On November 30, 2018 at 17:07, Ernie Gilman said...
Yup. But power and relative perceived sound levels are screwy. I wrote my usual term paper just now but here are the highlights. Newbies might want to look into the numbers at the two websites linked below.
The difference between 50 watts and a hundred watts is a bit more than the slightest increase in volume we perceive! Perceived doubling volume is about a tenfold increase in power! Exclamation points, because this doesn't sound like it makes sense.
I will quote one number: A spec of, say, 100 watts plus or minus 1 dB (ONE, yes ONLY ONE DECIBEL) is 74 to 126 watts!
Look at
[Link: sengpielaudio.com] and plug in some numbers. Read
[Link: sounddeadsteel.com]If it were a linear scale, the 10x power = twice as loud might be more intuitive, but since it's logarithmic, people are left blinking at the explanation.
BTW- 1dB is the usually mentioned smallest increment that most people can perceive- 3dB from doubling power is clearly audible. If you want to hear for yourself, go into an AVR menu and play with the speaker level and distance controls, to listen for the smallest increments that you can hear.
