Blowing a speaker

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

Distortion has never, ever, ever, ever, killed one speaker.
In the history of loudspeakers.

Ever.

It's excessive clipping, which adds excessive power, that contributes to smoking drivers, most of the time.

 

[silvercookie 5,000+ posts]

shouldnt be a problem. i had a 30w somputer speaker subwoofer running off 200w rms with bass boost and full gain and full volume and was able to play midnight tip 11 times before it blew. now it is hanging on my wall labeled "mini jackhammer".

 

[Thedeadly1 10+ year member]

I just smoked two 5/4 infinty kappa coax's (rated for 2 ohms, 55 rms) with my amp, i was putting 225 rms at 2 ohms to them. They were pouring smoke after like 5-10 seconds i had it playing on soft music. hehe i wanted to see what happened, then i got the hertz

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

It's excessive clipping, which adds excessive power, that contributes to smoking drivers, most of the time.

The key is the power increase.

You could have a signal that's clipped horribly, and while it may sound like utter turd as long as the speaker is receiving less than its thermal rating at the time, it'll play just fine. Where people run into problems is they think the driver's receiving, say, a kW - when in reality it could be double that. Which leads to broken tinsel leads and cooked coils.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

The key is the power increase.
You could have a signal that's clipped horribly, and while it may sound like utter turd as long as the speaker is receiving less than its thermal rating at the time, it'll play just fine. Where people run into problems is they think the driver's receiving, say, a kW - when in reality it could be double that. Which leads to broken tinsel leads and cooked coils.

exactly. A clipped signal is no worse than an unclipped one as far as the speaker is concerned, it's the power than fry's the coil. However when someone kills a 100 watt speaker with a 75 watt amp and someone blames clipping, they don't quite get the fact that it was the fact that the amp was putting out over 100 watts in it's clipped signal.

 

[king ranch 5,000+ posts]

not meaning to ask a dumb question but what is clipping and how do you prevent it and how do you prevent distortion

 

[ThatChevyGuy 5,000+ posts]

lol, 4 extra watts
my RE 10" is rated 175 and i have been powering it off 400 watts for a year

all about gain

If it was actually recieving 400 watts, the cone would blow off. I had three on 1200 rms and thats exactly what happened, lol.

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

not meaning to ask a dumb question but what is clipping and how do you prevent it and how do you prevent distortion

That's what it looks like. See those flattened crests of the wave? Sonically, it sounds like ***...and as you plot the amount of power the speaker is receiving over time, it can double over a pure sine wave's RMS value.

How you prevent it is knowing how all your equipment works together. Not just setting the gain at halfway or three-quarters or whatever just because it "looks" right, not just cranking the bass boost because it sounds right. With practice, you can hear the onset of clipping and set your input gain right below it...or it's a lot easier to visually see it on an o'scope and avoid it that way.