For the last time, PLEASE: clipping does NOT blow speakers/subwoofers

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

I'm having a hard time understanding this. You are saying, comparing 2 sine waves, one that resembles a clipped signal and one that does not, that the integral of the clipped signal will have more area (or power, however you want to think of it) underneath the curve than the other? That doesn't make sense to me.

Yes. The easiest way to think of it is how I described it initially. The clipped signal is no longer a sine wave; it has become a square wave. Imagine it as literally square, pi on the base, 1 tall on the sides. That has more area than a sine curve from 0 to pi, as the area when the function is increasing to pi/2 isn't filled, as well as the area from pi/2 to pi. The square wave does have that area filled. Obviously a true clipped signal doesn't have 90 degree angles, but the concept is still the same.

 

[.::DuD3::. 10+ year member]

Oh, and woot for finding fellow EE majors //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

Fer' shizzle.


Haha, I hear you there. Half of my classes have 0 girls in them, the rest 1 or 2. I believe there were maybe 10 in the college of EE; it was pathetic. On top of that, halfof the guys are fucking WEIRD, 3/8ths are cool guys but you wouldn't wanna hang out with em outside of classes, and the last 8th are athletic/cool/all-round guys.

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif Around here, the chem E and nuclear kids are the weird of the weird. Already, engineers are the weird people on campus; the chem and nuke engineers are thought of as weird by the other engineers. I was sitting at lunch with a chem E in April, and the ****er has some coffee and starts blowing in his coffee talking about he wants to calculate the change in entropy of his coffee //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/uhoh.gif.c07307dd22ee7e63e22fc8e9c614d1fd.gif Have fun with that.

 

[.::DuD3::. 10+ year member]

Oh ok, I wasn't thinking of it with the 90 degree angles like you were. And yes, I totally agree with everything else you have said in this thread. Oh and pray for me in my circuit theory classes next semester lol.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

Oh, and woot for finding fellow EE majors //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/bowdown.gif.b85b23b82970bd22fb6b549c3392f016.gif

 

[maldecido33 10+ year member]

I'm having a hard time understanding this. You are saying, comparing 2 sine waves, one that resembles a clipped signal and one that does not, that the integral of the clipped signal will have more area (or power, however you want to think of it) underneath the curve than the other? That doesn't make sense to me.

If you have a sine wave and you take the integral underneath a particular section of the sinusoid, that is the amount of power.

Think of it like this: Imagine you have a perfectly square wave (ie, completely clipped). The area under one section from 0 to pi (Area = base * height) if it has an amplitude of 5 would be 5 pi.

If you have an ideal sine wave and you take the integral from 0 to pi, you get 2.

5pi > 2.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

Oh ok, I wasn't thinking of it with the 90 degree angles like you were. And yes, I totally agree with everything else you have said in this thread. Oh and pray for me in my circuit theory classes next semester lol.

Woot! Hopefully second year engineering is easier than first, but I'm not looking forward to Linear Circuit Analysis: Fundamentals of Electric Theory.

 

[btdickey99 5,000+ posts]

if this is such common knowledge, how come it is said by 90% or so ppl of why they are blowing subs?

I mean what gave everyone this idea?

 

[.::DuD3::. 10+ year member]

Yeah, I was thinking he was talking about 2 identical sine waves, just with one sine wave (the clipped signal) with a straight edge. So basically the clipped signal would gradually increase, level off, then gradually decrease, not make a complete vertical "square" shape. Lol I was like, uhh if you compare them both the way I was thinking, my 8yr old nephew could have told me the other was bigger lol.

 

[.::DuD3::. 10+ year member]

Woot! Hopefully second year engineering is easier than first, but I'm not looking forward to Linear Circuit Analysis: Fundamentals of Electric Theory.

Yeah, that pretty much sounds like the class I'm diving into. Who knows, maybe after next semester I'll switch to ME like all the other "undecided" guys. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

if this is such common knowledge, how come it is said by 90% or so ppl of why they are blowing subs?

I mean what gave everyone this idea?

Because their friends heard it somewhere or Jason at the audio shop down the street told them. Can clipping indirectly cause a speaker to blow? Of course, much like a can of soda can indirectly kill a dog two states over if I happen to throw it in a bucket of muriatic acid and the dog wanders over and drinks the result of the reaction.

 

[maldecido33 10+ year member]

Because usually when you have a subwoofer rated at 1kW rms and an amp that puts out 1kW rms, and you clip this signal, it blows the sub. In this case, it can be thought of that because you clipped the signal, the sub blew. But, its not the actually clipping that causes it, just the addition of power.

If you have a 1kW sub and a 100 W amp, and you clip this signal, the additional power won't blow a sub.

 

[.::DuD3::. 10+ year member]

This thread should be a sticky //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[maldecido33 10+ year member]

Woot! Hopefully second year engineering is easier than first, but I'm not looking forward to Linear Circuit Analysis: Fundamentals of Electric Theory.

Oh ok, I wasn't thinking of it with the 90 degree angles like you were. And yes, I totally agree with everything else you have said in this thread. Oh and pray for me in my circuit theory classes next semester lol.

These two classes (Linear Systems Analysis) and Circuit Analysis are the "weed-out" classes at Tech.

That and microcontrollers. If you're not good with programming, this class will destroy you. Straight machine code, dawg.

 

[PV Audio 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, that pretty much sounds like the class I'm diving into. Who knows, maybe after next semester I'll switch to ME like all the other "undecided" guys. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

Honestly, I was going to do ME initially, but EE just clicks better for some reason. The two main things I love more than anything (besides boxing as that's number one, but that has nothing to do with engineering //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif) are work on cars and do this audio shit. Unfortunately, I'm more interested in the theory than hands on shit, as evidenced by me defying joetama and designing a wirelessly powered loudspeaker...that could potentially kill someone, but it'll be badass if it works on a larger scale //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/cool.gif.3bcaf8f141236c00f8044d07150e34f7.gif