/ Register

Aguilar Cabs - Why The Low Wattage Ratings?

Discussion in 'Amps and Cabs [BG]' started by Quadzilla, Nov 22, 2005.

  1. Nov 22, 2005 #1
    Quadzilla

    Quadzilla Supporting Member

    Feb 11, 2002
    Maryland Burbs (horse-country)
    As some (or most) of you know, I'm a big fan of Aggie cabs and have a few. I know that they use Eminence drivers (custom made to Aggie's specs). The thing that I noticed was that if you look at a Aggie driver, let's just say a 12" from their GS series, and a standard Eminence off the shelf driver, they both have similar specs (56 oz magnets, same size voice coil I believe, etc). The only outwardly noticable difference is the significantly lower wattage rating of the Aggie speaker (in this case the Eminence version (Delta LF) = 500 watts vs the Aggie rating of 300 watts for the GS112 (and some of that wattage is going to the tweeter).

    So what gives? Does Eminence overstate watts? Does Aggie largely understate watts? Or is it that the speakers that Eminence custom builds for Aggie are that much different than the off the shelf ones? Maybe Aggie rates their speakers for tube watts and Eminence rates theirs for solid state watts? Anyone????
     
  2. Nov 22, 2005 #2
    Dan1099

    Dan1099 Dumbing My Process Down

    Aug 7, 2004
    Michigan
    Tube watts and solid state watts? A watt is a watt is a watt.

    Good question, though. I'm interested in hearing any responses people might have.
     
  3. Nov 22, 2005 #3
    Quadzilla

    Quadzilla Supporting Member

    Feb 11, 2002
    Maryland Burbs (horse-country)
    One would think a watt is a watt, but many manufactures of heads under or (more commonly) over state watts. The speaker and can manufactures have to deal with this somehow. This is taking this a little off topic as I was more interested in Eminence soff the shelve ratings vs Aggie (who uses Eminence to make their speakers).
     
  4. Nov 22, 2005 #4
    alexclaber

    alexclaber Commercial User

    Jun 19, 2001
    Brighton, UK
    Director - Barefaced Ltd
    For bass use the thermal rating is all but irrelevant. It's Xmax and Xmech that matter.

    I've heard on the grapevine that there are health issues with Kapton (the high temperature former which has allowed such high thermal ratings) which may force it to be removed from the market; in which case we may see thermal ratings returning to closer to the mechanical ratings of the speakers.

    Alex
     
  5. Nov 22, 2005 #5
    Chasarms

    Chasarms Casual Observer

    May 24, 2001
    Saint Louis, MO USA

    Just add and perhaps clarify, it is as much about the design of the cabinet itself as it is the voicecoil rating.

    For example, a woofer can typically handle more wattage in a sealed system that it could in a ported system. It will fail with even less wattage in free air.

    In a sealed system, the movement of the speaker is buffered by the volume of air in the cabinet. A ported system does the same thing to a lesser degree and a free air system offers no buffering at all. The actual size of the cabinet and size and design of the porting regulate these effects.
     
  6. Nov 27, 2005 #6
    Dave B.

    Dave B. Guest

    Nov 8, 2003
    I was out for turkey day traveling. Our JDK-12 (speaker that is in the GS 112) could be rated higher, but we chose to rate it for what it can realistically handle in the environment (box) that we put it in. We felt it was more useful information. All our power handling ratings on our cabinets are done that way. The tweeter does not figure into the power handling of the cabinet in our specs.

    DB
     
  7. Nov 27, 2005 #7
    billfitzmaurice

    billfitzmaurice Guest Commercial User

    Sep 15, 2004
    New Hampshire
    Owner, Bill Fitzmaurice Loudspeaker Design
    There's two ways to rate your cabs. One is to inflate the wattage rating as much as possible, in hopes that you'll sell more cabinets if they claim to handle a gazillion watts. The other is to be honest about what your cabs can do. Hats off to Dave. BTW, Eminence is conservative in their ratings. We recently tested a new prototype from them that they rated at 300 watts. It took 400 watts no sweat, and 600 without blowing.
     
  8. Nov 27, 2005 #8
    steveksux

    steveksux

    Mar 23, 2005
    Detroit area, Troy, MI
    Its English vs Metric watts, not tube v solid state. Further complicated by the fact that England doesn't use English watts anymore, they went metric. Only US uses English watts anymore, IIRC. ;)

    The difference you are seeing is common with the current exchange rate between the Euro and the dollar...

    Randy