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Speaker Power Distance

This document discusses how speaker sensitivity, power, and distance affect the sound pressure level (SPL) output of a speaker. It explains that speaker sensitivity rated in decibels (dB) at a set distance is a better indicator of maximum output than power handling alone. Doubling the power only increases SPL by 3dB until the power handling limit. Halving the measurement distance increases SPL by around 6dB. The document provides examples of how to calculate the required speaker sensitivity based on desired SPL at a given distance and available power.

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Wilnordave Nemeño
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54 views6 pages

Speaker Power Distance

This document discusses how speaker sensitivity, power, and distance affect the sound pressure level (SPL) output of a speaker. It explains that speaker sensitivity rated in decibels (dB) at a set distance is a better indicator of maximum output than power handling alone. Doubling the power only increases SPL by 3dB until the power handling limit. Halving the measurement distance increases SPL by around 6dB. The document provides examples of how to calculate the required speaker sensitivity based on desired SPL at a given distance and available power.

Uploaded by

Wilnordave Nemeño
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 6

WHITEPAPERS

Speaker
Power & Distance

PUIAUDIO.COM
Table
of Contents
Speaker Sensitivity 3

The Effect of Power on SPL 4

The Effect of Distance on SPL 5


Conclusion 6
3

Speaker
Sensitivity
When designers and engineers consider a
speaker to integrate into their product, most
focus on the speaker’s power handling as a
gauge of how loud a speaker can play and
it's quality.

More attention needs to be paid to the


sensitivity rating of a speaker, which we call out
as the SPL rating on our speaker specifications.
This SPL rating is listed with a given input at a
fixed distance. When both the power handling
and SPL ratings are considered, one can start
to get the true picture of a speaker’s maximum
output capability.

Let’s take a look at one of our louder


speakers, the AS06608PS-R.
4

The Effect of
Power on SPL
You have to double the input power to
produce a 3 dB increase in sound output
(assuming the speaker is not reaching its
limits). Therefore we can produce a table for
how loud the speaker will play with a specific
starting power:

For each doubling of input power to the


speaker, there will be a 3 dB increase in
output. Take note of the power handling limit
highlighted in yellow. What this illustrates is
that additional power only adds a small
amount of additional sound pressure over the
initial SPL measured with 1 watt of input
power. With most speakers, 80% to 90% of
their maximum output is generated in that
first watt.

Many customers exceed the speaker’s power


rating to squeeze just a little more output
from a speaker. While this might not
immediately damage the speaker, it does
place additional stress on the tinsel leads
(circled in red below) that connect the
electrical terminals to the speaker’s voice coil.
If stressed for too long, these will break, and
the speaker will fail to operate.

Sending a clipped signal can also


damage the tinsel leads, as well as
overheat the voice coil. This is
mostly due to the speaker being
forced to its inner and outermost
positions for too long.
5

The Effect of
Distance on SPL
Another consideration to take into account is
distance. A speaker with a sensitivity rating of 95
dB @ 1W/50cm, has the same SPL as a speaker
rated at 89 dB @ 1W/1m and the same as a
speaker rated at 109 dB @ 1W/10 cm.

This is due to a ~6 dB increase with each halving


of the measurement distance, and a 20 dB
increase when decreasing the distance to 1/10 of
the original, giving us the tables below.

Keep in mind that this works in reverse as well.


A speaker rated at 95 dB at 10 cm will
measure 75 dB at 1 meter and a speaker with
a rating of 100 dB at 1 meter will measure 106
dB at 50 cm or 84.44 dB at 6 meters.
6

Now that we
have done the
math, let us look
at where this
leaves us.
If you need a measured sound pressure level of
80 dB at 3 meters, and you have 4 watts
available from your amplifier, the needed
sensitivity at 1 watt and measured at 1 meter
would be 83.54 dB and the speaker would need
to have a rated input power of 4 watts.

Here is how we arrived at that number:


• Add 9.54 to 80 to arrive at what SPL the
speaker will need to achieve at 1 meter.
• Subtract 6 dB for the amount of gain from the
power increase from 1 watt to 4 watts.

Additional
whitepapers at:
puiaudio.com/pages/whitepapers

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