Basic Questions about receiver-2

[mak15]

Dear all: I finally pick Yamaha HTR-5860, now I am shopping for subwoofer. It seems Infinity PS 10 is a good one.
1: It is a 250-watt Powered Subwoofer, but can Yamaha HTR-5860 able to push it?
2: Let say the receiver has 110w/channel and the speaker is 200w, does this make sense to you?
3: In the speaker, what is Sensitivity mean?
4: What is different between Frequency Response (+3dB) and Crossover Frequency?

Thanks for your efforts!

 

[markw]

1: It is a 250-watt Powered Subwoofer, but can Pioneer 1015 able to push it?

no problem. A powered subwoofer has it's own built in power amp.

2: Let say the receiver has 110w/channel and the speaker is 200w, does this make sense to you?

Again, no problem if you use your head and if things start to sounf funky, you turn it down NOW! Both those specs should be taken with a grain of salt anyway. In reality, they are pretty innacurate.

3: In the speaker, what is Sensitivity mean?

In a nutshell, how loud it plays at a given input. The speaker with the higher number will play louder at that input level than a speaker with a lower number.

4: What is different between Frequency Response (+3dB) and Crossover Frequency?

FR is the extremes of the overall system. The crossover frewuence is wherethe soeakers in the system hand over their jobs to another speaker. i.e.. the woofer crosses over to the tweeter at a certain frequency.

note these are general answers to your general questions. Others might want to extrapolate on these. ...or not.

 

[mike c]

looks like we have almost the same questions ...

1) the infinity PS-10 is self powered, all it takes from your receiver is the signal (no power)

2) 200w? BETA speaker maybe?

 

[j_garcia]

2: Let say the receiver has 110w/channel and the speaker is 200w, does this make sense to you?

Again, no problem if you use your head and if things start to sounf funky, you turn it down NOW! Both those specs should be taken with a grain of salt anyway. In reality, they are pretty innacurate.

The speaker's max power rating is not inaccurate. More likely than not, it is a very accurate measure of the max load something in the x-over or one of the drivers can physically take. You can almost ignore the max power rating of the speaker, as most average listening will never require that much power, it is a MAX rating, not a REQUIRED rating. One thing you do want to pay attention to is the nominal impedance of the speaker. Most receivers on the market are designed to work with 8 Ohm nominal speakers, though many will also be able to handle 6 Ohms. 4 Ohm speakers may stress receivers with weaker power supplies.

Receiver's power ratings on the other hand, DO tend to be somewhat inaccurate and IMO, the 1015 would fall into that category. Each channel, independently, is capable of 110w, but with all channels driven it's output wil drop somewhat.

4: What is different between Frequency Response (+3dB) and Crossover Frequency?

Frequency response is the upper and lower limits of what the speaker can actually reproduce. The crossover frequency is somewhat irrelevant to the typical consumer in terms of the speaker (if it sounds good, does it matter?), but it basically tells you where the blending point between each of the individual drivers in the speaker are.

 

[markw]

Really?

The speaker's max power rating is not inaccurate.

I've driven my (rated 40 watts) Minmus 7's with my Marantz 2270 for several months with no problems. So much for that theory, eh? In the real world, you can exceed a speaker's rated power if you use a little common sense as I described above. Likewise, you can safely use a lower power amp by following the same rules.

 

[j_garcia]

All that means is you are using less than 40w to drive the speakers... Just because an amp puts out 100w doesn't mean the speaker is actually using 100w; and unless you have the receiver/amp turned up to 100% gain, it isn't outputting it's rated power. Sorry, that's not a theory...

I've driven a little 4" mid with a bridged amp putting out 475w x 1 with no crossover and it didn't fry either. I believe the key there was the fact that I used no crossover, because it is often the crossover that has at least one component that is rated only for a certain wattage. Too much power is rarely an issue also, because an unclipped signal, even at the speaker's rated max, will usually not cause a problem. Not having enough power to keep the signal from clipping is when things really start to go wrong.

 

[markw]

So, what are you saying?

If I read your post, the power rating is fairly arbitrary in the real world. .

..like I said.

 

[j_garcia]

It depends on the combination of speakers, amp and room size for the SPL you are looking for. If you drop an easy to drive speaker on a 200w amp, it will probaby have no problem driving them to high SPLs as long as you aren't exceeding what the speakers are capable of handling. If you fire up a low impedance, low sensitivity speaker on a 100w amp that is not stable with low impedance loads in the same room, then the amp may clip when trying to produce the same SPL. I guess what I'm getting at is: it depends on the specific situation. A speaker that presents a very easy to drive load to a given amp may not have issue even with an amp that is much more powerful than it is rated for.

To be honest, I was surprised that that little driver didn't fry.

 

[Hanse18]

3: In the speaker, what is Sensitivity mean?
Thanks for your efforts!

As far as sensitivity goes, sometimes you will hear of speakers being "Power Hungry". This means it has a low sensitivity (probably below 90 db). This means you will need more power to run that specific speaker, or else clipping will happen. While I don't completely grasp the concept of clipping, I believe it has something to do with there not being enough power to "push" the signal all the way through the speaker. Then you get a weak, distorted sound that is potentially dangerous to your speaker. Higher sensitivity speakers (klipsch comes to mind of course. they are horn loaded and therefore more efficient.) will often have no problem running off of 50-60 watts IF the power supply is decent. That's where buckeye's 33 lb. rule comes into play. A 100 watt insignia receiver that is $800 cheaper than a 65 watt Harman/Kardon receiver? Compare the weights to find out how solid the insignia is compared to the h/k... I bet you can guess who wins. Anyhow, I guess the Klipschorn (the franchise speaker for Klipsch... Obviously) is capable of running off of 5 watt tube amps, and has a sensitivity of around 105 db. Not familiar with the tube amp technology, so there might be something else at work there as well.

I hope this helps, but I'm afraid all I did was ramble and try to sound important without saying anything of substance.

 

[j_garcia]

Clipping occurs when the available power is insufficient to cause the driver to correctly recreate the waveform of the sound. The peaks of the sound waves are "clipped" off, which in turn causes the distortion you hear. As the speakers try to reproduce this distorted signal, they may heat up and that can cause damage to them very quickly.

Tube amps can't be compared to solid state amps - though in operation, they work the same, the way they deliver power is quite different. Solid state amps can deliver peaks above their rated power, but tube amps are generally capable of generating much more power during transient peaks than their low rating would suggest. Tube amps also don't clip the same way that solid state do - they are generally capable of much greater output during transient peaks compared to SS, which one article I read suggested may be one of the reasons why they have that nice warm sound to them.

 

[mak15]

Thanks guys, this really help me a lot!

 

[PENG]

Tube amps also don't clip the same way that solid state do - they are generally capable of much greater output during transient peaks compared to SS, which one article I read suggested may be one of the reasons why they have that nice warm sound to them.

If I remember correctly, tube amp produces even harmonic distortion instead of the SS amp's odd harmonic distortion. Even harmonics do not irritate us like the odd ones do.