Boom Shiva Part IV

[zhopudey]

I can never imagine myself (or the lady) to drive around with the audio spilling outside the vehicle

on a side note, thats the reason why I wouldn't install a sub in the car even if i were gettting it for free

Actually, I feel a sub is even more important if you listen at low volumes.

 

[low_bass_makker]

Actually, I feel a sub is even more important if you listen at low volumes.

I agree with you full 100%......the sub section which is the lower part of the sound spectrum make quite a change in the music.......I would say it will add weight to the music........and will make the sound feel more realistic......

 

[Vince]

Congrats Superczar! Hope u make the right choice in choosing an audio system

 

[Chaos]

That 80W amp of yours won't be able to output more than 10-15 real watt of power across the entire audio spectrum. First of all its rated at 1kHz and at 4 ohm. I'm not sure but I've never seen a home audio component being rated at 4 ohm. All high quality components are rated at 8 ohm. I guess this is probably the norm with car audio since the emphasis is on producing as much loudness as possible. So the equivalent power at 8 ohm is half that. Also 1kHz is one of the easiest frequencies to produce for any amp. If it were to deliver 80W at say 20kHz, the distortion would be a few orders of magnitude higher, whereas all home audio components are rated at their nominal power across the entire spectrum. That amp also doesn't mention whether that 80W was measured with all 4 channels driven or was it with just a single channel driven. So if I say my amp is 50W, it'll be able to produce 50W at 0.02% distortion whether it is 20Hz or 1kHz or 20kHz. So effectively that amp of urs is probably equivalent to a 10W NAD amp if one were to exist. As I said ur amp is massively overrated... nothing wrong with my hearing or my volume tolerance levels, nor is anything wrong with u claiming that you use an 80W amp.

Edit: That highly respected dude will still not be held in high regard in the audiophile community. All of his equipment combined would probably be cheaper than what some folks spend on cabling a reference stereo system .

Also here is a real 80W stereo amp... Just compare the weight of this to ur steg... u'll get a clue straightaway

NAD Electronics :: C352 Stereo Integrated Amplifier

 

[Nikhil]

Guys, please dont start criticising each other.

@LBM -- Chaos is a very reputed member here especially when it comes to audio.

Saying things like

"If you dont know about something it is normal to ask for excuses or stupid answers...."

or

Do you ever heard the term HEADROOM....if not then there is no use to discuss this topic further about powering the tweeter with a 80 watts amp.....and I dont think you have a little bit Idea about car audio.....and have you ever heard to horns which have a sensitivity of just 106 db....with which you can get so loud and I mean loud with just 15 watts....

And I also fear that your threshold of hearing is quite low......that you get fears with less than 50 watts......

You are also a very knowledgeable person (i am on t-bhp too) and it would be a very sad thing if you left TE.

Please keep the discussion civil.

 

[superczar]

Also here is a real 80W stereo amp... Just compare the weight of this to ur steg... u'll get a clue straightaway

on an offtopic note, my PM-17 weighs a whopping 16kg and is rated 60W RMS /8ohm at 0.01% THD...

The NAD is 7 kg and rated 80W and 0.03%THD

all the more reason to confirm my belief that we often read too much into specs ....

 

[Chaos]

^^Thats probably cos that PM-17 could have a pure class A mode for lower power. Atleast the older PM7200 which was a really nice amp rated at 50W had a 25W pure class A mode. The other reason could be that the PM-17 is a dual mono design which makes it really heavy .

