Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Amps and Power, for Micah

Micah. Here's another link for you. It deals with pro sound, but is also applicable to home audio. Most of the rock we listen to has on the order of 6db of dynamics. Its not until you get into classical that you see anything approaching 20db of dynamics.

If you are sitting 8-12 feet from your gear listening at reasonable levels, say 80db (pretty loud) you will be using a whole 1 watt for the 80 db content. Add 20db dynamic peaks and you are using a whopping 57 Watts at peak. This is using the M80s at 95db sensitivity.

Note also that when they talk about 20db dynamics I believe that is from the quietest to the loudest passages, so on average, you would need to have power available for maybe half that to avoid clipping. As your listening level goes up, you will need correspondingly more power for dynamic peaks.

Follow the calculator link on the page linked above and play with it for a bit. It will give you a much better idea of how much power you really need.