joetama
5,000+ posts
The British Ear
But, when you have the gain and the output on the HU maxed out you are clipping the hell out of everything. You won't get very loud clipping it that badly all you will manage to do is blow up your subwoofer.
There are 2 types of clips.
1) Voltage clip, you drive the output voltage higher than the rail voltage on the transistors. This means you chop the top off of the wave, because you can not drive more voltage than the max voltage on the rail.
2) Over current THD+N (Total Harmonic Distortion). This is caused when you run your system VERY low impedance. It is when the THD (made of many harmonics) becomes so high the wave starts to flatten out and 'clips'.
I would imagine running the gains wide open you had both. The voltage clip isn't quite as detrimental as the THD clip. The THD clip dumps a lot of wattage on to the driver and can cause thermal break down rather fast. It also puts a very large strain on your electrical system, and can even damage the amplifier.
There are several reasons that you do not get louder when you go into clipping.
1) The amp just can NOT make more power. If you are clipping the signal no matter how hard you try, that is all she has got and you can't get any more out of it.
2) More power consumption = lower voltage (ie voltage drop) and lower voltage = less power.
3) Your driver will thermally melt down, and that will make NO sound at all... It will make a lot of smoke but no sound...
There are 2 types of clips.
1) Voltage clip, you drive the output voltage higher than the rail voltage on the transistors. This means you chop the top off of the wave, because you can not drive more voltage than the max voltage on the rail.
2) Over current THD+N (Total Harmonic Distortion). This is caused when you run your system VERY low impedance. It is when the THD (made of many harmonics) becomes so high the wave starts to flatten out and 'clips'.
I would imagine running the gains wide open you had both. The voltage clip isn't quite as detrimental as the THD clip. The THD clip dumps a lot of wattage on to the driver and can cause thermal break down rather fast. It also puts a very large strain on your electrical system, and can even damage the amplifier.
There are several reasons that you do not get louder when you go into clipping.
1) The amp just can NOT make more power. If you are clipping the signal no matter how hard you try, that is all she has got and you can't get any more out of it.
2) More power consumption = lower voltage (ie voltage drop) and lower voltage = less power.
3) Your driver will thermally melt down, and that will make NO sound at all... It will make a lot of smoke but no sound...
