If You Have A 1600 watts Amplifier Do You Have To Use The Whole 1600 Watts?

NCA6.7

No, the whole amplifier doesn’t need to be feeding the speakers/woofers. It all depends on the impedance, the RMS power the amplifier drops out at, and the RMS power on the woofer. For example, here’s an amplifier. It does 1600 watts at a 1 ohm load and 1000 watts at a 4 ohm load. Your woofer is a single voice coil 4 ohm, 1000 watts RMS. You wired the woofers in parallel for a 4 ohm load at 1000 watts. 1 ohm, 1600 watts. 4 ohm, 1000 watts.

Free Advice

What about your hearing loss in years to come.

Nuff Sed

If you can fly a fighter jet at Mach 1, do you have to fly that way all the time? How can you land it?

N2Audio

Would be helpful if you d mention the brand and model number. A lot of cheaper amps market ridiculous peak/max power ratings when the actual power output of the amp is a fraction as much. An ~$80 Boss Audio amp, for example, may claim 1500 or 1600 watts max, but measured power output under optimal conditions would be in the 300-400w rms range. Typical "in-use" average power would, again, be a fraction of that -- around 100w rms. "Overpowering" speakers is actually pretty hard to do.

Anonymous

Only if you want to destroy your eardrums.

don r

No you don't have to run it full blast, but what a waste buying something you don't or can't use.

Windowphobe

As a practical matter, you cannot run full power for very long: even the loudest crescendos last only a few seconds, if that long, and then the power drops back to what's necessary for the program material. A 3-decibel drop cuts the power need by half.

rick29148

nope, that would be maximum volume .................................

tnmrb

ceywsahn