Newbie?-overall power handling

[hschonher]

I have a set of empty speaker boxes set up for 3-way w/10" woofers.I want them to handle about 100 watts RMS.I know I need a woofer that will handle 100 watts but what about the mid. & tweeters.Can someone point me in the right direction?Thanks.

[bobblickle]

This doesn't answer your question however I was compelled. I've been in this same position and thought through it.

Since you're buying everything anyway, wouldn't you rather have an enclosure optimized for the design? By keeping the front baffle you will have to make compromises in driver selection purely based on mounting size. This kind of random driver selection will almost undoubtedly create a nightmarish crossover situation. My point is: Unless you're really married to those boxes for some reason it will probably be less trouble and a better end result to start from scratch.

Think of it like this, one of your friends gives you some really nice tires. Now they don't fit your wheels so you go looking for wheels. Then you find out they are actually truck tires so you need to go look for a truck to put them on. Maybe a truck wasn't what you wanted to be driving in the first place. So when all is done you compromised on the important part in trying to utilize something less important.

Hopefully you get the analogy. The box generally follows the design. Doing it backwards is likely to cost you way more than the boxes would be worth.

Good luck.

bb

> I have a set of empty speaker boxes set up
> for 3-way w/10" woofers.I want them to
> handle about 100 watts RMS.I know I need a
> woofer that will handle 100 watts but what
> about the mid. & tweeters.Can someone
> point me in the right direction?Thanks.

[scottanderson]

Depends on the crossover points. Even the woofer doesn't need to be 100 watts. It probly won't get more 65% of the power at most. A rule of thumb (not 100% accurate) is 50-35-15 for 100 watts in a 3 way. Meaning 50 watt woofer 35 watt mid 15 watt tweeter. All these figures depend on the actual design for accurate values.

[jtaylor]

> I have a set of empty speaker boxes set up
> for 3-way w/10" woofers.I want them to
> handle about 100 watts RMS.I know I need a
> woofer that will handle 100 watts but what
> about the mid. & tweeters.Can someone
> point me in the right direction?Thanks.

Another thing to remember is that many Audio companies have been in a Wattage War for many years to make more sales. Back in the 70's it was quite common to see an amplifier that maybe put out 20 watts RMS, rated at 125 watts. To the majority of folks ignorant the to true wattage ratings, which is RMS power, were being suckered into a much lower powered amp because they would use an extremely high peak power rating that the amp might be able to put out for only brief amount of time like half a second or less. The Audio industry started policing itself as the Wattage ratings were getting out of hand, and junk was being sold as capable of 200 watts per channel. Although the government is also involved in this truth in advertising, many companies still fudge the wattage numbers to help sales.

I imagine this wattage fudge factor could also apply to some of the lower cost drivers to also help increase sales. I believe if you stick to the beter know name brands today you will not have to worry about a company fudging the wattage numbers.

A good crossover will also play a big part of how much power goes into the midrange and tweeter as well as the woofer which takes the brunt of the power. Most of the time the tweeter will burn up first before the other drivers do.

Another thing to remember is that insufficient power which results in clipping, will damage a speaker just as quick as too much power. As long as you pick a speaker that handles the power factors as noted in the other post, you should be fairly safe, although I would try to be on the safe side and buy a little higher wattage rated speaker.

Jack T.