 

[low_bass_makker]

That 80W amp of yours won't be able to output more than 10-15 real watt of power across the entire audio spectrum. First of all its rated at 1kHz and at 4 ohm. I'm not sure but I've never seen a home audio component being rated at 4 ohm. All high quality components are rated at 8 ohm. I guess this is probably the norm with car audio since the emphasis is on producing as much loudness as possible. So the equivalent power at 8 ohm is half that. Also 1kHz is one of the easiest frequencies to produce for any amp. If it were to deliver 80W at say 20kHz, the distortion would be a few orders of magnitude higher, whereas all home audio components are rated at their nominal power across the entire spectrum. That amp also doesn't mention whether that 80W was measured with all 4 channels driven or was it with just a single channel driven. So if I say my amp is 50W, it'll be able to produce 50W at 0.02% distortion whether it is 20Hz or 1kHz or 20kHz. So effectively that amp of urs is probably equivalent to a 10W NAD amp if one were to exist. As I said ur amp is massively overrated... nothing wrong with my hearing or my volume tolerance levels, nor is anything wrong with u claiming that you use an 80W amp.

Edit: That highly respected dude will still not be held in high regard in the audiophile community. All of his equipment combined would probably be cheaper than what some folks spend on cabling a reference stereo system .

Also here is a real 80W stereo amp... Just compare the weight of this to ur steg... u'll get a clue straightaway

NAD Electronics :: C352 Stereo Integrated Amplifier

80 watts in all across the entire audio spectrum.....I did not read it clearly....are you saying that the amp is capable of 10-15 watts power only.....HEHEHEHE......sir are you joking or are you out of your mind....

I think you dont know a single thing about car audio...the car audio stuff is majority 4 ohms stuff as we need power in small packages....we dont have a luxury of space in a automobile...as if you must knew that if there is a perfect amp is rated 50 watts in 8 ohms it will give 100 in 4 ohms and 200 in 2 ohms....like the amp I am considering for my subs....here are its specs...

and please take care to read all of the specs throughly as you tend to miss quite important stuff ......in the specs you can clear see the amp rating....

335 x 2 at 4 ohms , 650 x 2 at 2 ohms , 1200 x 2 at 1 ohms (at 1 ohms the amp must have a solid built or it will go out in flames).....

If you have read care fully before the amp is a 4 channel amp with 80 watts in per channel.....here are the specs again if you feel to read them again....and please do it thoroughly as I will not be posting it again....

I think you doubt what the amp can achieve....the here is a nice article in which a good car audio magazine has reviewed it with a lots of listening and measurement test to show how the amp is rated and what it can achive....(please read the last two page as the most of the measurement result are on those pages)

now if we compare the NAD with STEG acording to the specs....both are equally placed....with lots of the specs comparable....

like the damping factor ......it means the power of the amp to control the movement of the speaker when the speaker produces back current.....

the NAD is have just 150 and the steg is having just 1000

the NAD is having a S/N A-weighted at 1 watt power is 100 db but the Steg is having of just 107 db at 90 % power

the frequency response of the NAD is 20Hz-20kHz ±0.3dB and 3Hz/70kHz -3dB but the steg is having the response of just 20-150khz -3db

and I dont think these spec are over rated a little bit as they are very much comparable to the specs given by the manufacture and reviewer of the magazine.....

also I am using two of the beasts in my car.....:hap2:

Guys, please dont start criticising each other.

@LBM -- Chaos is a very reputed member here especially when it comes to audio.

Saying things like

or

You are also a very knowledgeable person (i am on t-bhp too) and it would be a very sad thing if you left TE.

Please keep the discussion civil.

Sir I am try to keep the discussion as simple as I can....but I dont think he will understand a thing I have said above and will again give a stupid theory of home audio again....I am here to firstly to gain Knowledge and to a share a bit of mine......but I cannot help even if one is not accepting facts and figure....and giving lame excuses.........even if he is a reputed member here and does not like to be pulled by the leg if he is wrong at some place........I know if I am right I will always stand for it....

on an offtopic note, my PM-17 weighs a whopping 16kg and is rated 60W RMS /8ohm at 0.01% THD...
The NAD is 7 kg and rated 80W and 0.03%THD

all the more reason to confirm my belief that we often read too much into specs ....

