tell me if im right

[LoudBurp]

Your right, you should go by RMS. RMS stands for "root mean square" which in a nutshell means average. Your wall outlet says 110 volts, when you hook up a DDM to an outlet it also says 110V. This is because it measures RMS voltage. If you were to actually analyze the wave format, it would vary from 120-110 constantly. "MAX" is just like you said, a marketing scam. You would never run a sub at it "max" wattage on a day-to-day basis, you would be buying a new sub once a week.

So, anyway RMS is the standard. The only time you would go off of using max is incase your preparing for a surge. Such as fusing, you use your max current that your wire can handle w/o melting.

Hope this helped and next time you see this guy try to explain it to him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_mean_square

he says if you had a good enough subwoofer, you would be able to run it as a daily driver at 1/2 to full volume every day with no problems.

OK, well A) I have been doing car audio stuff since I was about 14 (and at that age I had the same ideas that your brother had) and B ) my interest in car audio led me to join the military, which I am a Radio Frequency Transmission Systems Technician and I have my Electronic Systems technology degree. So, if he wants to keep going off of MAX let him but if you want to build better and more reliable systems than your brother use RMS

[butterfenco]

Your right, you should go by RMS. RMS stands for "root mean square" which in a nutshell means average. Your wall outlet says 110 volts, when you hook up a DDM to an outlet it also says 110V. This is because it measures RMS voltage. If you were to actually analyze the wave format, it would vary from 120-110 constantly. "MAX" is just like you said, a marketing scam. You would never run a sub at it "max" wattage on a day-to-day basis, you would be buying a new sub once a week.

So, anyway RMS is the standard. The only time you would go off of using max is incase your preparing for a surge. Such as fusing, you use your max current that your wire can handle w/o melting.

Hope this helped and next time you see this guy try to explain it to him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_mean_square

he says if you had a good enough subwoofer, you would be able to run it as a daily driver at 1/2 to full volume every day with no problems.

OK, well A) I have been doing car audio stuff since I was about 14 (and at that age I had the same ideas that your brother had) and B ) my interest in car audio led me to join the military, which I am a Radio Frequency Transmission Systems Technician and I have my Electronic Systems technology degree. So, if he wants to keep going off of MAX let him but if you want to build better and more reliable systems than your brother use RMS

I will stick with rms lol, as i always have.

[LoudBurp]

Also, there is alot more than just RMS to look at. Some companies rate different than others. My Interfire 12 I have right now is "1000W RMS", but with a true clamped 850W it bottoms out and heats up really badly. Whereas companies like Sundown, DC, AA, ect... might have a 600W RMS rating they can handle more all the time.