How Watts and Audio Amplifiers Work Together
A Simple Explanation of Watts, Audio Power, and Pissing Off The Neighbors
One Watt Can Get Pretty Loud!
To fully understand watts, in audio terms, you need to understand two things.
-
Audio loudness is logarithmic. This means that you have to double the audio power of a speaker system to get a 3dB increase. Do you want more on top of that? You'll need to double your power again. Want another 3dB? Double it again! Of course, you can also double the quantity of working speakers as well, but that's another article all together.
-
One watt is pretty loud already. Take a look at the “sensitivity” spec on a speaker. This determines how efficient the speaker is. In other word, it tells how loudly the speaker will play when given just 1 watt. Yes, a speaker will play just fine with one watt. In these tests, a test microphone is usually placed 1 meter from the speaker. On average, a speaker will hit around 90dB (give or take 5dB which just happens to be a TON!!!!) with just one watt of power. So how loud is 90dB? According to my research, your average push lawn mower is 90dB. Oddly enough, I've wore ear plugs while mowing for years. So what does that tell you?
-
Comment #1
(Posted by an unknown user)
Rating
informative
-
Comment #2
(Posted by Professor Drew Daniels)
Rating
Just how much dumb-down can we all absorb until we finally know nothing? As an artist, do you really want your PRODUCT to be made by "recording engineers" who couldn't plug in stereo system to save their lives? More importantly, do you really want to pay your money for some dufus to waste hours and hours of time struggling to find out why he can't get the guitar to play back in stereo because he doesn't even know what stereo is? Better music deserves better recording, and better recording requires learning engineering--with all the physics and the math. Sorry, but there's no shortcut to experience and knowledge except study and experience. If engineering was easy, then everybody would be making good-sounding records. Check and see how many certified "Professional Engineers" there are in your community and you'll soon discover that the P.E. exam is waaaaay harder than passing the bar exam or getting an M.D. degree, and you'll begin to get a sense of just why there are so few Lee Hirschbergs, Tom Dowds and Bill Putnams.
-
Comment #3
(Posted by lettuce)
Rating
nicely written for the beginner, however the novice, or journeyperson/apprentice knows most of this stuff already from his/her instructor and from all the homework that was assigned.
My question to you is how can you expand the knowlege base that we non-pro engineers need so that we can become entry-level pro engineers?
-
Comment #4
(Posted by guitarfiend)
Rating
I thought this was a good article. I'm a guitarist, not a recording engineer. Not everybody knows how sound frequency works, and a lot of musicians don't care...so this is a great article for a beginner who's just learning (we can't have all the articles geared towards the professional recording engineer...otherwise the beginners would have no way to learn the basics!).
| 
Shure SM7B Microphone with Switchable Response |
| 
Universal Audio UAD-1 Project Pak |