^^Thats probably cos that PM-17 could have a pure class A mode for lower power. Atleast the older PM7200 which was a really nice amp rated at 50W had a 25W pure class A mode. The other reason could be that the PM-17 is a dual mono design which makes it really heavy .

the home theater amps are heavy as they have torodial transformer built to convert the AC supply to DC supply to power them......but the car amp have a DC-DC converter which is quite small when compared to a home audio power supply....and the major part of the amp is the power supply only both in a car and home audio....also a good clean power supply is the heart of a good amp.......

 

[superczar]

the home theater amps are heavy as they have torodial transformer built to convert the AC supply to DC supply to power them......but the car amp have a DC-DC converter which is quite small when compared to a home audio power supply....and the major part of the amp is the power supply only both in a car and home audio....also a good clean power supply is the heart of a good amp.......

hmm..that sounds logical....

but what I stilll don't get is this..

let's say this steg is 80W RMS, or say even 50 in real life, but what good would it serve to feed tweeters with a HPF of 4Khz ...

after all those spks wouldn't need that kind of power anyway?

 

[low_bass_makker]

hmm..that sounds logical....

but what I stilll don't get is this..

let's say this steg is 80W RMS, or say even 50 in real life, but what good would it serve to feed tweeters with a HPF of 4Khz ...

after all those spks wouldn't need that kind of power anyway?

First thing the STEG is 80 watts rms and in the real world it is also 80 watts rms.....no doubt in that.....

Ya I agree the 80 watts rms is to much power for a tweeter.....only 10-15 watts is more than enough.....as there will be lots of headroom and the amp will never go into clipping and the final result will be clean music......

right now I am running the front stage at 290 watts rms (real one at whole freq spread) in to the DLS iridium. 6.3 3-way setup....and they sound quite nice clean and musical also.....

 

[Chaos]

80 watts in all across the entire audio spectrum.....I did not read it clearly....are you saying that the amp is capable of 10-15 watts power only.....HEHEHEHE......sir are you joking or are you out of your mind....

I think you dont know a single thing about car audio...the car audio stuff is majority 4 ohms stuff as we need power in small packages....we dont have a luxury of space in a automobile...as if you must knew that if there is a perfect amp is rated 50 watts in 8 ohms it will give 100 in 4 ohms and 200 in 2 ohms....like the amp I am considering for my subs....here are its specs...

and please take care to read all of the specs throughly as you tend to miss quite important stuff ......in the specs you can clear see the amp rating....

Looks like u've not read the specs urself... If you read it, you'd not be blabbering. Even in this one THD and power specs are measured at 1kHz. If it were measured from 20Hz-20kHz, it'd be a lot lot lower. Unless you choose to ignore the important facts, you'd have noticed by now that the distortion at 1/2 the rated power is 0.2% at 15kHz. Read again... Page 63... the big grey box . So you know how much power it'll output at 0.03% distortion at that frequency. Compare that to the NAD which is rated at 80W for 0.03% distortion figures even at 20kHz.

335 x 2 at 4 ohms , 650 x 2 at 2 ohms , 1200 x 2 at 1 ohms (at 1 ohms the amp must have a solid built or it will go out in flames).....

If you have read care fully before the amp is a 4 channel amp with 80 watts in per channel.....here are the specs again if you feel to read them again....and please do it thoroughly as I will not be posting it again....

I think you doubt what the amp can achieve....the here is a nice article in which a good car audio magazine has reviewed it with a lots of listening and measurement test to show how the amp is rated and what it can achive....(please read the last two page as the most of the measurement result are on those pages)

now if we compare the NAD with STEG acording to the specs....both are equally placed....with lots of the specs comparable....

like the damping factor ......it means the power of the amp to control the movement of the speaker when the speaker produces back current.....

the NAD is have just 150 and the steg is having just 1000

the NAD is having a S/N A-weighted at 1 watt power is 100 db but the Steg is having of just 107 db at 90 % power

the frequency response of the NAD is 20Hz-20kHz ±0.3dB and 3Hz/70kHz -3dB but the steg is having the response of just 20-150khz -3db

