Stereo Question: Low power requirements?

[dacust]

Originally Posted by camaraderie

DaCust...LOL...I actually know the guy who designed your speakers and can tell you a little story about them! Steve Eberbach was the designer for DCM and came to fame with his TimeWindow and TimeFrame series of speakers which even today are sought after by budget audiophiles. (Interstingly...he was a transmission line design believer and very concerned with phase coherence just like Wheels!). One of the big chains in the USA became their biggest dealer and wanted something more rock and roll oriented than the frames/windows and gave DCM the mission to produce a line of speakers designed to play louder than Cerwin Vega's on the showroom floor and be kick butt rock oriented speakers. Steve stuck to transmission line to get that output but was not particularly concerned with the subtleties! I doubt that there is anything on the market even today that plays louder than your top of the line KX12's even today!

That's pretty cool to hear. I bought them on sound quality/price alone even though I had never heard of them before. Combined with the efficient Urei amps they definitely kick butt but are also pretty clean. I have them about 2 feet from the walls. If I place them in the corner the bass gets overpowering. But I love cranking up the classical organ music and feeling like I am inside the pipes. I guess my favorite is an Infinity recording of Anthony Newman doing Bach.

Alan, I placed my speakers away from the wall thinking that I'd rather control the bass that way instead of controlling with the EQs. But after reading your post, I'm wondering if the sound would theoretically be cleaner by putting them in the corners and using the EQs. What do you think? The Soundcraftsman EQs are pretty clean. When they are set flat I can't tell any difference by ear if I wire direct from the pre-amp to the amps vs. through the EQs, so they can't be degrading the signal much.

[Alan Wheeler]

than Cerwin Vega's

Eeergghhh! Not hard to find anything that is better than those.

I placed my speakers away from the wall thinking that I'd rather control the bass that way instead of controlling with the EQs.

No you are on the right track. EQ's wreck sound. Use the room as best you can. If moving them away helps, then that is certainly the right action to take. You may also find that a non-equal distance from the wall to the side and behind maybe benificial. Standing waves are created in the gaps between the wall and the speaker. Making both walls non-equal will reduce the peak of what ever wave is built in there.

[hellosailor]

"Pictures at an Exhibition "
Or, Emerson Lake & Palmer playing Copland's fanfare for the Common Man at the Montreal Olympics. Talk about an unusual venue.[g]

But I think we have to assume that "decent" speakers and a "decent" stereo capable of chiropractic bass aren't going to be possible on the average sailboat.

[MidLandOne]

Originally Posted by hellosailor

"Pictures at an Exhibition "
Or, Emerson Lake & Palmer playing Copland's fanfare for the Common Man at the Montreal Olympics. Talk about an unusual venue.[g]

There is an ok video of a full length go at "Fanfare for ..." on YouTube that looks like is in the Montreal Olympic stadium but no audience - if it is that stadium then guess it was done during the "Works" tour as it says 1977 in the video intro.

If anyone is an ELP fan (or else just after something to get them into historical library as I have been wanting) "Come and See the Show" was released a week ago which looks as if it has a good selection of full length album versions of their best ("Fanfare for...", "Lucky Man", "Nutrocker" [sigh], "Hoedown", etc) and not 1990's rehashes by tired old men . My copy is ordered and in the mail .

[Alan Wheeler]

stereo capable of chiropractic bass aren't going to be possible on the average sailboat.

Ummm, I have great boat shaking bass and I thought I had just an average sail boat. Maybe I don't.

[MidLandOne]

As I mentioned before, some used to think that concrete pipes made good speaker enclosures - perhaps concrete boats work much the same .

And maybe a tinny sound in steel and aluminium boats?

John

[camaraderie]

Wheels...
"Eeergghhh! Not hard to find anything that is better than those."

Totally agree...bu they were a huge brand in the 80's since they sported 97db efficiencies and big boomy mid bass for the kids...while being low priced.
The goal with the KX was to take THAT customer...while still producing Windows and Frames for those who wanted accuracy.

