Speaker matching power education/recommendations for a novice

[SaulOteng1467]

My issue is that I bought a budget range av receiver Pioneer VSX 534 and now I need a speaker.

I'm looking for a pair of budget tower speakers but confused on what I should be aiming for power wise. I've just recently got into hifi and before posting here I did go to Google but got lost in techno jargon lol.


If anyone can educate me and/or suggest a suitable speaker from the best buy search filter that I made below I would really appreciate this.

Specification | VSX-534 | AV Receivers | Products | Pioneer Home Audio Visual

intl.pioneer-audiovisual.com

https://www.bestbuy.ca/en-ca/category/tower-speakers/12611467?path=category%253AAudio%253Bcategory%253AHome%2BAudio%2B%2526%2BTheatre%253Bcategory%253AHome%2BSpeakers%253Bcategory%253ATower%2BSpeakers%253Bsoldandshippedby0enrchstring%253ABest%2BBuy%253Bpricerangennn%253A%2524100%2B-%2B%2524199.99%257C%2524200%2B-%2B%2524299.99

 

[Sebastijanovski]

Hi!

Honestly, in terms of speaker specifications in the budget mainstream, you probably don't have to worry about it too much. Most mainstream speakers will work fine with that receiver in an average living room.

Caveat one: make sure that the impedance of the speaker is higher than the minimum the receiver can output. This is only really relevant if the Pioneer can't handle 4 Ohm, since no mainstream speaker will have an impedance less than 4, but make sure you don't buy a 4 Ohm speaker if the receiver can only go down to 6 or something.

Caveat two: if you don't intend to listen in an average living room, say you have a huge room and you like your ears to bleed when you listen, than the speaker sensitivity coms into play. 90 dB/W is about average, you may need to find a more efficient speaker if you want it really loud. Or the opposite, if you're sitting really close, a lower sensitivity might be more appropriate, so you can use more of the range on your volume control. I don't think hum would be a problem with this Pioneer, but if it is, lower sensitivity helps with that as well.

In terms of sound quality, budget stuff is hit and miss. I wouldn't like to comment in any of the ones listed in your BestBuy search, I'd say take a look at the reviews from Amir in this site and if you can get a speaker from his recommended list you'll be well served. Also, on a budget I would take a higher quality book shelf or stand mount speaker over a lower end floor standing one any day. Add a subwoofer if like it bassy and you'll have a much more satisfying experience.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Seb

 

[SaulOteng1467]

Hey thanks so much Seb!!! This ii really helpful especially the stuff about sensitivity awesome stuff!

As for power, I have seen things like "make sure your speaker power is twice as powerful as the amp power" .... so what you're saying is that this shouldn't matter too much in the budget range?

Also I have an open-plan living room: I thought tower speakers were better 'more powerful' than book shelves in general

Anyways thanks again

 

[Sebastijanovski]

Hey thanks so much Seb!!! This ii really helpful especially the stuff about sensitivity awesome stuff!

As for power I have been seeing things like "make sure your speaker power is twice as powerful as the amp power" .... so what you're saying is that this shouldn't matter too much in the budget range?

Yeah, speaker power ratings are really mostly meaningless. I guess the logic is that if you put too much power through a speaker that isn't built for it you can burn out the voice coils or blow a tweeter. While not impossible, I never heard of anyone blowing a speaker in normal use. You'd have to like it really loud to get anwhere near the danger zone. 100 W of actual music signal going through a speaker is REALLY LOUD, like, uncomfortably loud.

The only thing to watch for is distortion. You can blow a tweeter if you push the amp too hard, but you can hear the warning signs long before you get there, the sound gets harsh and bright, kind of like an 80s boom box on FM. At that point just back the volume off a couple of notches.

Cheers,
Seb

 

[DVDdoug]

Speaker power ratings are "complicated"...

A 100W is supposed to be safe with a 100W amplifier that's hitting 100W on the program peaks. You could fry it with constant 100W test tones and the tweeter is especially vulnerable to continuous high-power test tones.

Here is a technical paper about speaker ratings. But I don't think most speaker manufacturers are following the standards. I think most speaker manufacturers are just publishing "guidelines". You can't really trust manufacturers amplifier specs either so maybe they sort-of cancel each other out.

In reality, the average listener probably won't be getting close to 100W in the average listening room. ...I wish more amplifiers/receivers had power meters, or at least clipping indicators, so we could know how much power we are really using. Speakers are usually blown by teenagers or drunk people at parties.

Note that if you push an amplifier into clipping you get more than the rated power* and the clipping generates harmonics that go to the tweeter. There is a myth that it's better to have a higher power amplifier that doesn't clip, but that's usually worse... Either way you can exceed speaker's power rating.

As for power I have been seeing things like "make sure your speaker power is twice as powerful as the amp power".

Read the technical paper - If you have highly-dynamic music (typically classical music) you can "get away" with twice the amplifier power. If you have a guitar speaker that's driven into distortion the recommendation gets reversed and the speaker should be rated for twice the amplifier power.



* The theoretical worst case is if you clip a sine wave so badly that it becomes a square wave, that's twice the wattage. ...If the amplifier can sustain that.

 

[HarmonicTHD]

This is how you calculate the power requirement for your listening habits and speaker.

A) How loud do you listen on average. Let’s say 85dB SPL.
B) How far away do you sit from the speaker. Let’s say 6ft.
C) How sensitive is your speaker (look in the manufacturer specs or even better into one of the objective speaker reviews). Let’s say 90dB/2.83V/1m.
D) Plug this into an SPL Calculator. Eg this

Peak SPL Calculator

E) Adjust the power until you roughly get 85dB SPL. Which is just about 0.5W for 8 Ohm speakers. Surprised?
F) How much Dynamics has your music (meaning sudden loudness peaks). Let’s assume 20dB (most music especially pop etc is much less). This gives you ca 50W for 8 Ohm speakers.
G) You can verify the 50W by adjusting the power in the above calc until you get 85 plus 20dB equals 105dB SPL.

1st Watch out.
However don’t be fooled, not all speaker although they can handle the 50W easily, can reproduce 105dB SPL, let alone without distortion. This is where ASR reviews or Erin’s reviews come in handy where they show Distortion vs Frequency usually at 86 and 96dB SPL. Very good values are below 1% or 40dB.

2nd Watch Out.
The above 50W only count for 8ohm speakers. If you have 4 ohm speakers you need double ie 100W Max.