D Class amp bad for subs ?

[Spddracer 10+ year member]

Originally posted by Jmac Alright, I will go hook up my Jensen amplifier and old head unit to a boat battery and then hook my Kicker C10a up to the amp ... turn the gains all the way up and the head unit all the way up and wait until the battery dies and we'll see how quickly my sub dies from over 50% distortion ...

I wanna play too !!!!!!

 

[pioneer 10+ year member]

Originally posted by Jmac Alright, I will go hook up my Jensen amplifier and old head unit to a boat battery and then hook my Kicker C10a up to the amp ... turn the gains all the way up and the head unit all the way up and wait until the battery dies and we'll see how quickly my sub dies from over 50% distortion ...

i think your amp may die first

 

[Spddracer 10+ year member]

Originally posted by Jmac The difference you're hearing is probably a lot of things ... signal-to-noise ratio, distortion, crossover quality, etc. It all adds up ... what I'm saying is that if you have the same everything except distortion, you won't be able to tell the difference between 0.01% and 0.5% ...

You are right but most class d amps Available are not that great yet !

 

[Spddracer 10+ year member]

Originally posted by Jmac The difference you're hearing is probably a lot of things ... signal-to-noise ratio, distortion, crossover quality, etc. It all adds up ... what I'm saying is that if you have the same everything except distortion, you won't be able to tell the difference between 0.01% and 0.5% ...

You are right but most class d amps Available are not that great yet !

 

[Ralphus 10+ year member]

Originally posted by Jmac Alright, I will go hook up my Jensen amplifier and old head unit to a boat battery and then hook my Kicker C10a up to the amp ... turn the gains all the way up and the head unit all the way up and wait until the battery dies and we'll see how quickly my sub dies from over 50% distortion ...

Wrong way. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

First, take a high quality amp that puts out more than the rated power for that speaker, and play with the gain anywhere within reason and you should be ok. Then do the same with a Jensen amp of the same wattage but WAY more distortion, and and you have a good chance of blowing the speaker.

 

[Gauntlet 5,000+ posts]

First, take a high quality amp that puts out more than the rated power for that speaker, and play with the gain anywhere within reason and you should be ok. Then do the same with a Jensen amp of the same wattage but WAY more distortion, and and you have a good chance of blowing the speaker

For the former situation, it will be ok because you can play with the gains and get the amp to put out relatively what the RMS of the sub asks for. For the latter situation, it will not blow, it will simply sound like shit.

Ralphus, do you know what distortion physically IS? It's an unwanted change ('distorted' change) in the waveform of the signal. So instead of the waveform being represented as a smooth curve/parabola, it will have some sort of anomaly in it - it may jet up too high and sound like a crackle, or it may jet down low and sound like a rumble, or it may even extend across and produce the note longer than its supposed to be produced. Hence, it is called distortion. It has no effect on whether the sub will blow, simply on how it sounds. You may think it sounds blown, but its not.

If your theory was right, and too much power did not blow speakers, you could send a sub more than its rated power and have no problems. For example, you could take an Infinity Kappa Perfect 12" (350 RMS) and send 400 watts to it, and it will not blow, it will just get louder. I have experience in this, I had 2 of these subs and sent them 400 watts each with my Cadence Z9000, and suprise suprise, they blew. Granted some subwoofers you can send more than their rated power, but the most i've really seen is about 75-100 watts. Too much power will undoubtedly blow the subwoofer. Distortion will not.

Jmac is 100% correct

 

[Gauntlet 5,000+ posts]

Thank you Should I go unhook my sub, amp, and head unit from my battery now ? By the way, it still hasn't blown after an hour

No. It will definitely blow, just give it time. It HAS to, everyone knows distortion is the number one cause of subs blowing!! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

i can't believe i read throught the whole post.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/eek.gif.771b7a90cf45cabdc554ff1121c21c4a.gif

anyways, too much power does indeed kill subs. the sub cannot distinguish between whats "good" and whats "bad". if so, then some some will blow playing music that they dont' like.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif clipping does not kill subs. if the subs are able to handle the extra power the clipping signal gives, then it shouldn't blow (voice coil...suspension limit is another thing).

Take a DD9515 for example. run it with a 50 watts RMS amp and clipp the heck out of the amp. the sub will not blow. the extra power that the amp gives out during clipping stage is not nearly enough to blow the sub. but if you had say 500 watts RMS to a 1000 watts RMS sub while the amp is clipping, sure you will probably lose something (voice coil maybe?)

anything under 1% THD you will not be audible, even to the most sensitive ear. now you may wonder about the signal to noise ratio? anything about 85db and above is also inaudible in a car. 85db is such a higher ratio already. if a salesman tells you .."well get this amp because it has better S/N ratio." you can rest assure it all BS. its marketing hype.

Jmac..if you dont' like the jensen amp, you can always give it to me!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif i like jensen!

 

[GSteg 10+ year member]

Originally posted by Jmac K, give me $20 US + shipping for it //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

what model is it?

 

[saber 10+ year member]

i always thought of distortion as a sign of stress on a sub, and that its not the distortion itself ,but what ever may be causeing the distortion that kills subs , like clipping or over powering . but i could be worng //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/confused.gif.e820e0216602db4765798ac39d28caa9.gif

 

[pioneer 10+ year member]

ok so moving back to the topic...

which will make subs sound cleaner...D class amps...or high end class AB amps ?

for example :

for a pair of IDQ 12's

US amps 600X

or

PG Qx 900.1D

or

JBL 600.1

or

DEI 600D

what do you all think ?

 

[bumpin_blazer 5,000+ posts]

BP600.1 AMPLIFIER

Total Harmonic Distortion: 0.1%

US Acoustics USX-600D

THD at Rated RMS Power:

can't find pg's. or the dei but they are all gonna be around the smae. you won't hear a dif.

adam

 

[bumpin_blazer 5,000+ posts]

yep i have no idea of the thd on the d300hc that i will have in 2 weeks or less nor about the zapco ref. 350 that i am getting but i know that at least the zapco will mop the floor with anything listed here and i get em for cheaper than i can say.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

adam

 

[getsumbaby 10+ year member]

Distortion doesnt blow speakers TOO MUCH POWER DOES

Too much power resulting in clipping= distortion. Right?

so - distortion is the primary killer in subs.

Ed

 

[Randy Savage 5,000+ posts]

Too much power resulting in clipping= distortion. Right?
so - distortion is the primary killer in subs.

Ed

a) this thread is 2 years old

b) power will thermally kill a speaker...not distortion.