Loudness

["" <party_man1@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Scorcher wrote , 

Excerpt :

OK, I'm going the wrong way, again.
We've all been discussing how to play at "reasonable" sound levels,
but I just have to ask a question about how to get louder.

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Hey Scorcher :

Rule of thumb about loudness is this . To double the volume you need 3 times the power or in some cases of sound re-enforcement issues 4X if your covering a group of instruments & vocals , (<--<<-  called complex wave(s) form or signal(s) )  than you started with  . 

The amout of power in your amp will not increase if you add any combination of different speaker arrays , what you will  get is a modification to the sound as far as what these different speakers have to offer in their tonal charactaristcs and or what you get in that array also is anyones guess   depending on the speakers ohms and how you hook them up ( series or parrallel or series parrallel in arrays of more than 2 , their impedence dictates what hook is safe ) and if you lower the  impedense you will make the out put signal hotter due to the lowered resistance in the signal path ( say going from 8 ohms to 2 ) you will get a louder amp due in part to the lowering of resistance in the amps audio output , zero ohms is like taking the speaker wires and connecting them together sans a speaker . Get the picture , lower ohms mean a hotter signal and the amp is red lining and when that happens , THD  levels increase ( THD->>--> T= Total H= Harmonic D= Distortion to the signal , <!
 your harp  ! > ) , or close to its optimum which means in simple terms your working that mule closer and closer to death . A single instrument will not distort as bad as multiple signals (complex wave forms ) and might depending on the amp handle a lower resistance factor ,  case in point :

Crown power amps are known as standards in the industry for many reasons and for many years , they are super study . Once at the CES show in las Vegas a Crown representative did something I thought to be lunaticish and a half , he took  the speaker leads of a working amp ( amp was rated 400 watts @ 2 ohms , 200 watts at 8 ohms 100 watts  at 16 ohms ) and then shorted them to  each other ( positive to negative ) and ---- the amp took it and did not burn up the output X-tors  while the wires did throw some sparks and heated up very hot ! When he hooked them to the speaker again it sounded no different than it did prior to the shorting of the wires . Why ? Because some one at Crown designed the amps to with stand a shorted out put under any condition(s) ( a long long time ago ). Now a Crown amp is not cheap and the reasons for it I just explained . I have never seen another amp demonstrated in the same manner because they are not designed to take a direct short , do it to any o!
ther amp and you got french fried X-tor(s) or tube(s) that glow like a light bulb before they go dead . Crown amps rule because they can opperate a 2 ohm load and keep on ticking and do it with relatively no noticable distortion ( maybe 1% THD tops at 2 ohms , .5 THD @ 8ohms ect.. ) for hours and hours . A 2 ohm value in resistance also makes the amp ( any amp ) put out the ultimate hot as hell output temps ( that's why you see those little fans working to cool the outputs ) . 2 ohms on many  amps will just fry the out put X-tors ( tubes take a beating much better than a silcone X-sistor circuit , most times a X-tor with a snap lowering of resistance pop like a pencil under the stress while tubes can expand and contract as  they heat up and not go open or short out  , I have seen ( my own tube amp ) tube amps operate with a shorted out power tube , operating with just one EL-34 , to be truthful it sounded real cool and since tube amps as mentioned earlier in this post can  h!
andle heat better ( they have to handle  heat better than X-sistors to accommodate the normal heat a tube generates with the wattage requirements they need to make them work )and work on though albeit with a higher THD factor . 

Consider a tube like a slow blow fuse and a silicone X-sistor  like a plane quick blowing in line power supply fuse . Put a quick blowing fuse in  big power amp's power supply and watch  it burn out on turn on and go open , while the slow blow expands and contracts as the intial power surge heats it up and it expands and contracts at light speeds ( electric signals travel close to the speed of light )  . 

I hope this gives you further insight to help you go where you wanna get . Judging from  what you said about your 30 RMS watter , I would suppose a bigger amp ( watts out put in the amps final , not the amount of watts to run the whole shooting works [ pre amp and power amp ,reverb unit if it has one & power supply wattage used to operate , added together = total wattage at the electric wall plug ] ) is what will fianally satisfy you , so behave and maybe Santa will leave you a 60 , 100 watt RMS ( R=root , M=Means S-squred )  amp under you Christmas tree :-)

Easy Scorcher don't blow a x-sistor now and Merry Christmas .

Sincerely :

HR

Aka : 

Party_Man1@xxxxxxxxxx



   



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