How much power and SPL's do people actually need in their homes?

[Godataloss]

37 watts on 82db speakers would not be enough for me. If you are listening to anything with deep bass or are applying eq to lower bass frequencies, conversational volume levels will have you clipping that amp.

 

[CapMan]

Now think about the peak power needed for percussion instruments.

I'm a classically trained percussionist and timpanist - it's not about power, its about pulling a good sound out of the instrument / drum head - which is entirely about good technique.

Getting a beautiful sound and enough volume should not be hard work or look like hard work if done properly!

Good example of this - back in the early 1900s a drum teacher called Stanford Moeller observed how drummers in the American Civil War were able to play loudly and for long periods without fatigue - he taught the system to Jim Chapin who became a famous educator in this technique . He shared it with lots of modern drummers like Dave Weckl (Chick Corea, Simon and Garfunkel and Steve Smith (Journey ) . Its all about bio mechanics not raw power.

A clip of Jim Chapin if anybody is interested.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I'm a classically trained percussionist and timpanist - it's not about power, its about pulling a good sound out of the instrument / drum head - which is entirely about good technique.

Getting a beautiful sound and enough volume should not be hard work or look like hard work if done properly!

Good example of this - back in the early 1900s a drum teacher called Stanford Moeller observed how drummers in the American Civil War were able to play loudly and for long periods without fatigue - he taught the system to Jim Chapin who became a famous educator in this technique . He shared it with lots of modern drummers like Dave Weckl (Chick Corea, Simon and Garfunkel and Steve Smith (Journey ) . Its all about bio mechanics not raw power.

A clip of Jim Chapin if anybody is interested.

By "power" i mean in the electrical terms. -Watt. Not how hard you whack your stick or whatever..

 

[CapMan]

By "power" i mean in the electrical terms. -Watt. Not how hard you whack your stick or whatever..

Sorry for the digression

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Sorry for the digression

No worries. It's fun getting input from different perspectives.

 

[Audioagnostic]

Wouldnt this also depend on the type of music you listen to? Compressed pop music is always loud so you may play this at lower levels than say a Bruckner Symphony that has a way higher dynamic range.

 

[Mark S.]

37 watts on 82db speakers would not be enough for me. If you are listening to anything with deep bass or are applying eq to lower bass frequencies, conversational volume levels will have you clipping that amp.

Not my experience at all, I have some reference recordings I use to check bass response and handling (also use -0.5dB peak-normalised bass test tones), including one with Anthony Jackson's contrabass (open fundamental of 30.7Hz on the bottom string), Daft Punk's RAM. The RA1's are rear-ported and although their response (according to the maker) starts rolling off at 80Hz, positioned about 7" from the wall and with my head about a foot from the opposite one I get quite audible bass right down to well below 40Hz (using EQ to boost sub-100 Hz but with a steep roll-off below 32Hz). The levels achievable even with extremely bass-heavy material are certainly a LOT louder than "conversational". ETA >> I suspect the RA1's are an easy load in that they don't present huge impedance troughs and peaks in the bass.

 

[Ron Texas]

A fair amount of the numeric answer depends on personal preference.

 

[jooc]

Not my experience at all, I have some reference recordings I use to check bass response and handling (also use -0.5dB peak-normalised bass test tones), including one with Anthony Jackson's contrabass (open fundamental of 30.7Hz on the bottom string), Daft Punk's RAM. The RA1's are rear-ported and although their response (according to the maker) starts rolling off at 80Hz, positioned about 7" from the wall and with my head about a foot from the opposite one I get quite audible bass right down to well below 40Hz (using EQ to boost sub-100 Hz but with a steep roll-off below 32Hz). The levels achievable even with extremely bass-heavy material are certainly a LOT louder than "conversational". ETA >> I suspect the RA1's are an easy load in that they don't present huge impedance troughs and peaks in the bass.

It would likely be more than loud enough with 82db speakers for most listening, but it's close when considering peaks:

 

[jooc]

A fair amount of the numeric answer depends on personal preference.

Agreed, after reading this forum I've come to the conclusion that I must listen to music much more quietly than most here . I think I'd get divorced if I listened at 85db spl all the time. I'm probably usually around 65-75, with peaks around 85-90.

 

[Mr. Widget]

A lot of the time an average of 1 to 5W is all anyone needs for loud sounds from normal speakers.

Typical speakers these days have a sensitivity of 87dB, so with 5 watts a pair in a typical room would put out about 92-93dB which is on the loud side, not lease breaking, but what many might consider loud. Personally I wouldn't be satisfied with an SPL ceiling of <93dB, but many would probably be fine with it.