The damping factor drops rapidly with frequency. Your test itself says that the damping factor is 364 at 15kHz. If they had tested for 20kHz, it'd have probably dropped to 150 or less as the NAD amp states. The 1000 damping factor is with the 1kHz standard test signal whereas the damping factor for the NAD is across the entire frequency spectrum. Also if you read properly, the S/N ratio of the NAD is 120dB at the rated power of 80W. About frequency response, well the NAD goes down to 20Hz whereas ur steg doesn't. -3db is a huge drop and if it drops so much at 20Hz itself, there's no way it can amplify a signal for a sub woofer. If you are planning to use this as a subwoofer amp, ur subwoofer won't produce any signal in the 20-25Hz band . Whearas on the top end, beyond 40kHz is useless anyway. Its said that though human beings can only hear upto 20kHz, they can feel upto 40kHz. In any case, CDs contain information only upto 20kHz. So its basically
academic to compare the limits of high frequency. Also compare the price... The NAD is available for about 30k in India and 20k elsewhere. How much does the Steg cost? Probably 5 times that much. We shouldn't even be comparing these two amps, we should probably compare a Plinius integrated instead of this, which no doubt will pummel ur steg completely.

Ofcourse all these specs mean jack. There's no way the steg will be as musical as any decent stereo amp. Folks buy amps based upon how they sound and not how much power they produce. Musicality is something thats non existent in car audio. First of all there's no 3 dimensional soundstage. Secondly the sources in case of car audio are pathetically poor. You obviously have no idea to what lengths people go to tune their transport in home audio. Compare that to a car cd player, where the CD is jumping around in the transport. Let us not compare the specs of the source in a car CD player as even a cheap humble philips DVD player will probably have better jitter figures than the best car head unit.

You tend to
and I dont think these spec are over rated a little bit as they are very much comparable to the specs given by the manufacture and reviewer of the magazine.....

also I am using two of the beasts in my car.....:hap2:
Sir I am try to keep the discussion as simple as I can....but I dont think he will understand a thing I have said above and will again give a stupid theory of home audio again....I am here to firstly to gain Knowledge and to a share a bit of mine......but I cannot help even if one is not accepting facts and figure....and giving lame excuses.........even if he is a reputed member here and does not like to be pulled by the leg if he is wrong at some place........I know if I am right I will always stand for it....

Dude... learn to mind ur language and not lose your cool. You are the one who is arguing and not looking at the specs, not me.

the home theater amps are heavy as they have torodial transformer built to convert the AC supply to DC supply to power them......but the car amp have a DC-DC converter which is quite small when compared to a home audio power supply....and the major part of the amp is the power supply only both in a car and home audio....also a good clean power supply is the heart of a good amp.......

Probably true!

 

[low_bass_makker]

Looks like u've not read the specs urself... If you read it, you'd not be blabbering. Even in this one THD and power specs are measured at 1kHz. If it were measured from 20Hz-20kHz, it'd be a lot lot lower. Unless you choose to ignore the important facts, you'd have noticed by now that the distortion at 1/2 the rated power is 0.2% at 15kHz. Read again... Page 63... the big grey box . So you know how much power it'll output at 0.03% distortion at that frequency. Compare that to the NAD which is rated at 80W for 0.03% distortion figures even at 20kHz.

