Back to the “how much power do I really need question”.
My M80’s driven by a HK 7300. A pretty respectable AVR by anyone’s standards for power capabilities. I have a set of M22’s in parallel as my center. QS-8’s, and an EP 600. All this is an area that is 10’ X 10’. According to your calcs and the hard line that John has always taken here about the “how much power do I need” topic, any ol’ AVR rated at 50 watts per channel or less would be more than adequate. Right??
I don't think so.........
Last night the little lady was out so my son and I watched a movie the way we like them, “movie theater loud”. (great kid, takes after his old man)…….We watched Spawn (his pick this time). I bumped the volume up to what sounded about right, which just happened to be -10 on the AVR. The AVR goes from a -80 to +8. (It was roughly 85%). Out of curiosity, I pulled out the RS meter just to see how loud things were getting. On the C setting, slow response, normal dialog was around 75 db. Gun fights and action scenes would get up to 95 db with an occasional spike over 100 db. Just for the hell of it, I ran the volume to max, and guess what; it didn’t get all that much louder. (the EP 600’s volume is just about ¼ up).
That was watching a movie………………..
Listening to stereo is completely different. I don’t know how loud it’ll play. Well over 100 db’s at 12’. That’s as far as I’ve had it.
You can’t just say “a 50 watt AVR will be just fine”. It very well may be just fine for YOU and at YOUR listening levels. But it sure in the hell wouldn’t cut it for ME. And it may not cut it for half the folks asking the question either.
