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 All car speakers, especially components, will perform better and produce richer sound when powered with an external amplifier. |
Minimum power handling (Watts RMS)
Note that we're talking about minimum power handling here — not the RMS power range, and certainly not the Peak Power rating. Many manufacturers overemphasize peak power ratings to make their speakers sound tough and rugged.
- The peak power rating refers to how much power a speaker can handle during a brief musical burst. This figure has almost no meaning in terms of how a speaker performs. Peak power ratings only give you the vaguest idea of how much headroom, or power handling, a speaker might have. In my opinion, you should ignore peak power ratings altogether.
- RMS power ratings are the more realistic specs, but even here there's ground for caution. RMS power refers to continuous power output — the amount of power you'd use to drive your speakers for hours at a time. But as with all other specs, there is no agreed upon standard for measuring speaker power ratings. Many companies adhere to the Electronic Industries Association (EIA) standard for loudspeaker power testing called RS-426B. This test consists of passing a test signal through the speaker with a flat response from 40 Hz to 1 kHz, with a three decibel per octave roll-off from 1 kHz to 10 kHz, and with a rapid roll-off above 10 kHz and below 40 Hz. This is a good test of speaker performance, but it is not a full-bandwidth (20 Hz to 20 kHz) test.
- Minimum RMS power ratings can be useful, however, when matching speakers to an amplifier. If you're driving your speakers with power from your factory head unit, it's probably a good idea to steer clear of speakers that have higher minimum RMS ratings (8 watts and above). Though you can almost certainly use these speakers with your factory head unit, you won't be able to drive them to their peak performance, as most stock factory head units will top out somewhere around 10 watts. As you push the receiver's internal amp harder, you risk distorting the signal and possibly damaging the speakers as the voice coil heats up.
Higher-powered aftermarket receivers and external amplifiers can easily drive the vast majority of car speakers. As Ken Nail's Powering Your Subwoofer for Peak Performance article makes clear, underpowering your speakers is just as, if not more dangerous, than overpowering them.
Make an informed buying decision
As we've learned, speaker specifications tend to create more confusion than clarity for the average car speaker shopper. This is in large part due to the absence of industry-wide standards for testing and measuring speaker performance. But, as important as establishing rigorous testing standards is, there is no substitute for testing speakers in your car. Hopefully, you've now learned enough about how to use speaker specifications to your advantage when deciding which models to try out in your vehicle.
Good luck speaker shopping and happy listening!
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