"Why is my XX-watt amp louder than your XX-watt amp?"

[VacuumVoodoo]

Guys,

I've been asked by some TGP'ers to write something on this subject. Perhaps some of you are interested. Anyway, finished the 1st part yesterday:

Loudness Perception (http://anacon-tech.com/IPdocs/Loudness%20perception.pdf)(PDF)

[PeeWee]

So far, so good! You've made it pretty easy to understand how the human ear perceives "tone" and the graphs add to the understanding as well. I know that you've helped me get a better understanding of this matter...and I'm as dense as a brick when it comes to things like this :D

[K-man]

Looks good Alex! Will the speaker power rating factor in as well?

[Steve Lowe]

very informative - can't wait to read more!

[Budman2k]

Looks good so far. Speaker efficiency and power ratings also have an effect on how loud a given amp will be. And of course, more speakers = more volume.

Budman

[VacuumVoodoo]

I'll deal with speaker efficiency in a future installment. Food for thought: if you feed one speaker with 1W of power and then connect two speakers in parallel or series (remembering to set impedance switch correctly) each speaker will only be fed 0.5W. Are speakers in two separate identical cabs? Is it a 2 speaker cab and one speaker is disconnected or not present? Will the sound pressure level really change or is something else happening? Lots of paremeters to take into account.

Original question applied to amps only, I'll have to expand on this in part 2 of my ramblings first.

Thanks for thumbs up - adds to motivation.