How Many Watts Do I need?
 

How many watts do I need to get a good average sounding stereo?...I'm putting a couple of 10" or 12" speakers in and an amplifier...how much or how many watts do I need for it to rock in the cockpit area?.....it's a Pioneer am/fm cd unit..what do I need to add?...Fred

50watts for the 10s or 70watts for the 12s this if the rating is in RMS not peak power as rated on cheap amps peak power can be 3 times that of the rms power and is usually measured at 1000Hz
RMS is a continous measured undera wider Freq range
the power you need is also related to your speakers need
"Audiofn" would be able to get you the proper amp.

I have a gizzillion:D

50 watts? maybe for the smaller mids and highs.. for the 10's or 12's you need about 8-10X that.... I have 600 watts running two 10 inch JL audio subs in my truck just to give you an example. I do have alot of power for a set of 10's and in a truck many/most people would not have that much, but in a boat you need more power for the same/similar set up because of the amout of open space you need to "fill" with music... Much of the music content is lost to "nothingness" because of this. I have put a system in my friends 33' scarab with it running 3 12" subs under the rear seat are and 3 pairs of 6" speakers in the cabin/cockpit area. To run this we added 3 amps totaling about 1100 watts. When we pull into an area you can hear the stereo over the dry stellings he has on the motors.

The most common size amp that I use for boats is a 50X4 and a 100X1. The sub channel will give you 200 watts if you run two subs. What you have to remember is that to get 3db (the smallest amount that the average human ear can pick up) you have to double the power. So to get three DB more you will have to go up to 400 watts. 3 db more and you will have to go to 800 then 1600 and so on. There are of course different variables in this but that is the basic ground rule. Also there is definatly a difference like hase been said btwn different manufacturers. There are regulated and non regulated power suplies and many other ways to measure. Stick with the good manufacturers and you will be happy.

Jon

The reason I said those lower power levels is if he had to ask
then I know those 10 or 12 are not Pro speakers AKA "circuit city" I use JBL Pro Tour cabinets for DJing and Live sound production run over 1000watts RMS per cabinet, so watts is my biz.
I run on my boat 2 Denon car audio amps 8 years old
dcm 600s 600watts "claimed" but I measured them with meter
150rms each channel for a total of 600w so peak is 14-1800w
current draw over 35 amps each. Runs down a pair of 700amp marine batteries in 3 hours

Jon,

Would a capacitor or two help from draining the battery as fast?

Matt

what kind of boat are you putting them in?
where in the boat do you want them to go?
if you are not worried about weight, i can make
2 10s pretty loud. give me a call i can get you
what you need.
Tyson 417-437-0665

no a cap will not help

4 - 100 watt solar panels would, but they be pretty ugly on the engine cover and leave no place for the babes to lay out:D :D