Still if you want to give your speakers 5 watts of power, you should have at least a 50 watt amp to avoid clipping and be careful to never really "crank it up".

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Typical speakers these days have a sensitivity of 87dB, so with 5 watts a pair in a typical room would put out about 92-93dB which is on the loud side, not lease breaking, but what many might consider loud. Personally I wouldn't be satisfied with an SPL ceiling of <93dB, but many would probably be fine with it.

Still if you want to give your speakers 5 watts of power, you should have at least a 50 watt amp to avoid clipping and be careful to never really "crank it up".

93 dBA avg. is pretty loud I'd say!

 

[Mr. Widget]

93 dBA avg. is pretty loud I'd say!

I wouldn't listen to 93dBA all day long... but typically during one of my listening sessions, I listen at SPLs below 90dB for the majority of the time with high SPL interludes when the mood strikes.

Also your specifying dBA is interesting. Depending on what you listen to, dBA can be significantly louder than dBC or unfiltered dBZ. Most music I listen to has substantial LF content which can easily add 10dB or more to a dBC reading over dBA.

 

[RayDunzl]

If you "turn it up" the power requirements escalate quickly.

Crude example:

I have (claimed) 700 watts at 4 ohms available.

Gives me a little headroom for those Beer Saturday sessions.

85dB average yields 105dB peaks, tolerable for a few tunes when the mood is right.

More or less.

 

[kemmler3D]

what proportion of people have homes in which they can play audio at average SPL's of 93dB whenever they want

Well, everybody... if they don't care about making enemies or having the cops show up from time to time.

Lots of good points in this thread so far. I think it boils down to you mostly only need 1-5w average, but peaks can easily demand 100x that if your music has a lot of dynamic range.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I wouldn't listen to 93dBA all day long... but typically during one of my listening sessions, I listen at SPLs below 90dB for the majority of the time with high SPL interludes when the mood strikes.

Also your specifying dBA is interesting. Depending on what you listen to, dBA can be significantly louder than dBC or unfiltered dBZ. Most music I listen to has substantial LF content which can easily add 10dB or more to a dBC reading over dBA.

I specified dBA cause that's usually what you use and thought it of no particular value if it wasn't specified. dBC or dBZ both tell a lot more of what is needed when we discuss speakers or amplifiers and power. LF can easily push 10 or 20 dB above dBA when I measure. And then dBA doesn't reveal very much of the grunt needed to reach up in SPL.

 

[kemmler3D]

93 dBA avg. is pretty loud I'd say!

I totally agree. I used to test various Bluetooth speakers with a cheap-y SPL meter just for comparison's sake. With a pink noise signal, very few of them can even reach 95dB and most of those are the huge wheeled-suitcase style portables. 93dB is the absolute, clipped-to-hell maximum of many, probably most portable speakers. And to me anything sustained over 90dB feels like I need hearing protection...

 

[Deleted member 48726]

I totally agree. I used to test various Bluetooth speakers with a cheap-y SPL meter just for comparison's sake. With a pink noise signal, very few of them can even reach 95dB and most of those are the huge wheeled-suitcase style portables. 93dB is the absolute, clipped-to-hell maximum of many, probably most portable speakers. And to me anything sustained over 90dB feels like I need hearing protection...

And you should be wearing protection at that level. At least if we talk about dBA. My high SPL listening sessions are about 85 dbA with LCpeaks reaching as high as 107. At 3 m. distance from the speakers. I don't do this often and certainly not for a long time.

 

[kemmler3D]

And you should be wearing protection at that level. At least if we talk about dBA. My high SPL listening sessions are about 85 dbA with LCpeaks reaching as high as 107. At 3 m. distance from the speakers. I don't do this often and certainly not for a long time.

Haha, good point... not only do I feel like I need hearing protection, but every organization with an opinion on hearing protection says so. It's always worth pointing out that listening above ~85dB for sustained periods damages your hearing.

 

[Deleted member 48726]

Haha, good point... not only do I feel like I need hearing protection, but every organization with an opinion on hearing protection says so. It's always worth pointing out that listening above ~85dB for sustained periods damages your hearing.

I realised I had to measure it at some point when I got larger speakers and sufficient amplifier power. I can't actually tell when it's too loud with this setup as I could with my smaller speakers. So now I have measured max SPL at different attenuator settings with max. input voltage. -To protect my ears..