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RE: Can I get by with 2 watts? Used my Dbs meter

The main difficulty is that the short-term average sound level (which is measured by sound level meters and VU meters) is much lower than the instantaneous peaks. This difference is called headroom, and can run around 14dB for well-recorded music, and 20dB for movie sound and audiophile recordings.

If the speaker is 97dB per watt, and the sound level meter is at 77dB on peaks, then the average power being used is 20dB less than a watt, or 0.01 watts. If you add in 20dB for headroom, you are up to 1 watt.

There are a lot of assumptions buried in the above analysis, and the variation in individual cases is very large - at least +/-10dB. In practice,something like 102dB peak capability seems to work for most people, most of the time. That would be a bit over 3 watts into a 97dB speaker. Your mileage will almost certainly vary ...


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