Hello,

I have the Triton One.R, and I'm think of eventually upgrading my amp, but I want to get an idea of what kind of power I need. I currently have a NAD C 399 which claims to be able to put 400 Watts into 4 ohms. This somewhat matches what I'm seeing in my room using a cheap but +-2db calibrated sound meter with C weighting. On some dynamic songs, I'm getting max values of 116 db (0.125 second window) with a rough average in the 85-90 range (1 second window). (Don't want to damage my hearing by going beyond this average level.) With 92 sensitivity (as measured by various magazines) and two speakers, the baseline is 95 db at 1 meter. Given my room and listening position around 10 feet away, this gives about 90 db at my seat with 1 watt. Assuming I'm getting 400 watts that gives me 90+26 = 116. Spot on.

This means each speakers is doing 118 db at 1 meter. Seems a bit crazy. I looked up the top of the line Perlisten speakers and they quote a max of 116 db (presumably at 1 meter.) I looked up the Magico M9 and they quote max 120 db at 1 meter with minimal distortion. What's the max for the Triton One.R. They claim it can handle 650 Watts. Assuming that's peak wattage, that gives 120 db at 1 meter. Is that the max? I guess at some point the powered woofers will run out of watts. Is that how they set the limit? I assume they must have a lot of distortion at that point given the M9 cost 100 times as much.

Obviously I don't want to listen to an average value near those maxes, but I assume what makes these speakers sound so alive is that they can do these types of dynamic peaks. (And why they can sound pretty bad on older compressed music.) If all of this is correct, then I probably don't want an higher quality but lower wattage amp. (I was thinking about the Axxess Forte at 100 watts into 8 ohms.) On the flip side, I guess the limit is about 600 watts into 4 ohms which is the max of a few expensive integrated amps.

I am curious myself, did you test it since?

I've been a bit lazy on that front. I want to test with REW using a UMIK-1 to get a confirmation on the max dB. I also want to test my hand held meter at a dealer.

I assume the home theater heritage of these speakers partially explains their max SPL. I see home theater people talking about these types of volumes but never audiophiles. Personally I think most theaters sound like crap because the action is so much louder than the dialog and assume their "bad" systems can't handle. However, I've noticed that I've become more tolerate of loud music in the last few months, so maybe one adapts with exposure. I also need to make sure that adapting is not the same as initial hearing loss...

I think a simple phone app could give you the dB, download any you find.

What's you current setup now?

I think iphones are probably calibrated enough, but they don't do C weighting which is essential to get the bass. (Probably because their mic doesn't pick up bass.) Not much point if you're only getting part of the spectrum. Also for dB peaks, I assume the time window matters. My Android phone app has 0.25 seconds windows. My hand held has 0.125 seconds. The dB is averaged over that window, so 0.25 could smooth out peaks. Also REW is free. Time to get unlazzy.

My setup is a just a NAD C 399, but I do have some room treatments. Bass traps do the most. Without those, all I would hear at those volumes is bass. I also have a nice assortment of snake oil. I find cleaning up the power and the digital data has the most benefit. The digital data is the cheapest/easiest. These improvements made my system work with a wider range of recordings. I think the tweeters on the Triton One.R are extremely revealing and a cheap setup will sound bad. I have Triton 3+ upstairs, and they are much more forgiving.

I am looking forward to your test! I didn't want to ask the hifi shop guy to turn it up so much, but I am still very curios about the max SPL, if it can do like 105 dB continous level.

I wanna get the T66 with the NAD M23 and Lumen T2!