That little "A" is an important thing to keep in mind. A-weighting progressively reduces the influence of bass in the measurement and is the typical scale used for industrial noise/hearing damage potential.
In the low bass range 130 dB peaks (unweighted or C weighted) are extremely common in car audio and many don't consider that very dangerous to hearing. Conversely, 130 dB of A-weighted continuous noise at higher frequencies starts hearing damage in seconds or minutes according to most sources.
Not that I'm encouraging anyone to listen at crazy levels. Loud to me for typical home audio is about 85 dB peak, and I get listening fatigue fast if there's a lot of upper frequency content. 85 dB of bass in a car is totally anemic though.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-weighting
https://sengpielaudio.com/PermissibleExposureTime.htm
NIHL = Noise-induced hearing loss
Last edited:
Additional information on SPL levels:
https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/articles/thx-reference-level-explained
"What is ‘THX Reference Level’?
Reference level is a calibrated volume setting used for both movie production (in dubbing stages and post production houses) and reproduction (in screening rooms and theaters)."
. . .
"1. Speakers and amplifiers must be capable of 105dB peaks
If the playback chain is calibrated to produce 85dB for a -20dB signal at the listening position then the speakers and amplifiers could be asked to produce 105dB for a 0dB signal. It is a challenging proposition for an audio system to reproduce this level cleanly, without dynamic compression and to be able to do so reliably."
. . .
"2. Subwoofers must be capable of 115dB peaks
The low frequency effects channel is handled slightly differently and has a 10dB boost relative to the other channels. The maximum SPL that subwoofers could be asked to reproduce from the low frequency effects track is therefore 115dB at the listening position."
https://acousticfrontiers.com/blogs/articles/thx-reference-level-explained
"What is ‘THX Reference Level’?
Reference level is a calibrated volume setting used for both movie production (in dubbing stages and post production houses) and reproduction (in screening rooms and theaters)."
. . .
"1. Speakers and amplifiers must be capable of 105dB peaks
If the playback chain is calibrated to produce 85dB for a -20dB signal at the listening position then the speakers and amplifiers could be asked to produce 105dB for a 0dB signal. It is a challenging proposition for an audio system to reproduce this level cleanly, without dynamic compression and to be able to do so reliably."
. . .
"2. Subwoofers must be capable of 115dB peaks
The low frequency effects channel is handled slightly differently and has a 10dB boost relative to the other channels. The maximum SPL that subwoofers could be asked to reproduce from the low frequency effects track is therefore 115dB at the listening position."
Last edited:
Not enough power.
I plan to have these speakers in the ceiling, but on one side, space is limited, so I don't want them larger than 10 inches.
If you can tell me that my twitter which i have can handle with powerful 10 inch i can give more money for woofer!
SEAS 27TDFC i know that they have excellent sound, but in combination with 6,5 inch woofer.
I played a party of 60 2nd Lieutenants in a 33 m x 12 m room. I had two LWEIII speakers which were a 10" woofer and 3" cone tweeter. Those woofers would visibly move 7/8 inch at resonance. There was optical feedback from speaker to the amp to boost the bass. The amp was a dynaco ST-70, 35 w/ch vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes do not hard clip, which overloads the tweeter. The crowd was pleased with the sound. Of course 2nd Lieutenants are fairly polite.
Mostly because the amp can't handle it, and goes into distortion that send square wave to the speaker. It's very rare to blow speakers because you overload them, it's mostly the amp that is overloaded.
And many hosue parties are done with hifi speakers that don't even get clean fullrange to 102dB peak. I gave houseparties for years with a single old 15" as woofer. It was a 15" Peavey Black Widow bass speaker of about 98dB sensivity and max 500w Watt RMS in a custom reflex (one of the first i build). This were parties for +/- 100 people in a living room of an old big townhouse (about 6x15x4m) The tops were also peavy (a 10" mid and a 1" compression driver) and the crossover at that time was a DBX analog active crosover and amps a JBSystem (local cheap generic brand, but modified) for the top and a qsc for the bass (we are speaking about 25-30 years ago). This system was never stressed even our ears were in that space. At that time i played jungle and raggamuffin, with some hard hiphop and early hardtek and breakcore mixed in. Other dj's played techno or acid(rave) or dnb on that system also during those parties.
With the estimated budget look at Lavoce, Ciare / Sica, SB Audience, Beyma's lower range, RCF, Faital pro FE line, and A&D audio.
I believe you already found a nice pair of transducers.
Looking for competitive pricing in Europe :
https://en.toutlehautparleur.com/
https://www.lean-business.co.uk/eshop/
http://www.bluearan.co.uk/index.php