Continue to Site

Welcome to our site!

Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

  • Welcome to our site! Electro Tech is an online community (with over 170,000 members) who enjoy talking about and building electronic circuits, projects and gadgets. To participate you need to register. Registration is free. Click here to register now.

Subwoofer power

Status
Not open for further replies.

m4n4v

New Member
Hi i just bought a philips sound system consisting of 1 sub and 3 satellites, with total power of 60W(Sub) + 75W(Satellites) = 135 RMS Watts. Earlier i was using a Creative system with a sub that was only 20 Watts, but the sound was deeper, altogether the bass was better. This philips subwoofer is more than 3 times as powerful as the creative one still it sounds almost the same, is there any particular reason why this is so? Also, the philips subwoofer speaker is 100w while the creative one is barely 30w. Is there a way to tweak the amp circuit to either increase the overall sound volume or produce lower frequency signals for the subwoofer?


Thanks.
 
Hi i just bought a philips sound system consisting of 1 sub and 3 satellites, with total power of 60W(Sub) + 75W(Satellites) = 135 RMS Watts. Earlier i was using a Creative system with a sub that was only 20 Watts, but the sound was deeper, altogether the bass was better.
It was probably designed with a low system resonance point to make the bass sound deeper. Cheap speakers usually do that, it doesn't mean they are better, it just makes them sound like they have "more" bass. In reality, they are blurring a range of bass notes together and over reacting to them. Or it's possible it actually did produce lower sound with less distortion, it's possible if it was well designed. Physical size and amp power do not always equate to good bass.

This philips subwoofer is more than 3 times as powerful as the creative one still it sounds almost the same, is there any particular reason why this is so?
Yes, they are both producing about the same output from the input they receive which means that's what it's supposed to sound like more or less. You may want more bass, but it may not have been in the original recording to begin with.


Also, the philips subwoofer speaker is 100w while the creative one is barely 30w. Is there a way to tweak the amp circuit to either increase the overall sound volume or produce lower frequency signals for the subwoofer?


Thanks.
To increase volume or gain, you would need to do that at the amp. To produce lower frequency signals, you would have to build a whole new speaker. All speakers have low frequency cutoff. You could use tone controls (equalizer) to boost the bass, but it does not extend the frequency range of the speaker.
 
Last edited:
yes even i think it has something to do with the enclosure(The driver is 4ohm so its pretty low). The creative sub was cube design with a vent/port to the side of the driver. While the philips one is a rectangular design with a port right behind the driver. So i guess thats whats making the sound less powerful, not allowing it to reverberate inside the enclosure. Thats why the bass is tight in this, whereas the creative bass was loose and free flowing. Any suggestions wat to do ?

Thanks.
 
I don't know about consumer (non)laws elsewhere, but in the US, ONLY if the amplifier is a unit measured and sold independently, then its watt must be measured with actual Volts, Amperes, and Ohms, the distortion must be within limits, and must be sustainable over the entire claimed bandwidth for a defined period of time.

Anything goes as a Watt when it comes to computer speaker systems. It is possible in the U.S. to sell a 50-watt speaker system that runs on 4 "D" cells. Inside you will find two bridged one-wat chips. Even the big brand names do it. The seller is not responsible for any claims. Buyer beware.
 
There's a remarkable price difference in between Creative low end models to Gigaworks series cube enclosures. Output depends on driver and enclosure design/quality.
 
yes even i think it has something to do with the enclosure(The driver is 4ohm so its pretty low). The creative sub was cube design with a vent/port to the side of the driver. While the philips one is a rectangular design with a port right behind the driver. So i guess thats whats making the sound less powerful, not allowing it to reverberate inside the enclosure. Thats why the bass is tight in this, whereas the creative bass was loose and free flowing. Any suggestions wat to do ?

Buy a better system.
 
They are rated in Whats, not in Watts.

Have you seen an expensive Bose system with a 4.5 inch speaker as a "sub-woofer" that booms at 100Hz?
 
They are rated in Whats, not in Watts.

Have you seen an expensive Bose system with a 4.5 inch speaker as a "sub-woofer" that booms at 100Hz?
I remember the original Bose speakers everybody raved about back in the late 70's were made using a whole bunch of 6" speakers in an enclosure with some bizarre phase shifting/equalization amplifier that supposedly made them be able to produce low bass frequencies. They always sounded terrible to me (weak bass and flat high end). Infinity speakers always sounded better, probably because of their EMIT tweeter and varailbe Q woofer design. I still use my Infinty Qc speakers I bought back in 1978..
 
Last edited:
The Bose professional speakers with 9 little "full-range" speaker drivers had an equalizer that boosted the bass and treble like a happy face.
Some people liked their sound.
 
The Bose professional speakers with 9 little "full-range" speaker drivers had an equalizer that boosted the bass and treble like a happy face.
Some people liked their sound.
Maybe so, I remember they sounded flat to me. My brother in law had them for a while, and he eventually dumped them in favor of a set of Infinity tower speakers which were the closest thing to live sound I ever heard. I think they cost like $5k back in 1982, so they were very pricey but the best at the time. They were the ones that looked like two 7-foot tall grandfather clock size towers. They don't make them any more.
 
Last edited:
Speakers do not need to be extremely expensive to sound very good.
Speakers do not need to be huge to produce deep good bass.
 
It's probably true that in general, an expensive speaker is more likely to sound good than a cheap one. However, there have been some severely overpriced junk palmed off on the audiophiles over the years so expense (and even a big brand name) doesn't assure you of anything.
 
It's probably true that in general, an expensive speaker is more likely to sound good than a cheap one. However, there have been some severely overpriced junk palmed off on the audiophiles over the years so expense (and even a big brand name) doesn't assure you of anything.

Very true - but in the majority of cases more expensive is better.
 
That's right in majority cases. But I'll point out a simple fact.

Branded items: Costly in terms of longterm R&D they put for introducing a model.
Chinese items: Cheap because they use technology copy. The customers are not using the technology but the end product only.

I'll use a cheap item if it delivers a good performance. It's all about satisfaction, not just a brandname.
 
A cheap item is poorly made and does not last as long as a good name-brand item.
 
Chinese junk basically has no QA at all. Buy it only as a cheap throw away grade item. For electronics, I stick with nam brands because they (usually) have some QA and honor their wararnties. Most power of all: they care about somebody posting negative info on the net, so they will make an effort to fix a dog item.

It's true the Chinese ignore copyrights and steal at will, which is why they can sell CD's of movies or music for pennies. But for technology items, you do have to have some competence and quality to make a reliable item. Their stuff is very iffy.
 
Last edited:
Don't underestimate them. There's a lot of smart manufacturers in China that know that lifting their quality game will pay off in big future profits. It will happen (is happening). In Australia we see heaps of the cheap garbage Chinese imports but sometimes there's some nice stuff.

Anyway historically every "cheap" manufacturing country eventually lifts its game and starts making good stuff.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Latest threads

New Articles From Microcontroller Tips

Back
Top