The damping factor drops rapidly with frequency. Your test itself says that the damping factor is 364 at 15kHz. If they had tested for 20kHz, it'd have probably dropped to 150 or less as the NAD amp states. The 1000 damping factor is with the 1kHz standard test signal whereas the damping factor for the NAD is across the entire frequency spectrum. Also if you read properly, the S/N ratio of the NAD is 120dB at the rated power of 80W. About frequency response, well the NAD goes down to 20Hz whereas ur steg doesn't. -3db is a huge drop and if it drops so much at 20Hz itself, there's no way it can amplify a signal for a sub woofer. If you are planning to use this as a subwoofer amp, ur subwoofer won't produce any signal in the 20-25Hz band . Whearas on the top end, beyond 40kHz is useless anyway. Its said that though human beings can only hear upto 20kHz, they can feel upto 40kHz. In any case, CDs contain information only upto 20kHz. So its basically
academic to compare the limits of high frequency. Also compare the price... The NAD is available for about 30k in India and 20k elsewhere. How much does the Steg cost? Probably 5 times that much. We shouldn't even be comparing these two amps, we should probably compare a Plinius integrated instead of this, which no doubt will pummel ur steg completely.

Ofcourse all these specs mean jack. There's no way the steg will be as musical as any decent stereo amp. Folks buy amps based upon how they sound and not how much power they produce. Musicality is something thats non existent in car audio. First of all there's no 3 dimensional soundstage. Secondly the sources in case of car audio are pathetically poor. You obviously have no idea to what lengths people go to tune their transport in home audio. Compare that to a car cd player, where the CD is jumping around in the transport. Let us not compare the specs of the source in a car CD player as even a cheap humble philips DVD player will probably have better jitter figures than the best car head unit.

Dude... learn to mind ur language and not lose your cool. You are the one who is arguing and not looking at the specs, not me.

here is a graph you can graph which clearly shows the distortion ratio at the rated power output...

which is quite below the 0.01 % mark at the rated output.....and one more thing can you even tell the differnce between 0.01 and 0.1 thd with your ears....I hope not....

I think If you knew something about amps you would have not said damping factor at 15khz...and dont say it to any good audiophile also or else he will think you as a fool..........as I think a good audiophile must knew that damping factor is considered for low freq (10hz to 1000 hz max) only not for higher freq.....because the tweeter does not vibrate while producing music but woofer and because the woofer vibrates there impedance changes then the damping factor comes in to picture ( i think you must know a bit on resistance and impedance of a speaker)....here is a nice topic by CROWN who makes some very fine amplifier for studio and PA application....now the STEG at 60 hz is having a DF of 10000 and at 1khz it is 4444....which will give very good result and perfect control over the woofer section.....as it is only affected.....

http://www.crownaudio.com/pdf/amps/damping_factor.pdf

the STEG 4 ch 80 watts amp cost about 45k.....which when compared to NAD at 30k I am getting 2 channels extra at the price increase of 50 % only.........

here are few example of some good HU (sources) for car audio.....

Alpine Electronics of America, Inc. - DVI-9990

Pioneer Premier DEX-P9/DEQ-P9 Car Audio Head Unit - Car Audio and Electronics Magazine
I would suggest get your books update on the subject of CAR AUDIO as it has evolved quite a lot.......

 

[zhopudey]

Hey chaos
Sorry to butt in, but I believe your basic point is that home audio is better than car audio. While I am inclined to believe that, I completely fail to understand what it has to do with this thread. Or any other thread about ICE posted here.
Do you intend to bring up the same point anytime LBM posts here? Can't you grind your bone with him thru PM? Or better still, go post on team-bhp where all this tech talk will make sense. Or else, invite LBM to join hifi-forum.de and continue your discussion there.

Chillax

 

[superczar]

Guys, just wondering out aloud...

Even though this system would never be played @ over 25% volume, would it still be a good idea to put in an amp... (after all clipping shouldn't happen at low volumes?)

if yes.. how do I go about it

 

[Chaos]

Hey chaos
Sorry to butt in, but I believe your basic point is that home audio is better than car audio. While I am inclined to believe that, I completely fail to understand what it has to do with this thread. Or any other thread about ICE posted here.
Do you intend to bring up the same point anytime LBM posts here? Can't you grind your bone with him thru PM? Or better still, go post on team-bhp where all this tech talk will make sense. Or else, invite LBM to join hifi-forum.de and continue your discussion there.

