The audio salesperson tried to convince me when listening at normal level (home-theatre) we only need the amp to output between 10-20 watts to speakers. Is this true ?
So, why do people have clipping / distortion issue ? In which circumstance would it have clipping / distortion ? I guess the amp can't output enough power speaker ? How do we detect clipping / distortion ?
In order NOT to have clipping / distortion what factor should I consider ?
Thank you all.
90% of the time, you’re using between 1w and 10w. It’s loud peaks that require the extra power in movies.
Let’s say your speakers are rated at 87dB 1w1m, and you’re watching a movie with the volume at -10dB, sitting 10’ away. Average levels will be around 75dB, which would only require 1w, let’s say a very loud explosion scene comes on, pushing the signal to near 0dBfs peaks, which, at that volume level, will equate to 95dB/channel, those peaks would require about 75w/ch.
With music, the requirements are less (outside of classical music). Let’s say you’re listening to your favorite band at 80dB, which is quite loud. Let’s also say the music has a dynamic range of 9dB, average power at 80dB would be about 2w, and the peaks would be around 20w.
Where people get into problems is large rooms or reference volumes. Let’s say you decided to watch the movie at 0dB on the volume knob, this would require each speaker to output 105dB at peak levels. At 10’ away, with an 87dB 1w1m speaker, you’d need about 600w to handle the peaks. Even if you had the amplifier power to achieve this, you’re likely to destroy the speaker.
Since the power difference between a flagship model avr and the mid range model is 50w at best, the dB difference between 75w and 125w is a lousy 1.5dB, you don’t gain much headroom by simply going up to higher priced avrs, of course, many flagship models will do better with multiple channels driven. Most home audio speakers would be doing well to handle 200w, so simply adding crazy levels of amplification is a bad way to go about solving a headroom deficiency. Better off using more efficient speakers.
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