Midland..the Japanese built a lot of speaker cabinets from resin/concrete in the 80's as a way to kill cabinet resonance and increase output from smaller speakers. It worked well but never caught on here where Braun and associated knockoffs relied on die cast aluminum instead. I'd put a zinc on one before installing on my boat though!

[Zach]

Hey Wheels,

Been doing some reading about spacial loading...

Whats your best guesstimate about horns vs installing the speaker in a bulkhead and using the bulkhead as a plane? It'd be easy enough to wire up a set of switches to select the inside vs outside, or both for power consumption.

Thinking through bulkhead mounting with screw in deck plates outside on the back of the cabin top, and down below a hole saw through the forward bulkhead with some grills on one side.

Though in my ponderings of horn design, I keep coming back to using one as a subwoofer/fog horn. Give my 28 footer the same voice as a lighthouse, to keep from getting run over by big ships. "It sounded bigger than us!"

Also ran across this device... but I get the feeling that I'm not smart enough to wire it solder it into something! TI Delivers Low-Power Stereo Audio Codecs with 7-mW Playback for Portable Consumer Applications

[hellosailor]

Wheels-
"I thought I had just an average sail boat." Well, if your boat is about 24-28' OAL, it is about an average sailboat. At 36' it becomes the top 10% of the recreational market. For every foot over that, just knock another percent or so off.

Still feeling "average" ? [g]

[Alan Wheeler]

A really cheap and very efficient (and not bad sounding I might add), Horn and driver system is made by Motorola. I would imagine your "Radio Shack" may stock them. Dirt cheap and they use a Piezo driver. They have very high frq, bullet tweeters and horns, but they also do a little larger down into the midrange version as well. Very loud for very little power. The disadvantage is they do not take well to any clipping of an over driven amplifier. The DC component blows holes in the driver.

[Zach]

Very cool.

Did some wandering around cyberspace this evening, and found that some of the real high end drivers are shielded so they play nicely with other electronics. Wonder if the shielding helps with compasses?

Pulled up Radioshacks website (good idea) and tracked tripped over some loudspeakers, as in PA style loudspeakers. 102db at 40w. Model Model: 40-1440 24.99

Water resistant, indoor/outdoor.

Interesting idea, with the db rating I'll be interested to see how it performs at low volume levels. (Though it may require a mechanical stop on the volume knob to keep from blowing the windows out if anyone cranks it up!)

I'll head up to the store tomorrow and see if they'll let me hook one up to see how bad it sounds. I'm not even an audiophile and I'm squeemish at the thought... I'm just tickled at the possibility of being able to shout back at bridges! Or at least play some bag pipe music for that one just south of Norfolk........

[Alan Wheeler]

I have just been reading my latest issue of yachting world. They have advertised two marine stereo's.
Marine Electronics, Military Systems and GPS Navigation Systems - CA CLASE.co.uk and Waterproof Stereo Speakers, Remote Controls, iPod Accessories, Enclosures

[S/V Antares]

Great info on speakers and ear spliting stage systems but was the original question something like how much juice a 12v car type audio system uses?

Most 12v (ok , automotive based) systems are fused at 7 - 10 amps. The average listener will rarely use more that 2 or 3 amps as there is lots of empty space in most music. A single, continious bass note will draw the most current. This is because the voice coil(s) are being moved at maximum excursion. Heavey Metal is dense music and requires more power. A light folk tune will require much less power from the amplifier.

In practial use figure on a few amps unless you wish to annoy those around you and make the rigging rattle. So no Rap or Korn, Metalica etc and you can be very conservative with power consumption.

I have a 2 zone system with a 80w (20x4RMS) tuner & 4 speakers in the Main Salon and separate 100w 4 channel (25rms) amplifier driving a box subwoof in the seat locker and 2-4 inch speakers in the winch pockets. I am using about 5 Amps total with both zones at pretty high volume levels.

Hope this helps