full-range speakers - wattage question

[fredberg]

i've always wondered, lets say you have a 3-way speaker, like a 6X9. it has a "woofer", a midrange, and a tweeter mounted into one unit. im assuming that all those components are wired in parallel to each other.

my question is, if you give that 3-way speaker 50 watts RMS, how will the wattage be shared among the components? if the resistance of each component is equal, then that 50 watts will be split 3 ways equally?

thus, even if you run 50 watts to that 3-way, the woofer part is only getting a part of that power? just wondering...

[cwayne]

Originally Posted by fredberg

i've always wondered, lets say you have a 3-way speaker, like a 6X9. it has a "woofer", a midrange, and a tweeter mounted into one unit. im assuming that all those components are wired in parallel to each other.

my question is, if you give that 3-way speaker 50 watts RMS, how will the wattage be shared among the components? if the resistance of each component is equal, then that 50 watts will be split 3 ways equally?

thus, even if you run 50 watts to that 3-way, the woofer part is only getting a part of that power? just wondering...

No, the woofer is getting all 50 watts. The whole 50 watts will rarely if ever reach the midrange and tweeters.

Keep in mind that most of that 50 watts is the low frequency... the woofer. All speakers are is an electronic magnet that moves air to produce sound. Smaller speakers require less power and larger speakers require more power. Midrange and tweeters have cross overs, which filter out the low frequencies which is pretty much what most of that 50 watts.