Lord Huggington

iTrader: (1)

My 750W amp is powering 3 SW8200 with the gains up, they don't get very loud if it isn't, so I need a bigger amp. My old setup was overpowered by 230W, and it was great but they blew up, probably not because of the amp. Fronts are always powered by the deck.

veeman

iTrader: (3)

my feeling is the engineers that designed the equipment probably have some idea as to what the equipment's safe range is and decided to put it on the spec sheet for everyone to know. If you choose to ignore their information, then you also must face the consequence of turning your equipment into a doorstop. If you want a sub that can handle 1500 watts, then buy a sub that can handle 1500 watts! Don't expect a 500 watt sub to be able to reliably function with 1500 watts. You wouldn't expect a 6000 rpm motor to work at 12000 rpm reliably would you?? Well when you run your sub or speaker or whatever at 2 or 3 times it's rated power input, you're essentially taking the rev limiter off the motor and giving her full throttle....it might get there, but it won't won't stay for long...and usually won't come back!

Starterwiz

I've seen a pair of 125 watt subs driven daily and as demos with 1500 watts with very little ill effects. The nut holding the volume **** was secure though. Not loose and sloppy, and that makes all the difference.

AyZe

You're exmaple is perfect..... they dont put the red line @ the true red line... they under rate it why? because u can easily bypass it..... rms is kinda the same but they rate it so ppl who kno bout subs dont blow thier gear up...RMS and peak dont mean thats all it can saftly take.....Just how much the company recommends without as many returns and or complaints as possible. In my opinion anyways

97'scort

I know for certain my speakers are underrated, and both my amps put out about 50W RMS more than the "brochure" value when set properly. I have yet to crank them either as I have not reached my 100 hour break in point yet.

MTT

iTrader: (17)

good example, but what i was saying is take that same 6000rpm engine and tune the transmission so you can achieve top speed only using 3000 rpm, twice as easy to get there and half as hard on the equipment....why run it at max RPM if you can get the same results but have headroom .

Tony Dehnke

For guys reading this later...

Don't forget that if you have your gain "turned all the way down" that only means that the amp needs a higher voltage signal in to produce it's "MAX" power. So if you have a high voltage HU and/or have a moderate HU with the bass cranked and maybe say loudness etc on.. You may still be getting close to
your "Max" power out.

Turning your gain down does not reduce the amount of power your amp may put out, just how much you have to put in to get that amount out.

doughboyr6

I'm a newbie and i don't have much to chime in about the topic, but since this thread is somewhat related to my question, i thought i'd post here.

Can someone simply reassure me, that i have made the correct purchase (even though its kinda late as i already have purchased the items). I was always under the impresison that the RMS rating of the speakers should match the amp.

I bought a set of Boston SL60's for the front and Boston SX85 as rear fill.

I'm powering all 4 speakers with a 4 channel amp. Eclipse EA4100.

I'm a little worried that i'm under-powering the front components and over powering the rear speakers. Will i be ok?

The specs are as follows;

SL60
Recommended Amplifier Power
80watts RMS-220 watts peak
Nominal Impedance
4 ohm
Frequency Response (±3dB in car)
45Hz-22kHz
Sensitivity [1 watt (2.83v) at 1m]
90dB

SX85
Rated RMS Power Handling
50 watts
Nominal Impedance
4 ohms
Frequency Response (±3dB in car)
50Hz-20kHz
Sensitivity (1 watt (2.83v) at 1m)
90dB

ECLIPSE EA4100
14.4V 75Wx4 4 OHM
http://www.eclipse-web.com/amp/ea4000.html

02honda

so how would a person tune a sub or amp to achieve max power at half the RMS rating??

AAAAAAA

iTrader: (7)

A speaker rated for 50watts rms beeing hooked up to a 50watts rms amp can only be compared to the driving of a car at it's red line for extended amounts of time only if you are playing test tones instead of music.

Music has the affect of "shifting" for this scenario comparison.

Now a lot of people will give more power then rated to their speakers because

1) The amp doesnt put out it's continuous rated power when listening to music
2) The speakers RMS is more of a "heat dissipation" specification. You can give it more power especially if you narrow the frequencys it is playing.