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

[stangman67 10+ year member]

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

NO. It has been stated in here many times.

 

[Ge_off_me 5,000+ posts]

I've been sending my sub 0 watts for a while no problems yet... Except my self esteem =[

 

[Cruzer 10+ year member]

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

thats how the setup i have is, subs and underpowered, and my gain is at 90% max and still nothing wrong with them. ive had the setup running for over 3 years now.

only way i see it blowing (with my little knowledge) is if the head unit sends a dirty signal to the amp.

tho say u set ur gains to your normal listening volume, and its not clipping the sub. then u want to show off, or ur trying to listen to it while outside the vehicle at a fire or get together and u crank it like 10 notches of volume higher on the HU, ur probably going to be clipping the sub unless u were really conservative when u set them in the first place.

 

[Farmacist 10+ year member]

enclosure also play a role too...

just sayin

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

A sub should not blow period on less than rated power if it's not clipped (not including issues like bottoming out).

I mean is it not common sense?

 

[Cruzer 10+ year member]

enclosure also play a role too...
just sayin

how so? i thought sealed can take more power and ported take less, but should not have any problems then as ur sending less wattage than rated.

 

[Suicide Bobb 5,000+ posts]

Just hooked up my Boston G5&GTR combo to a Rockford 800a4, so 400wrms@4ohms bridged. Threw a bass tester at it, played it for 10minutes or so at full tilt. Afterwards, the sub was just a little warm. Then I found out the gain was at 95%! So I was probably clipping the shit out of it, but it took it no problem. Didn't sound like it was clipping though.

 

[XSlappinAzzX]

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

Underpowering is different than clipping.

Underpowering means your not giving the sub or speaker full power to get louder.

Clipping means your sending a dirty azz signal which in return, will heat the sub up, and eventually make it reach its thermal limits right before it blows.

Distortion doesn't hurt a speaker, that is just a noise that is played through.

 

[morespl 10+ year member]

You can blow any sub on any amp at any time clipping but every amp has a distortion rate and its impossible to send a 100% unclipped signal all the time the only way a sub is going to last if it doesn't pass the voltage and amperage it can handle for a extended period subs have to cool like others have said. But the only real way to send a unclipped signal is to run everything at one set point where no dc voltage is present on one tone if you change ten different songs they will all make your amp clip at different points so saying running a sub on music and saying its unclipped is foolish unless your standing there with a analog dc volt meter and adjusting you amp every time you see dc voltage going to the speakers. But most people send distorted signals in much higher levels because they think there sub handles more power and they smoke the coil from excessive heat.Another thing the sub doesn't determine its rms wattage the box does the sub can perform the rated wattage in the rated enclosure it might be less loud on more watts then if its in a better box with less watts.In the end the design of the system rates how it performs not any specific part of the system the whole system

 

[Suicide Bobb 5,000+ posts]

Some say that they are the only sub that can send a clipped signal to an amp and blow the amp

And that if it is not hooked up to an amp, it will send a clipped signal to your face

All we know is that they are called teh Pups

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

You can blow any sub on any amp at any time clipping but every amp has a distortion rate and its impossible to send a 100% unclipped signal all the time the only way a sub is going to last if it doesn't pass the voltage and amperage it can handle for a extended period subs have to cool like others have said. But the only real way to send a unclipped signal is to run everything at one set point where no dc voltage is present on one tone if you change ten different songs they will all make your amp clip at different points so saying running a sub on music and saying its unclipped is foolish unless your standing there with a analog dc volt meter and adjusting you amp every time you see dc voltage going to the speakers. But most people send distorted signals in much higher levels because they think there sub handles more power and they smoke the coil from excessive heat.Another thing the sub doesn't determine its rms wattage the box does the sub can perform the rated wattage in the rated enclosure it might be less loud on more watts then if its in a better box with less watts.In the end the design of the system rates how it performs not any specific part of the system the whole system

Distortion does not = clipping. Clipping is the act of the wave losing the smoothness at it's peak and trough, and turning into a flat spot where maximum power is being produced by the amp...this has already been explained earlier in the thread, but distortion does not automatically = clipping.

 

[t-money 10+ year member]

You can blow a sub giving it less power, however the reason for the sub blowing is not it being underpowered but a defective sub. Therefore you can not blow a sub(with no manufacturer defect) with too little power. If you have a sub rated for 1000rms and you use a 200 watt amp heavily clipped it will not blow the sub. A clipped signal can double the rms of the amp and if the sub is rated less than what double the rms would be the sub can blow. Ie, 400 watts rms sub, 250 rms amp heavily clipped can blow that sub. 400 watts rms sub, 150 rms amp heavily clip will not blow the sub, atleast it shouldn't but we all know murphy's law

 

[iLL Ridge 10+ year member]

X2 on the clean signal- no blow theory. I had a good 600 watts going to an old mtx 12" 200 watt rms sub for weeks until I ran some test tones to it. The sine wave bass at a good level it did not like one bit. It held up really well on music and sounded surprisingly strong.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Wow there's a lot of half-baked opinions in here and precious little actual fact.

Fact: there are two ways to blow a sub, exceed its thermal capacity or exceed its mechanical capacity. The first has everything to do with heat dissipation the second has everything to do with enclosure, sub construction and frequency.

A fully clipped signal has the effect of doubling the RMS power of the amp (assuming that the amp doesn't fail first). If the sub can still dissipate that amount of heat, guess what? It will sound like trash but it won't blow. At the same time, mechanical limits have nothing to do with the thermal rating of the sub and often depending on the enclosure and frequency, you can exceed the mechanical limits before reaching the thermal limits. Playing some ported systems below tuning with a subsonic filter can blow a sub mechanically with very little power.

Providing a speaker less than its rated power will cause no damage. Clipping in and of itself will not damage a speaker either. You have to exceed a thermal or mechanical limit to cause damage, period.

 

[Buck 5,000+ posts]

You can blow a sub giving it less power, however the reason for the sub blowing is not it being underpowered but a defective sub. Therefore you can not blow a sub(with no manufacturer defect) with too little power. If you have a sub rated for 1000rms and you use a 200 watt amp heavily clipped it will not blow the sub. A clipped signal can double the rms of the amp and if the sub is rated less than what double the rms would be the sub can blow. Ie, 400 watts rms sub, 250 rms amp heavily clipped can blow that sub. 400 watts rms sub, 150 rms amp heavily clip will not blow the sub, atleast it shouldn't but we all know murphy's law

Wait...what? Do you mean literally or is a heavily clipped signal like throwing twice the power to your sub (twice what the amps rated at)?

Don't forget that clipping also makes the cooling of that woofer not work as well.