How does speaker efficiency affect volume?
• I really NEED a 100 watt amp! I’ll give you the obligatory speech about watts VS. volume so that you don’t get all caught up in the 100+ watts thing. The way that watts translate into decibels is in powers of 10. That being the case, if you want to do twice as loud, you need to go 10x higher in wattage. The difference in volume between 100W and 50W is actually only 12% less or so. HALF the volume of 100W is actually 10 watts, and TWICE the volume of 100w is actually 1,000 Watts. And when is the last time you played a 100W amp on a setting higher then 3 on the volume without everyone screaming to turn it down! Now, after you have digested that, we can move along to the next part. Speaker efficiency is also key to volume. That curve is also not linear. If you take 2 otherwise identical speakers, one with a sensitivity rating of 103dB, and one with a rating of 100dB, that -3dB drop is the equivalent of sending half the power into the speakers… like moving from a 100W amp to a 50W amp,