Chillax

Hey man I was not the one who dragged us into this... remember how it started? LBM was boasting about his tweeters being supplied by an 80W amp. All I said was that is lame and look where it dragged on to. I had no intention of dragging further either.

 

[zhopudey]

Hey man I was not the one who dragged us into this... remember how it started? LBM was boasting about his tweeters being supplied by an 80W amp. All I said was that is lame and look where it dragged on to. I had no intention of dragging further either.

LBM was not boasting :tongue: And you did not just call it lame, but you went ahead and basically challenged him by making a statement like "Ever heard the klipsch horns? 98dB sensitivity", without even bothering to ask what tweeters he has. Are you trying to imply that high-sensitivity speakers are the holy grail of audio? Then why hasn't world + dog switched to horns? Why would high-end companies like Thiel make speakers with sensitivity <86dB ? (and impedance dropping to 2ohm). Why would B&W make reference speakers which don't even wake up with less than 200W ?
You of course have heard about the nautilus.

The B&W Nautilus has been greeted worldwide as an outstanding loudspeaker which will shape the direction of the audio industry well into the new millennium. Already sought after by cognoscenti, it has been unashamedly designed with the serious audiophile in mind, not only because of its size and shape but also because of its active design – the crossover network is positioned between the pre and power amplifiers.

This means that a full Nautilus system needs one stereo pre-amplifier and eight monobloc or four stereo power amplifiers per pair (amplifiers of 100W upwards are recommended, with 500W being the optimum for the low frequency drive unit).

 

[Chaos]

LBM was not boasting :tongue: And you did not just call it lame, but you went ahead and basically challenged him by making a statement like "Ever heard the klipsch horns? 98dB sensitivity", without even bothering to ask what tweeters he has. Are you trying to imply that high-sensitivity speakers are the holy grail of audio? Then why hasn't world + dog switched to horns? Why would high-end companies like Thiel make speakers with sensitivity <86dB ? (and impedance dropping to 2ohm). Why would B&W make reference speakers which don't even wake up with less than 200W ?

You of course have heard about the nautilus.

Agreed that quoting klipsch horns was a mistake on my part. But then again he's not driving a B&W Nautilus with those amps . Car audio speakers have high sensitivity... typically 90dB+. Infact the notoriously inefficient dynaudio makes car speakers that have 90dB sensitivity.... here take a look

Car Audio by Dynaudio: 2-Way Systems

Is 80W really required for a 90dB+ sensitivity tweeter?

 

[zhopudey]

"really required"? Dude, how can you even ask such a question when it comes to audio equipment :rofl:

 

[greenhorn]

All high quality components are rated at 8 ohm. I guess this is probably the norm with car audio since the emphasis is on producing as much loudness as possible.

Actually Chaos, most car audio drivers are 4 Ohm by default , and I've seen a few 2 Ohm ones :ashamed:when you're trying to squeeze the max juice out of a 12 V dc supply . it helps to have a lower impedance, not that it helps any THD figures

[OT]noob doubt about car audio[/OT]

a car amp is powered by a 12(14.4 Nominal)V Dc supply. assuming that we're running the amp in bridged mode, how can you get 50W RMS ?

even if you connected 4 Ohms directly across the supply rails, you'd get only 12^2/4 = 144/4 = 36.

on a thumb rule,accounting for class B amp efficiency, i'd guess it could give about 36*.7 = ~ 25 W with about 2~5% THD

or do they have a Switch mode Step up DC -DC converter in there ?

PS: me too contemplating getting infinity reference for me first car :hap2: . I plan to skip teh CD player entirely and get hold of one of em USB playing Pioneer HU's .

 

[Chaos]

@zhop: Spend it on a better 30-40 watter. You know and so do I that watts is not everything . More is better is only applicable when there are no better choices .