2x the RMS ratings?

[phil]

I've been reading a lot lately on powering speakers. It seems a lot of people here are getting amps that put out power equal or close to the RMS ratings of the speakers they're driving at the given ohm they are going to run at.

It seems on the other hand a lot of people want to get an amp that will give double the RMS power of the speakers at the ohm they will be running at to allow lots of room for peaks.

In my head it seems if you had a max of 400w/4ohm per channel, driving a speaker that was 400w RMS, and you left the gain at 200w with the extra 200w to handle the peaks, as opposed to an amp with 800w/4ohm per channel, with the gain set to put out 400w/4ohm, you would only be gaining the top 200w for most of the material, with a whole lot of extra room for the peaks.

From what I understand there's very little db gain after the 1st 100w? So that would lead me to believe between 200w and 400w there isn't much, but there would be a whole lot of overhead for the peaks.

I'll be running with very heavy material. Would I be much better off planning on doubling the RMS with power?

Thanks for bearing with my limited knowledge .

[LelandCrooks]

Direct radiators, yes. Horn loaded cabs, not so much. 1x is fine for horn loaded. Efficiency.

[Israel]

this is really a good question since some time speaker manufacturers have posted power specs on rms/program/peak
basis.. I really think root mean square (rms) is a dumb thing as root cancels square leaving mean as the only part of the equation that matters
program power is a fictional entity that is used by speaker manufacturers maybe to pair their speakers with cheapo amps
and peak power rating should say instantaneus or instant peak power rating which is more of a mechanical measure than electrical

in short:
rms= average electrical power that your speaker can handle
program= (Pulp Fiction) Manufacturer tells you that his baby can mechanically(and or) electrically handle a little more but if it came sporadically and from a clean undistorted amp and not from an amp that is clipping its balls out (this is commonly 3db or 2x power)
peak= almost for sure mechanical peak power burst if you past this limit even for a few seconds either your cone will burn in flames or will get shoot out and kill your neighb's cat

this is my humble understanding of power rates of speakers
now please debate me and give me some new knowledge
yours truly
I

[phil]

Thanks for the info . That will definitely save some money!

[Israel]

horn power ratings differ from comon speakers altough speakers in the horn handle power as its specs say... horn useable power is mainly determined by the ability of the speaker to move air i dunno the exact formula but when a speaker reaches its max Vd which is its max air displacement you wont get any increment in spl
also you are right after 100w the next big change in spl is with 1000w 1000w is a tough task for a speaker
the core work of a horn is in its high sensitivity
I have a peavey 15 sub 95db/1w1m sensitivity also i have a t39 105db/1w1m 10db less in sensitivity means that to reach my t39 driven with 100w i need to put 1000w in my peavey my peavey barely handle 600w so it will never reach it also think that I can power 10 t39's with that 1000w nowthis is been planet savy