Hi,
blakeaudio said:
even with 8 watts, 92db speakers should get you about 101db, which i would suggest is louder than would be comfortable.....
Well, I measured the SPL during a performance of Mussorskies "Pictures" in the RFH, 2nd or 3rd row center (eg. loud seats).
The quietest passages where around 35db, the loudest 95db, all unweighted but slow average. Knowing the ballistics of real music and of the meter I would suggest that peaks where at least 15-20db higher than the slow average I measured. This was NOT particulary loud.
My current system can come with only slightly compressed recorded music to similar SPL's, but just about and the strain becomes notable and I am sure that high peaks are in fact clipped, but as SE Valve Amp's clip gracefully and recover well from instantanious overload this is not very noticable.
For the record, I have 99db/1W/1m (and not 2.83V/1m, which can be highly misleading) Speakers and Amplifiers in the "8W Class", 108db/1m and in my situation with 3m listening distance 105db undistorted peaks for a stereo pair are possible, with probably around 6db overdrive inaudible.
BTW, 1200W with 92db/W/m would in theory produce 123db, however, as any dynamic speaker is subject to thermal compression these 123db are not achievable, in fact, I'd be surprised if at 1200W not at least 4-6db thermal compression make themselves felt.
It would be good to know the conditions under which the 122db SPL was measured....
For the record, I make all absolute SPL measurements with pink noise and unweighted, slow average (unless specified differently), an approach that usually yields the lowest measured SPL of all methodes but which I found to have a good match to subjectively percieved SPL.
Ciao T
