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speaker excursion..."mo power"..and bass..Sean

I'd be interested in everyone's thoughts, but hopefully Sean will chime in...

Some reading I've been doing & the "is 22 watts enough" discussion has raised a question in my mind. I'll use the Linkwitz Orions as the example, but the real questions will (should?) apply to powering most any driver.

I've been reading Linkwitz's site on the Orions, some of the theory, what it takes to build them, suggested power..etc...and I remember some post that I read in the A-gon or AA archives stating that the 60 watts Siegfred suggests isn't enough to give significant bass. I read on the SL site that he likes the 60 watts as the amp will clip just before the speaker can reach full excursion & thereby the driver will not sustain damage. He continues to state that the higher power amp he suggests (a larger ATI) will result in the driver reaching full excursion prior to the amp bottoming out & thus driver damage may result.

>Proponents of "lower is plenty" might be, at least conceptually, in line with the needed power to reach a driver's maximum excursion (almost by defintion) being all the power necessary.

>Then comes the "more power, preferrably gobs more clean power" crowd that says more power is the best in most applications.

So my question(s):

>Is the difference between these two camps just "time"(instantaneous versus continuous power)? i.e Lots of mostly unused power sitting "idle" as a reserve for the couple millisecond demand of those dynamic peaks?

>From what I've read the SL Orions do very, to exceptionally, well on bass even with the 60 watts. How would 200 watts instead of his 60 improve the bass if the drivers bottom out at a little over 60 watts? Is it again just the millisecond peak demand for power that would be available or is there another reason?
fishboat

Showing 2 responses by fishboat

fishboat OP
245 posts
 
Before anyone wanders off on a tangent...It isn't my intention to run any amp at clipping for any length of time beyond the time it takes to turn the volume down..and not to go to clipping on any regular basis. SL's point was only that the amp will bottom out before the driver does.

I know that clipping is harder on drivers than than clean power...my interest here is the time frame....is the extra power only needed to fill out the millisecond peaks. I don't think anyone would choose to power a driver into submission..not much point to that.

Eldartford...planar speakers are a whole nuther topic.
fishboat OP
245 posts
 
All I can say is "wow"...thanks to all for taking the time to explain this. The big-power pathway does make sense and as usual there are always excpetions, like the Orion/active-types, to generalities.

Drew...your numbers-based approach really explains it well. No surprise that Linkwitz has designed the Orions very well. The more I learn about the active approach & Linkwitz in particular the more interesting the Orions become.

Sean...you are an amazing person. Your explanation makes a lot of sense. I caught a little of the past discussion on active speakers, but now that I look into them deeper it really is surprising that they are not more popular. SL's DIY approach is fairly inexpensive when you consider the parts that make them up. Undoubtedly if active types were more common (read: commercially available on wide basis) the "value-based" prices would be stiff. 6000 watts you say... :-)) Some folks warm up the house by tossing a log or two into the wood-burner...I'm guessing you just turn on an amp or two.
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