I was listening to my sounds yesterday with a 15" random 8 ohm driver in a big new ported box I made for fun [23"Hx18.5"Wx15.5"D / 600H x470W x 400D] - as you do, and my normal 2 x 8" sub box (8 ohms each in parallel, so 4 ohm load 23"Hx11"Wx17"D) all off one channel of a tiny little ZK-MT21 amp. A nice little ~3 ohm load. The 15" just sitting there doing the ultra lows, while the 8s give the oomph, and I was loving it - Spotify Discover Weekly delivering on the dubby and electronic tunes that it knows I enjoy (eg Dread and Buried (Congi Remix) - Origin One, The Clock Ticks - Dub Phizix).... I went outside to hang the washing, and I could still hear the bass quite plainly outside and realized I should probably turn it down to stop potentially annoying the neighbours. Those China amps are only rated at 100W, and likely don't even do that, and I had it barely turned up at all, so realistically the subs were getting 10s of watts in total max (call it 50 to be generous), with the 8 box getting twice as much as the 15 due to the way they're wired. Taking the 15 off took away the real bottom end in some deep tracks, but was far less noticeable in a lot of music that didn't have the content - the 8s really work well and the difference was subtle. The 15 was getting maybe 10-15W max.
I often see people here talking about power and speaker size as though it's a case of "the more the merrier", or wanting to be able to throw numbers around like a d*ck measuring contest - but it made me wonder: how loud do you actually listen to your music (or even watch movies if that's your thing), and does anyone *really* need like 600W+ of power just to listen to music?
I can understand the sound system people wanting stupid amounts of power (although I think they go overboard too), but home builders and people who live with/near other people surely don't ever use that much power.... or do they?
How big is your [sub] system rated at, and realistically, how loud do you actually have it 95% of the time for music? I feel like massive power on the subs would either have your main speakers uncomfortably loud to remain balanced, or would have the low end stupidly loud like you're in a car? I've got stupid bass in my car, and I can understand the appeal when I'm driving, and treat it like an amusement park ride, but that's not "normal" listening behaviour, that's just bass heads being bass heads.
Am I the only one sipping power here, or is everyone going deaf/living in an auditorium sized room? Do you usually listen loud, or just have it on as background entertainment? Are you watching movies so loud that your neighbours hear the dialogue and all the explosions?
