how do subs blow?

[Willkas 10+ year member]

is it from running frequently on high?

or what?

wtf yo?

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[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Frequently on high? WTF are you talking about.

Only 2 ways to blow a sub: 1) exceed its thermal capacity 2) exceed its mechanical limits.

 

[jer_stud56 10+ year member]

What would clipping go under?

helotaxi - you have aim/yahoo/msn?

PM me.

 

[Immacomputer 10+ year member]

You can only blow speakers with a clipped signal if the signal you're sending has a total power that is greater than the thermal power handling of the speaker. It actually has pretty much nothing to do with the motion of the cone. Also, the cone won't hang either direction due to the inertia of the cone and the damping of the suspension and it will still make a curved peak and valley.

The excess heat from a clipped signal comes from the upper order harmonics introduced when you create a square wave. Take a look at these two spectrums of a 30hz signal to understand where the extra power comes from.

This first spectrum is of an unclipped 30hz signal:

This spectrum is from a 30hz clipped signal:

The spectrum is a graph that shows power over frequency. Basically, the more purple, the more power.

It's a pretty common misconception that it's the wave form that causes the speaker to blow but that is not the case. If it was motion related, many subs would be blowing quite often when playing the tuning frequency of the enclosure they're in. At the tuning frequency, the electrical impedance of the sub is at a minimum (the nominal rating, like 4 ohm 2 ohm or whatever) which means the real power is at a maximum and the cone movement is at a minimum. You don't hear of people blowing subs because they played a frequency around the tuning frequency do you?