Does your Theater have enough octane?!

[prerich]

Many people are worried about over powering their speakers, well that's not the big worry - especially with HT. I would worry about underpowering them instead - especially if you are trying to produce THX 85db reference levels in your room (with 105db peaks).

I 've use a free SPL calculator developed by Nyal Mellor over at Acoustic Frontiers and just input some hypothetical measurements. A speaker that has a sensitivity of 100db and a person is seated 12 feet away only needs 22 watts of power to reach THX 85db and 43w to reach 105db peaks. A speaker with 90db seated 8 feet away would need a 96w amp for reference and 192w for peaks. A person with an 85db speaker seated 7 feet away would need a wopping 233w amp to achieve reference 85db and a 464w amp to reach 105db peaks!!!!!

It's kinda fun to look at. The tool is located here http://www.acousticfrontiers.com/hom...spl-calculator
(but uses Excel). Check in and see if you may need to give your HT a little boost? However, if you're happy and you know it - stay with what ya got!!!!