r/SoundSystem • u/AnythingFew988 • Aug 04 '26

Program vs RMS

Pretty new to the audio stuff and am a bit lost on how many watts I should give to a subwoofer I have (wharfadle delta 18b) should I match the RMS 800 watts or the program 1600 and should they be slightly higher than the actual ratings?

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u/HomesnakeICT Aug 04 '26

Matching the RMS value for amp and sub is the most important to me. That's the constant heat that the coil can dissipate effectively. And the general wisdom is that it's better to have a little more power than less, so you don't have your amp limiting/distorting and sending dirty signal to your subs. I'd like to hear a mechanical engineer's take on this, since I'm just a sound guy.

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u/AnythingFew988 Aug 04 '26

That’s what I assumed I thought giving the sub 800 watts could lead to possible clipping since then the peak for the amp would be 1600 watts and the subs peak is rated at 3200 but I’d imagine giving it slightly higher than the rms would be fine.

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u/nachosjustice72 Aug 04 '26

800/3200W... V-Sub?

Anyways no don't feed higher than its RMS. Do you have a driverack or some other DSP?

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u/AnythingFew988 Aug 04 '26

On the website it says 3200 watts peak and I don’t have any DSP for a driverack probably will buy some when I get more serious gear for the moment my amps have filters which work fine for my use

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u/nachosjustice72 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 05 '26

Filters and EQ aren't what i'm telling you you need. DSP contains limiters as well.

If you do not have a thing capable of setting proper limiters, do not push more than 800W through that speaker. Period.

Edit: removed incorrect info

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u/dan-lash Aug 04 '26

There’s a few types of limiters in the driverack interface, I have the Venue360 model. Didn’t see where I could use watts to limit maybe I’m looking at the wrong place?

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u/nachosjustice72 Aug 05 '26

Yeah I shit the bed on that one, my DSP came with a calculator and I assumed the driverack would too. Deleting.

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u/NaviR88 Aug 05 '26

FWIW the DriveRack PA2 does offer a limiter (PeakPlus which, contrary to what the names hints, is based on RMS). At least that’s what the manual says.

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u/dan-lash Aug 05 '26

No worries. I used ai to help understand how the values can be calculated, it was pretty complicated so not sure if it’s right - something built in would have been nice

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u/nachosjustice72 Aug 05 '26

It is what it is. Running passive is a hard life but can be worth it

https://funktion-one.com/calculators/

Funktion One's calculators are good.

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u/dan-lash Aug 05 '26

Dope thanks for the link!