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hOW tO gET eDUCATED: sPEAKErS = sound

#47
Thank you for posting the Barefaced article link -I read it all today too. The answer is yes but I don’t want to hijack xray’s thread so if you want to know more please send me a PM. Thanks.

EDIT: Ok - I deleted the 3dB hearing part even though I would challenge anyone to try and hear a 1dB SPL increase of bass guitar in a normal everyday club. But greenboy is right and I don’t what I was thinking other than I have the flu, tired, and not feeling very sharp or witty - but no excuses, so I deleted it.

So here it is ~

It takes about 10dB to double the volume (SPL). If you have a 100 watt amp with one 12" speaker and you add another 12" speaker you will get a 3dB increase. You would have the same SPL as a 200 watt amp with one 12" speaker. To get the next 3dB increase you need to double the speakers again so you would need four 12" speakers. Having 4 speakers will give you a 6dB increase in SPL compared to 1 speaker. Then it gets more complex. If you double the 4 speakers to 8 speakers there isn’t a 9dB increase in SPL as compared to one speaker like you’d think, instead you only a 6dB increase compared to one speaker because phase cancellation comes into play. The distance between the speakers causes the sound to reach your ears from some of the speakers at a different time and this has the effect of canceling some sound so more speakers are better up to a point. Speakers, enclosures, power, impedance, etc also play a role in the SPL. Hopefully this is simple to understand, helps TBer’s, and gets the greenboy/BFM/etc approval. - if not, hopefully they will post a simple and easy to understand post similar to this one for everyone to read.
 
#49
No harm no file - once we got past the "expected" innuendo commenst there's a ton of good stuff here. Especially glad the "scientist" of speaker cabinet building jumped in as well. Thanks for the useful info. Makes a lot of sense why the Amprg SVT-CL still rules at the stadiums as well as the clubs!
 
#53
greenboy said:
People repeat this a lot around here, but nope. Generally it's accepted to be 1 (ONE) dB. (Of course that varies with frequency, but the phon is 1 dB at 1K Hz as I recall, and that's the general reference point.)

It's a good thing too! If we had to gain 3 dB each time we were able to hear the step upwards in general amplitude, we'd need to add a lot more speakers and a lot more amp to get significantly louder! ...Actually, 3 dB acoustically, may be thought of as a significant but not earth-shattering increase - one that's roughly akin to adding a separate identical cab on a tube amp that can deliver the same output to either a 4 ohm or 8 ohm load.

And we all know you can hear that change.


That is generally accepted.
Click to expand...

Thanks you greenboy, I don't like that canard at all. Here is a site that illustrates, with white noise sound samples, successive decreases of 3db and 1 db. At higher intensities it is *easy* to hear the 3db drops, as it gets quieter and quieter it gets harder to hear, as one might expect.

dB: What is a decibel?
 
#54
HolmeBass said:
Thanks you greenboy, I don't like that canard at all. Here is a site that illustrates, with white noise sound samples, successive decreases of 3db and 1 db. At higher intensities it is *easy* to hear the 3db drops, as it gets quieter and quieter it gets harder to hear, as one might expect.

dB: What is a decibel?
Click to expand...

I like the link, thank you for posting it.
 

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