Speaker "Power Handling" ratings. What they really mean!
So you've seen speakers that say "1600 watts" and you think to yourself, where am I going to get an amplifier and the charging system to feed it for a sub like that? Well, let's answer some common questions and clear up a few even more common misconceptions about power handling specs on speakers.
A speaker usually has two power handling ratings. RMS and Peak or Max ratings, measured in watts. I would first like to point out that these ratings are thermal ratings. This means that the power ratings are meant to tell you how much heat a speaker's voice coil(s) can handle as measured in watts, without incurring damage. It is important to realize that this has no relation to the amount of power the speaker actually needs to reach it's peak mechanical output. That amount of power is generally less than what the speaker "can take" and is dependant on both the speaker's design as well as the enclosureinto which the speaker is placed.
Defining RMS and Peak power handling: RMS (more accurately called continuous power handling) is the measure of how much power the speaker can enfure for extended, continuous periods of use. This is an average rating since music, and thus the power required to produce it, is dynamic in nature and varies greatly from moment to moment depending on the frequency being produced and mechanical characteristics of the amplifier and speaker. When pairing an amplifier and speaker or speakers, you should try to match the amplifier's power output to about 80% of the RMS rating of the speakers, at the load they'll present to the amplifier. This is a good, safe region to aim for if you're unsure of how much power the speakers actually need, and is a very generalized rule of thumb. Note that RMS ratings for speakers apply to a clean, AC voltage being applied to the speaker. If the signal is clipped in any way, the resulting DC voltage will cause the coils to heat more quickly and to greater temperatures, causing damage at what may be an amount of power well below that of the RMS rating.
Peak ratings are strictly meant to tell you how much heat the voice coils of the speaker can take for a brief, momentary burst of power without essentialy blowing apart the speaker or melting the coils on the spot. This measurement isn't very useful in real world application so it's best left ignored for the most part.
In conclusion, please keep in mind that just because a speaker may say it's rated for 2000 watts RMS, that by no means implies that you actually need that much power to get full output from the speaker. In fact you may need as little as 300 watts RMS to achieve peak excursion in teh right enclosure. This is a common misunderstanding by a large contingent of the car audio world, and one well worth addressing. This is why many people will tell you that you don't always need thousands of watts of power to have a loud system.
lucas that's going to depend entirely on the components you go with..
What do you think of about 125x4 instead of 250x2. I was thinking about running four components to help keep up, but wasn't sure if twice the speakers or twice the power was the answer. I know with subs if you double surface you gain 3db and if you double power you gain 3db. I assume its the same for components right? Which way to go....