Aspen FR30 - How much power required?

Loudspeakers
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I suspect most of this stuff about needing amps over around 200w into 8ohms, let alone 500w or 1000w, is more to do with testosterone than physics.

No sensible speaker manufacturer would design loudspeakers that need extremely powerful amplifiers, because anything over about 200w used to be very expensive and no mostly still is. It would just put people off buying them.

I have been using 85db Raidho that even in my cheaper model uses the same planar tweeter and small mid driver used in $200,000 models. Even with a 90w integrated amp costing $1,000 they sound glorious.

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While I enjoy a spirited debate, I agree, it may be time to put a bow on this particular post. The title may be a bit misleading, but I have enjoyed the discussion…

I think most agree, the Aspen’s can and will be driven to satisfactory levels with a wide variety of amplifiers (both tube and solid state) of reasonable power output, current delivery and damping factor

Best,
-JP

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125

Al you said it rightly time to clamp this one down…

Best wishes everyone

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126

I’ll stick with my statement.
If you don’t intend on having a vested interest you shouldn’t try to deter others from considering the purchase.
You wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) stand outside the BMW or Porsche store and try to chase customers away because you didn’t like the look of the offering. Especially if you didn’t already own one or have one ordered.
It’s just simple courtesy and common sense.

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127

How do I KNOW? Nearly the same way you you claim you know…Next time you go to the symphony, set your iPhone to record the dB at your listening position. You’ll be surprised what peaks it records!..

Try using a calibrated SPL meter yes? And no, no, no we all don’t need to stick a 105 dB peak orchestra in our living room to be “hi-fi” and that has been answered many times too. If you can reproduce the near dynamic contrast, that is what makes music seem effortless and live, not just the “peak” of the dynamics.

Of course if you want to “replicate” (we aren’t even close) an orchestra’s overall sound, not just SPL, you do indeed need to match the PEAK dynamics with a simple SPL measurement but that’s still one small piece of the puzzle. Go get that if you want it, but a nice sound is way more complicated than HOW LOUD AM I, CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? stuff.

Of course music is compressed as few to no speakers can play the dynamic RANGE properly of truly LOUD live music (it isn’t all loud by the way). A few dB off the top isn’t the end of the world, it could be the end of your hearing. And, it can address several other more important issues like, does the system reproduce the proper timbers of sound, not just the SPL. Drive them “properly” for who and what attributes? We all get to pick. Offer us our choices, don’t make it a demand. We aren’t all wanting to listen like you do. And you should absolutely get to do that, but others match attributes you don’t far better and the opposite. What’s your point? We can’t do that anymore if we aren’t LOUD enough? I don’t think you really mean that, though. But you offer the idea of perfection on SPL but to get that attribute too much has to be tossed that is more important to more users and that’s where we are today.

The SPL rating is science under the exact condition of the STATIC LOAD test. Paul is 100% correct that the DYNAMIC spectral envelope of the power used gets better and better the more resistive a speaker load is. If a speaker is near 100% reactive load at times in the low frequencies you could need 1000 watts playing music. Nothing moves the driver until it is a RESISTANCE to do WORK. Reactance stores current and voltage to be used “later” in time when loads become resistive. A charged capacitor has a lot of WORK stored in it. Put a resistor across the capacitor leads and THEN you get that work out of it across the resistior. Charging the capacitor back up takes TIME and again and the energy stored over time is not linear. The in-rush current decreases over about five time (circuit structure dermines how LONG one time constant is) constants to charge the capacitor. Each time constant stores far less energy stored than the previous one. Reactance steals immediate WORK of voltage and current.

In summary Pual isn’t pulling your leg. The more a speaker is a resistive load the LOUDER it can play as the power applied is doing more immediate WORK moving the drivers. Watts (work) is current squared times the RESISTIVE load vestor, not the reactance part. The power factor calculation is used for calculating exactly that loads true resistive value WORK can be applied to at that frequency.

Fun stuff but yes, it gets complicated. Your question could be asked backwards; “What do we give up to attain high realistic SPL in todays systems and at what cost?” That would answer the opposite side of the give and take we all try to master in this hobby. Certainly keep trying!

Best,
Galen Gareis

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128

Please show your SOURCES and their dynamic ranges, please. THEN it is the science. It is STILL the science with modern recorded music that is NOT a 20-25 dB dynamic range. The reality of the source material has to be accepted on most music. There needs to be a repeatable reference and the SPL test is just that attempt. It does not accurately describe dynamic load music performance entirely because a speaker isn’t the same efficiency at ALL frequencies but we report a SINGLE SPL number. That’s not science, either.

Best,
Galen

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129

I edited the topic title to more accurately reflect the conversation.

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130

No, most material does not have 20 dB dynamic range to “crush”. That the problem. We do not have reality in a bottle with the source materiual. SHOW ME your 20-25 dB dynamic range material. With that in practice, we have a different reference. Right now we don’t. 105 dB is a distorted reality as it isn’t referenced to the right real time SPL. We are still listening to compression @ 105 dB SPL peaks or not. Playing louder won’t fix the recorded dynamic range.

