I read the article you referred us, too and its all vey logical. And seeing how most folks listen at 85 db his idea of 1 watt for 88db is well thought out. My speakers are rated at 95db at 1 watt 1 meter and I listen at a 1/2 to 2 watts, but then I'm listening at 16 ft. so that works out about right too. But then I would need about 32 watts, too, to reach the 102 db. . And that's pretty close to what I have observed. Very seldom going over 20 watts to the mids and tweeters and 50 watts to the woofers. Now if you add 7+ db to that to make up the difference between my speakers that are bi- amped, add another 3 db , you need 10 db more power to reach the same level or 320 watts using 88 to 90 db sensitivity speakers.
When I go into listen to Mac speakers in particular and others in general and back off 15 or more feet I listen at or around 10 watts to compare what I hear at home of 1 watt. Now imagine what happens when I'm listening to a pair of XRT 28's or 1 k's with a 402 or 452 amp and a transient signal from one of my Telarc or Original masters recordings happens. Well the 452 and 402 expire right on the spot. What do I mean by expire. Well they don't clip but the back ground accompanying sound gets pulled down, the imaging falters and all realistic production ceases. But at least THD and IM distortion don't take over. So out comes the 1.2K amps. My favorite MAc amp for Mac speakers. Even if I did have 2k speakers I would chose the 1.2 k amp. If 118 db isn't enough from the Mac speakers, then its time to look else where. Remember way back when Roger used 104 db for his reference level after attending and measuring live concert levels. He designed his ML series for average rooms to reach 104 db with 100 watt amps.
For live uncompressed recordings we all new that 18 db was about all the head room we had with professional tape decks running at 15 ips. So it was really a thrill when I was doing live PA's to get boot leg copies of the performance. The dynamics were oh so real. Even after being run thru a compressor the limited number of LP's made from recording sessions always sounded more alive the commercially mass produced discs. Sheffield were such a revaluation compared to tired old discs. Mercury and Command tried also to bring life into the LP. And later we all thought the CD was the answer.
But back to the subject. Can you imagine listening at 1 or 2 watts when an 18 db peak comes along. Thats 200 watts for argument sakes. And I have over 100 recordings like that. What do you do when you need 10 watts and a 18 db peak comes along. Thank the Stars Mac makes a 1.2 K or you can strap a 2600 or 602 to get the desired results. No wonder Steve strapped 2300's together to drive stacked pairs of ML-4's at Audio Classics back then to get 116 db when all he needed was 20 watts from amp for a Klipschorn or 40 watts from a Cornwall.
Its fun pushing numbers around.
