can you blow a speaker from too little power? only smart people please

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

now i know the answer but i want to get some real guys in here to answer this to prove my point. the deremark that started this debate is " No speaker, in the history of speakers, has ever been blown by too little power. Ever. I don't care what your friend told you, he's a dirty liar"

he says: mike your a newb. you dont know how to install. lol. speakers do blow from being under powered by the way... they distort, clip, heat up, coils seize.. if any one is not classified as a newb its me. i may not be able to explain perameter's; however, explain to me audio format

i say: How does a speaker clip from too little power? What actuallly happens is ur average bestbuy customer underpowers a speaker with a small amp and keeps cranking the volume to get the desired loudness which in return sends a clipped/dirty signal to the speaker which then causes the heat up of the coil. Has nothing to do with the actual amount of power the speaker is seeing. If this was the case then you couldn't drive around listening to ur subwoofers at low volume oor it would blow. You must not have kept reading...ask ANY real audio person as long as you don't clip the amp you can power any speaker with any amount of power

also he keeps saying "if a speaker is underpowered and turned above normal listening volume then it blows." i told him only becaus the amp starts to clip and sends a dirty signa to the sub.

now please post you8r response with actual facts and explain your answer please as i plan to link this to him

Click to read more...

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

come on you guys

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

ftvhbkj

 

[ahole-ic]

You both had quite a bit of misinformation in there, but you were more right than him.

He didn't understand clipping. Those are square waves that apply the maximum amount of power to the subwoofer, thus raising the average power the coil sees. The amplifier will have a maximum amount of voltage that it can apply. Since the voltage cannot go higher than that, but the gain can be turned higher, the wave just stays at this threshold much longer than it should. This applies the maximum amount of power during this entire time. It is very hard on the amp and the speaker. The voicecoil must rid itself of all of this extra heat. As the wave rises and falls, less power is applied than at the peaks. During an unclipped wave, maximum power is only applied for a very small amount of time when the wave reaches its peak at the top and bottom. For the rest of the wave, MUCH less power is applied allowing the voice coil to cool. When a wave is clipped, there is MUCH less time between peaks and less time to cool. So you see from this why clipped power is so hard on loudspeakers.

You claimed that any sub could take any amount of unclipped power. That's simply not true. If the power applied is able to average out so that the subwoofer cannot cool itself faster than heat is applied, the shellac/glue will melt and cause the voicecoil to be destroyed.

 

[infamous_e46 5,000+ posts]

where's audioholic

 

[Suicide Bobb 5,000+ posts]

A speaker can be killed by an underpowered amp, HOWEVER...it cannot be killed by being underpowered.

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

You both had quite a bit of misinformation in there, but you were more right than him. He didn't understand clipping. Those are square waves that apply the maximum amount of power to the subwoofer, thus raising the average power the coil sees. The amplifier will have a maximum amount of voltage that it can apply. Since the voltage cannot go higher than that, but the gain can be turned higher, the wave just stays at this threshold much longer than it should. This applies the maximum amount of power during this entire time. It is very hard on the amp and the speaker. The voicecoil must rid itself of all of this extra heat. As the wave rises and falls, less power is applied than at the peaks. During an unclipped wave, maximum power is only applied for a very small amount of time when the wave reaches its peak at the top and bottom. For the rest of the wave, MUCH less power is applied allowing the voice coil to cool. When a wave is clipped, there is MUCH less time between peaks and less time to cool. So you see from this why clipped power is so hard on loudspeakers.

You claimed that any sub could take any amount of unclipped power. That's simply not true. If the power applied is able to average out so that the subwoofer cannot cool itself faster than heat is applied, the shellac/glue will melt and cause the voicecoil to be destroyed.

so a lets i have a sub rated idk 2000rms on a 200watt amp...no clipping...why or how could it blow?

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

A speaker can be killed by an underpowered amp, HOWEVER...it cannot be killed by being underpowered.

this is what my point was.

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

where's audioholic

i was waiting for him and ecrack.net lol

 

[ahole-ic]

so a lets i have a sub rated idk 2000rms on a 200watt amp...no clipping...why or how could it blow?

If it's not HEAVILY clipping, I don't see how it could blow.

Edit: In that case, I'd say the amp is MUCH more likely to blow than the sub. Something is probably going to give up but it's not likely to be the sub.

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

If it's not HEAVILY clipping, I don't see how it could blow.
Edit: In that case, I'd say the amp is MUCH more likely to blow than the sub. Something is probably going to give up but it's not likely to be the sub.

well i mean if the amp is not clipping and onlyputting out the amount of watts its rated and you have good voltage how or why would ur speaker blow?

 

[Cruzer 10+ year member]

i have been under powering two subs rated at 250 each, so a total of 500 watts rms. ive been sending them 400 watts from a 4 channel amp bridged, for years, and they have not blown or had any problems.

im a noob too but thats my experience.

i will say, in my opinion, a speaker or sub will not blow by being underpowered. it will be because the amp is sending dirty signal/power

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

Clean power is key. Subs can handle unclipped power using a musical signal for a very long time, even with peak levels above their rated power. It's when you start playing very bass heavy music and clipping the amp when you get in trouble. Like eCrack stated, there's just not enough opportunity for the sub to cool, and heat becomes an issue. Subs that have better cooling technologies will last longer in cases like this. 99% of the time you can run up to rated power to a sub(maybe more), unclipped, and play music for as long as you want with no problems.

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

Clean power is key. Subs can handle unclipped power using a musical signal for a very long time, even with peak levels above their rated power. It's when you start playing very bass heavy music and clipping the amp when you get in trouble. Like eCrack stated, there's just not enough opportunity for the sub to cool, and heat becomes an issue. Subs that have better cooling technologies will last longer in cases like this. 99% of the time you can run up to rated power to a sub(maybe more), unclipped, and play music for as long as you want with no problems.

so answer this: is there any way a underpowered sub will blow if the small amp is not clipping?

 

[michaellane 5,000+ posts]

emailed rockford also...bestbuy sells that crap so i figured it would be nice to get his response