Hello Anthony,

Sadly, the days of RMS ratings for power amplifiers has largely been replaced by meaningless big numbers to appear impressive. The AI speakers have such a "peak power" rating. Regardless of the numbers, they sound wonderful.

I had the same power rating question. An RMS rating is a continuous sustained power level rather than the momentary power level implied by the larger numbers. Presonus is either unable or unwilling to provide RMS ratings. However, power is power and it's rated in Watts. So, my ultimate answer to this question was to look at the AC power input rating. The 328AI speakers have an input power rating of 250W and a note that says "1/8 power". I'm not sure what that last bit means. The 250W rating tells me that the RMS power of the amplifiers is something below 250W. (nothing is perfectly efficient) You simply can't manufacture free Watts. The implication of the "1/8" power is that the speaker can produce 8 times the input power rating. If so, a single speaker, if continuously driven would draw 2,000W. Plugging two into a wall outlet would trip a breaker pretty quickly. Of course, music doesn't work this way. The 250W rating is probably an average.

We are best served to use our ears. In addition, I sure would like to have the old apples-to-apples ratings that RMS offered us for so many years.

Try to compare on SPL ratings.

RMS ratings are relevant for power amps to ensure a good speaker match. For active speakers RMS ratings become insignificant because the match is a done deal. RMS ratings plus speaker ratings (efficiency, coverage angle, ...) eventually result in an SPL rating at a given distance. With active speakers you simply jump to the end result.

In my experience with the 328's, they are never as loud as other systems, but they are much clearer. I run sound at a Harley dealer for their "Summer Concert Series" and all I use for tops is a single pair of 328's. I was always worried I wasn't being "loud" enough. Then the owner stops by last weekend and shakes my hand (first time ever) and says "sounded great - you could hear the band clearly all through the parking lot."

That is what I paid for when I bought these speakers, and I'm glad others can hear the same thing I do.

And to be honest, I'm thinking of rolling back the firmware to the pre +10bB boost. I used to run my speakers with the knobs all the way up and they work perfectly. Now I need to adjust the knobs to take that 10dB off the top.

Advertising hyperbole... my bucket is bigger than yours...a way for me to show you how much better, bigger, louder, lighter, cleaner... sensing a pattern here?

I have a good, if technical white paper by Tom Danley (renowned rocket scientist and speaker designer) where he points out that technical specs can be made to show almost ANYTHING!..and are HIGHLY suspect.. at best.

To the buyer beware, some things can't be left solely to spec's and advertising hype...

I miss the days of speaker sensitivity ratings. Albeit they may be a bunch of BS, at least it gave me an idea how loud it would get.

My pioneer home speakers with 1 inch domes that I use for my Center channel in the home theater are 89 db at 1W at 1 meter. My TurboSound TMS-1 speakers (pro sound) that I use for Left and Right in my home theater are 102 db at 1W at 1 meter. So that tells me I have to bring the center channel up 13 db to match the turbosounds, I ran the auto setup from my Pioneer 7.1 reciever (similar to smaart with the pink noise and all kinds of goofy noises that it analyzes) and it set the center channel almost exactly 13 db louder than the Left and Right, pretty cool!

But now with my QSC KW153's I have no idea what the sensitivity of the speaker itself is, because it is powered they have already matched the amp to the speaker, but personally I would still like to know what the sensitivity of the speaker was at 1 watt/1 meter more than anything just so I can tell people my speaker play at 103 db on only 1 watt! It's fun! OK maybe I'm compensating for something else. . .

Steve

gadget69 wroteAdvertising hyperbole... my bucket is bigger than yours...a way for me to show you how much better, bigger, louder, lighter, cleaner... sensing a pattern here?

I have a good, if technical white paper by Tom Danley (renowned rocket scientist and speaker designer) where he points out that technical specs can be made to show almost ANYTHING!..and are HIGHLY suspect.. at best.

To the buyer beware, some things can't be left solely to spec's and advertising hype...

Agreed! But for a ballpark number you still need, eeh, a number