Subwoofer wattage?

[mdinno]

I was wondering just how important the watts of a sub really is. You have subs like the Rythmik that cost over a grand that put out around "only" 600 watts while you have subs that cost half that that put out much more. There's also a budget subwoofer shootout on youtube and one of the better sub is a 75 watt. The weakest sub by far in the shootout. It seems to me build quality and other factors play a far bigger roll in how a sub performs other than how powerful the amp is. Please weigh in.

 

[NINaudio]

It's not how many watts you have, but what you do with them that matters.

 

[ryanosaur]

Augmenting on what NiN said…
What you don’t know is anything regarding the Driver Sensitivity, for example. There is a lot more involved behind the scenes than just looking at an Amplifier rating will tell you. Without knowing every aspect of the complete system then (not just Driver Parameters but also Cabinet Size and Port Tune) you can’t even attempt to model it to see what the performance might be.
Rather this is why it is important to see quality resting done and be able to understand what the tests mean. The CEA-2010 Burst test is one but it only paints a limited picture. Long Term Compression Sweeps are another excellent test showing you FR at various output levels and where the whole system starts to break down in terms of maximum output. After that, seeing the distortion components will help you understand how clean the output is.

In short, amplifier wattage is the most useless aspect of subwoofer marketing to attempt to judge anything by.

 

[TLS Guy]

I was wondering just how important the watts of a sub really is. You have subs like the Rythmik that cost over a grand that put out around "only" 600 watts while you have subs that cost half that that put out much more. There's also a budget subwoofer shootout on youtube and one of the better sub is a 75 watt. The weakest sub by far in the shootout. It seems to me build quality and other factors play a far bigger roll in how a sub performs other than how powerful the amp is. Please weigh in.

It all depends on the design of the sub. Larger ported subs need much less lower than a small sealed sub for the same output. The sealed sub rolls off at 12 db per octave at least by 40 to 50 Hz, then a power boost of 12 db. per octave has to be applied. You have to double the power for each db. of boost.

A larger lower powered more expensive sub will best a small sealed sub any day, although the small sub may have more amp power, it is usually not nearly enough, if it is a cheaper offering.

 

[highfigh]

It's not how many watts you have, but what you do with them that matters.

I like to waste a lot of power during Winter- cuts down on my natural gas bill.

 

[ryanosaur]

I like to waste a lot of power during Winter- cuts down on my natural gas bill.

Is this leaning into the audio myth of heating your home in the Winter with some good Class A Amps, then switching to some Class Ds in the Summer?

 

[highfigh]

Is this leaning into the audio myth of heating your home in the Winter with some good Class A Amps, then switching to some Class Ds in the Summer?

The struggle is real.

 

[lovinthehd]

Yep without more details about the sub its amp wattage is relatively meaningless, you don't even get any particular spec with the wattage like impedance or distortion level. It's marketing mostly. Kinda like max speaker wattage ratings, just not particularly useful compared to other metrics.

 

[Kingnoob]

I was wondering just how important the watts of a sub really is. You have subs like the Rythmik that cost over a grand that put out around "only" 600 watts while you have subs that cost half that that put out much more. There's also a budget subwoofer shootout on youtube and one of the better sub is a 75 watt. The weakest sub by far in the shootout. It seems to me build quality and other factors play a far bigger roll in how a sub performs other than how powerful the amp is. Please weigh in.

Many over exaggerating their wattage making such ratings irrelevant. Plus 499w rms is way more than 499 peak power !!!
plus these brands don’t list any information about the speaker driver except it’s size, no Xmax or anything.

 

[mdinno]

Many over exaggerating their wattage making such ratings irrelevant. Plus 499w rms is way more than 499 peak power !!!
plus these brands don’t list any information about the speaker driver except it’s size, no Xmax or anything.

Like the JAMO C912. It's a 75 RMS but they advertise IT'S 300 watt peak power and no mention of it's 75 RMS. Crazy part is it actually did really well in the 12' budget subwoofer shootout. Beat out subs with almost double the wattage.

 

[Kingnoob]

Like the JAMO C912. It's a 75 RMS but they advertise IT'S 300 watt peak power and no mention of it's 75 RMS. Crazy part is it actually did really well in the 12' budget subwoofer shootout. Beat out subs with almost double the wattage.

Wow I’m using a jamo 10” in my set up it’s not bad . jamo a3sub.3

 

[lovinthehd]

Like the JAMO C912. It's a 75 RMS but they advertise IT'S 300 watt peak power and no mention of it's 75 RMS. Crazy part is it actually did really well in the 12' budget subwoofer shootout. Beat out subs with almost double the wattage.

Jamo doesn't spec it as 75/300....at least not according to this spec sheet https://d1k7keptyk1i1t.cloudfront.net/product-specsheets/Concert-912_Spec-Sheet_v01.pdf?v=1663762429