What is reference level REALLY mean? (1 Viewer)

[Seth_L]

Oops, nevermind. I didn't read Vaughan's question. Seth and John are right, but I do have doubts about taking *x* sensitivity and *y* power and then saying a system can do reference level.

True it depends on if the sensativity is maintained across most frequencies. Some speakers are rated at 1kHz. Others are fed pink or white noise.

Seth

 

[Michael R Price]

I was more concerned with the fact that speakers and amplifiers create a lot of distortion under stress that the specifications don't tell you about. I have large speakers with 92db rated (not actual) sensitivity and an 80 watt amp, and the system distorts *significantly* (not clipping, but rather harshness and loss of detail) at levels above 95db continuous/102db peak, in a 12x15 room at 8 feet away. I'm not sure how such performance in relatively compressed music would translate into performance handling loud scenes in a movie at reference level.

 

[Seth_L]

Sounds like you have a crappy amp Michael. When an amp is rated 100Wx6 at 20Hz-20kHz @.05% THD, that's precisely what it means. It has only .05% THD at 100W. If you're getting distortion with only 1 to 8 watts of power in use, you have a serious problem somewhere in your playback chain.

Seth

 

[Michael R Price]

Oh, I don't doubt it's a crappy amp. I just wanted to emphasize that (a) most speaker sensitivities are overrated (often by 3db or more) and (b) most cheap amps such as those in receivers don't always deliver their rated power, or simply sound bad even if THD is still supposedly low. (THD isn't the only kind of distortion...)
I need to hold off on more comments until I have first-hand experience driving my speakers to their limits with good quality amplifiers, which should be in a few weeks...

 

[EugeneR]

Stupid question time: does this mean that when calibrating the speakers with the LFE, the LFE should be 10db higher than the other speakers?

 

[RichardH]

No just calibrate so that everything's the same. The 10 dB boost gets taken care of in the decoding, inside your receiver.