Best,
Galen Gareis

131

Galen’s statements above regarding a reactive load vs. resistive load are spot on (not surprising). My Sanders Sound Systems hybrid electrostats appear quite capacitive and present a challenging ~1 ohm load as frequency increases. My Sanders Magtech amps (2 stereo devices) each can provide 900W/channel into 4 ohms and are stable into very low and reactive impedance loads like these speakers. My system plays plenty loud but does require lots of power to get there due to difficult load.

The FR-30 should be a piece of cake to drive quite loud with less than my high powered amps.

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132

100W will give you a max output of around 92dB max.

No, because this isn’t at all frequencies and a speaker’s resistive load value is ever changing and no two speaker’s represent a true resistive load the same way across frequency (impedance curves show you that).

To try to compensate, a true resistive load calculation is done and is more or less a speaker’s power factor at worst case frequencies. How much of the load is resistive and thus can even start to make a sound at all.

If we had pure resistors as speakers this would be far easier to answer. We don’t.

Best,
Galen Gareis

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133

I made the same point to some self-righteous jerks in an “audiophile” group on FB who routinely shouted at the top of their keyboard lungs “SNAKE OIL!” anytime someone posted a hundred dollar cable for sale. It got me invited to leave. Or maybe I did that on my own. I don’t remember anymore.

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134

I can’t follow any of the science, but my impression is that you don’t need to wake the dead to get the maximum dynamics from a good recording that has a wide dynamic range and lots of transients. I would recommend “In the Middle Somewhat Elevated” by the composer Thom Willems. You can still do it at reasonably sociable and healthy listening levels, as long as your speakers are good enough.

Alan Shaw posted a video a while back showing a music source making peak demands of up to 500w (to his surprise). The music was not being played loud - he and his colleague could easily talk over it.

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135

This recording of Crumb’s “A Haunted Landscape” (on CD) has what must be about the largest dynamic range of any disc I have. I don’t know how that’s affected (if at all) by listening via streaming, but I suspect even in this form it would still be fun for folks to play with, including the gang at PSA. I’ve never measured it (not sure I would know how), but if you have it loud enough to hear the quietest audience cough, the immense crashes of instruments will knock you back a bit.

https://open.qobuz.com/track/4201724

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It is the “I don’t like it so you shouldn’t either” or “I can’t afford it so you shouldn’t want one” mentality.
Look at the current political nightmare in the USA. The one who shouts the loudest gets the most blind believers and no proof of anything is required. Sad state of affairs really.

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Thanks for mentioning it and here is it’s Tidal link as well:
George Crumb A Haunted Landscape

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138

I had sushi last night, but alas no apple pie.

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139

Good and proper dynamics are what you hear as well as how loud. When we try to get too loud with even modern speakers (modern digital can exceed what we can really play back) you have to be careful as we don’t all have the same capability for dynamics. We record maybe 15 dB average dynamic range and with some classical at 20-30 dB but real music is like 90 dB.

Our ears do fine with quick transients, it is the compressed continuous (Nickelback again!) stuff that hurts.

Me, I find quieter stuff that is closer to real life dynamics always sounds more real. And yes, when Nickelback backs off the SPL, the music sound oh so much better! I know I pick on that album but it is a great example of modern signal compression. LOUD just doesn’t have the right dynamic range anymore. Loud is in quotes as it is a RATIO to the reference floor volume (raised way up) as we can set the peak “volume” ourselves. We hear that dynamic ratio and yes, you keep thinking, “OK, I hope this stops soon” at ANY volume as the RATIO of dynamics is what is all messed up.

Big 105 dB peaks with massive compression to get there just isn’t fun to hear, or hi-fi.

Playing music LOUDER won’t fix the dynamic range. The OP is right that of we COULD capture the REAL dynamic range (closer we get the better it could sound, other variables not getting worse) we’d need a lot more power AND more efficient speakers help exactly how much power we need. But we can’t get close to real dynamics and better dynamics 80% of the time quieter is better than maximum compression to play LOAD. Some call that the loudness wars.

Best,
Galen

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A good question for Paul’s studio. To be able to hear the real quiet stuff, we artificially pull up the volume relative to the “loud” stuff. Thus we compress the dynamics. The less we do that the more awesome the transients are.

How much can we expand DOWN the FLOOR SPL values and not blow up people’s stuff when the maximum SPL is reached? There must be some sort of compression rule of thumb, or no? The recoding have to follow the playback and…we are not the majority of users. Even if we were, we have, as the original OP said, a big variation in that peak capability, still.

Best,
Galen

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141

Thanks for that— a lightbulb just went on!

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This is unsurprising. Recorded classical music especially has all sorts of exceedingly brief peaks (a sample wide to fracti0ons of a second) which an amplifier will respond.

It is an ongoing discussion among those of us who record classical as to how much of these little transients can you remove by limiting without impacting the sound. Doing so lets you bring the RMS of the sound up. The average consumer is much more comfortable with a recording they do not have to turn the volume up to listen to. I typically aim for an RMS value of -21dB or so (common for classical recordings). This results in dynamic range of over 20dB. (You want the peaks a little bit below 0dBFS.)

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