800W frontstage anyone ? :P
11-18-2007, 11:08 PM
#51
I was the one who posted about the 4 or 5 watts
What really happens is that if you give your amps a test tone and adjust the gain so that they play at 100% of their power with the test tone (say, 35hz for example), your amp will be giving full power during that time, at 100% volume. But, if you play music, music has dips in volume and won't be driving your amp nearly as much as a test tone. That's what we call Dynamic Power. With a test tone, it's RMS power. With music, your amp will be giving maybe 25% or 30% of the power it would be giving with a test tone. Then, add in that for every drop of 3dBs, you only solicitate half the power. Say your radio is indexed in 1 DB steps. Your max is at 100, and you have a 500W amp. With a test tone, and your radio at 100, you should be getting the full 500W out of the amp. At the same volume, but with music, it's giving out maybe 200W on average (with peaks of 500 and dips of maybe 10). Drop down to 97, and your power output just dropped in half, i.e. 100W. Down to 94, and your using 50W. If your comfortable listening to it at say, 85... then, you're using maybe 6 or 7 watts...
That's how I could say I was using so little power of the 800W available.
What really happens is that if you give your amps a test tone and adjust the gain so that they play at 100% of their power with the test tone (say, 35hz for example), your amp will be giving full power during that time, at 100% volume. But, if you play music, music has dips in volume and won't be driving your amp nearly as much as a test tone. That's what we call Dynamic Power. With a test tone, it's RMS power. With music, your amp will be giving maybe 25% or 30% of the power it would be giving with a test tone. Then, add in that for every drop of 3dBs, you only solicitate half the power. Say your radio is indexed in 1 DB steps. Your max is at 100, and you have a 500W amp. With a test tone, and your radio at 100, you should be getting the full 500W out of the amp. At the same volume, but with music, it's giving out maybe 200W on average (with peaks of 500 and dips of maybe 10). Drop down to 97, and your power output just dropped in half, i.e. 100W. Down to 94, and your using 50W. If your comfortable listening to it at say, 85... then, you're using maybe 6 or 7 watts...
That's how I could say I was using so little power of the 800W available.
11-18-2007, 11:49 PM
#52
0 Watt CAFz'r
Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 8
Thanks for the info and I now remember the rule that in order to raise 3db it requires twice the power from when I set up my home system. It took me a while to find proper amps to drive my 1 ohm speakers. It all makes sense to me now. I think I will still put the test cd on the car system tomorrow and test the DB I get. I am still not sure how to adjust the gain properly and maybe I will wait until I have the new speakers installed by an installer to adjust it.
11-19-2007, 12:51 AM
#53
Gains should be adjusted in accordance to your head unit's output. In the case of yours, it's giving 5V, and I believe you mentionned that the sensitivity of your amps was from 0.2V to 5V. So, in order for your amp to give 100% power at full volume on your headunit, it should be turned down all the way.
Of course, you can always use test tones and an oscilloscope to get dead on gain settings.
Anyways, I've sent you a PM with my MSN address. Feel free to add me to discuss this further as I've pretty much hijacked my own thread with this. :P
Of course, you can always use test tones and an oscilloscope to get dead on gain settings.
Anyways, I've sent you a PM with my MSN address. Feel free to add me to discuss this further as I've pretty much hijacked my own thread with this. :P
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