrms. I agree with when you say the speakers wont be receiving 200wrms, infact i know they werent getting near that much. But it never hurts to have more power than what your speakers are rated at, just like driving a V8 with 300 odd kw, youre very rarely going to use that amount of power, but its just nice to have it there as "headroom".

Fair enough, lets agree that changing your amp had an affect on the sound, and having more amp power than you are going to use cant hurt. Perhaps in the car stereo world where amps where ratings are a bit loose, its not bad policy. However, it would be "unsound" to suggest that these speakers you have only work properly if wired up to amps with 200wrms just because yours sounded better with that. One can also see the misconceptions/misbeliefs it creates, such as in this thread.

[holdenboy]

Yeah i do agree with you on those points, however i am a huge fan of "overpowering" speakers though.

Ive installed about 8 sets of Type Rs in the last 12-18 months, all were given 100-200wrms of power, and in my opinion the more power they are given, the better. Although as ive said before theres plenty of other factors that contribute to how a speaker sounds / performs.......power given is just one.

I would (and do) suggest to most people who ask for my opinion to overpower speakers, maybe not triple what their rated at, but 20-50% more wont hurt. Its much easier to cause an amp to distort (clip) when powering speakers that are rated the same or less wrms.

Yes i can see the misconceptions too, i think one of the problems we have here and on many other forums is people giving advice on things they know little about.

[StoneX]

I'm going overboard... 600Wrms per side for fronts, talk about overkill But my current amp rated at 200Wrms per side is overheating from being run so hard, so more power is required

[holdenboy]

Yes, yet another reason to "overpower" speakers/subwoofers...the amp dosent work as hard

[Post Vintage]

That's the only reason, holdenboy. It's good to see one person in this thread hit it on the head!

And anything but an rms rating is absolutely useless..... are the "5000w peak power amps on ebay - 0.7% = rms rating? No. Disregard ANY 'peak' or pmpo or max rating. Your max rating is just before your speaker starts frying.