Speakers watts – not the most important element in speakers

So in Uganda but not only, many look for speakers by their watts, in fact sometime back i got a pastor come to my office and looked for 25,000watts speakers, i assumed that since he had 2000 watts speakers and he wanted louder sound, he wanted 15x louder speakers.

In the local markets the shops sell speakers by watts and yet the key is the word above – Louder! Not watts and not Size.

So what should you look for when you buy speakers?

1. How loud it can be

2. How good is its sound

The answers for those are –

1. Loudness is measured in Decibels also known as Db which is an SPL measurement (Sound Pressure Level)  and most of the manufacturers test and publish Db speaker capacity as follows –  xx Db in 1w @1m, what does that means? it means that a speaker when a speaker x is getting 1 watt of power and measured at 1 meter away from it you this is the loudness it gets xx Db

In order to compare “apples to apples” / speaker a to speaker, it is important that you check whats its sensitivity (Loudness / SPL) in the same way – @1w @1m. some manufacturers try to confuse people and publish the speakers max SPL and few other capacities but i would recommend to look for the speaker capacity @1w @1m.

For example some speakers can have 96Db @1w @1m while others of the same capacity OR more (watts) will offer 81Db @1w @1m.

look at it like power save bulbs – bulbs of 5watts can offer more light then 60watts, do you mind the power (watts)or the light / brightness? By the way – brightness / bulbs measured by Lumens, not watts. (i will explain that later)

You should look for the louder speaker / brighter light – not the one that will consume more power – dont forget – the more the consumption – the more the power / electricity bill and or bigger generator you should need to use.

2. How good is the sound of the speaker – this we know by the speaker frequency response – whats this? is simple terms – treble and bass or the equalizing capacity of the speaker.

without going to the technicality too deep – you need to know that the wider the frequency the better the speaker.

the full range of sound is  20 Hz on the low end to 20,000 Hz on the high end, and you can find speakers that give you full range or any other combination – so the lower it is on the low frequency – the better and the higher it is on the high frequency – the better.

For sub woofers you only need low frequency so the wider the range of the lower frequency the sub will be of deeper sound – BUT hten again – it is the preference and need of your application – for example the bass you get in Jazz and the Bass you need for hip hop are not the same …

those are only the basics on how to select / compare speakers but there are more elements needed to be looked at such as – impedance, intelligibility, and few more, i will be writing on those soon …