With "typical" efficiency stereo speakers in an average room, you will probably be listening to less than one Watt average power and less than 10W peak even when the music is pretty loud.
I have Infinity Qc speakers which are pretty low efficiency and even at volume levels approaching "live" sound, I almost never clip the 50W LED on my peak reading power meter.
they are Sharp CP-C406, 8ohm
Rated Power: 10W
Max. Power Handling Capacity: 20W
So if they are 10W continuous and music is 1/5th continuous power... I might get away with something like a 40W/ch amp?
The cheap Sharp CP-C406 music system is rated for 20 Whats Peak Music Power Output which might be only 1 real Watt per channel. They do not rate the speakers separately.
Uncle $crooge
Ah...
yes it is quite cheap. My project is to knock it down in size a bit, i.e. just a small board in an enclosure with small transformer and small audio amp chip, meant to take line-level signals. However I may end up looking into better speakers and a new amp IC as I do not think it will sound great. Plus the gigantic (relatively speaking) speakers kind of ruin the whole "compact" concept I was going for.
At this point its just an experiment to see if I can get something that sounds reasonable out of it.
PS - I like your "Whats" vs Watts system
IMHO, 10W/channel will be plenty.Originally Posted by solis365
There are some little 4" woofers available that sound pretty good.
There are 3" full range speakers available that sound pretty good.
My pc speakers are 3" with huge magnets (for little speakers) and are driven with 3W RMS for each.
My "beach" sound system had a 4" woofer with a 6W amplifier and two 3" speakers each with 3W amplifiers. It sounded very good for its small size.
Uncle $crooge
Yes, I have a small creative labs PC sound system from a while back, 4" subwoofer and 3" sattelites. Not the best sound but certainly acceptable, especially for the size. It is actually possible to place 4 sattelites on a desk for 4.1 surround!
I guess the trouble is how to determine whether I am going to be driving my speakers with 3 Whats or 3 Watts.
Last edited by solis365; 10th August 2009 at 05:07 PM.
A cheap clock radio has an output of about 1000W PMPO, or 10 Whats, or 0.5 Watts.
Uncle $crooge
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