can to low of preamp voltage cause damage to woofers?

[PaulC 10+ year member]

i have an 08 civic si and i have kept the factory hu. i installed a loc with a remote turn on circuit where the factory sub used to be. my head unit has a subwoofer control that still works because of where i installed my loc. the settings are off, then -6 to +6. i set the preamp voltage to 4 volts with my 50hz odb test tone and then set my gain on my amp with that as well. i did this with the sub control at +6 which is where i set it when i listen to it. when i listen to talk radio or something where i dont use the sub i set the sub control to off. but it doesnt completely kill the signal because even when its set to off the amp stays powered up and at high volumes the sub will play very low. i have went through a few subs over the past year. so my question is when i have the sub control set to off could the preamp voltage be so low that it could be damaging my woofers. that doesnt make sense to me but im trying to cover all bases and figure out whats been going on. i just learned how to set my gains with a dmm and i think i may have been clipping before but now that everything is set properly id like to rule out this scernario. thanks in advance for your input.

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[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

You can't damage a speaker with too little power. Reducing the preamp voltage is how you control the volume. If what you are suggesting were true, the speakers would be damaged by turning the volume down.

What would be more likely is a leaking DC "signal" that is applying constant voltage to the sub and could slowly heat the coil up.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Double tap.