GhostGuy wrote:I read you have to have 10x the wattage to get a doubling in volume, and you want your amp to have around 1.5-2x the power rating of your speaker, but not more than 2.5x. The idea being that you don't turn the volume all the way up and the amp doesn't run maxxed out, and it sounds better because it's not clipping. For a typical 8watt speaker, that would mean a 12-16 watt amp. I'm not sure what you'd need 20 for. Maybe you can run the speakers in some configuration where you'd need the 20, or there's speakers that require more amps? I dunno. But it sounds like your amp should put out plenty of power.
Yeah there is SO much to speaker and amp selection, not all speakers are created equal nor are all amps... There are some great sites the go into it in detail so no reason to recap it here, just Google it up...
http://thepracticeroom.typepad.com/the_ ... eed_a.html In the end you will find that the general rule of thumb is the more the speakers cost the better they are...
As for the amp I selected yes I believe for this application it's pretty optimal, and what you said about wattage vs db is true, a 40 watt amp will only be 10% louder then a 20 watt amp, but it's using twice the battery juice to get that 10% louder volume... You can spend more on a good speaker and get that 10% volume increase with without any more power usage...
Also the big public awareness post... When it comes to cheaper audio equipment the rating pretty much mean nothing, forget about the speaker that says 500 watt max as being legit, that means that under prefect conditions at a specific optimal tone they reached that rating, not that you would ever replicate the performance... Same thing with many cheap amplifiers they over voltage them and test them with a constant stream of freon flowing over the chips and then claim 100 watt amp, when it reality in the real world it's much less...
From my test the other night with the new amp circuit it was hardly working (very low heat generation) at full volume with a 12 volt supply...
With certain sounds and a decent speaker my sound kit is pretty close to being painful in close vicinity, it's quite loud... I know I'm always impressed when I crank it up for testing...