Killing amps by voltage drops

[shava 10+ year member]

I kinda see some people around here saying the amp was probably dead because of voltage drops.

How true is this and say your electrical drops to a minimum of 13.8v is that really going to kill an amp over time?

Click to read more...

 

[terra 5,000+ posts]

no

its true if ur dropping to 11's and under

 

[shava 10+ year member]

So when an amp dies randomly its most likely bad build quality?

I just don't understand why an amp will work fine for like 8 months then just stop one day and blow something.

 

[terra 5,000+ posts]

because it will struggle to produce power until it gives up

 

[shava 10+ year member]

Even when the volts stay around 14v?

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

Even when the volts stay around 14v?

Then voltage drops isn't what killed the amp.

Did you have it running too low an impedance?

 

[mile098 10+ year member]

could be a voltage drop, how did u measure it, when and where..play a frequency for about 20 secs or so and measure it then, u cant do it accurately enough on music

 

[shava 10+ year member]

Well a test tone ran me down to 13.9v after like 20 seconds or so when I had the amp.

And it was at 2ohms so thats fine for that amp.

Im just trying to keep my next amp or if this one gets refurbed from frying again. If you are clipping the sub with the amp does that hurt the amp at all?

 

[mokedaddy 5,000+ posts]

There are a lot of things that can kill an amp. There are also a lot of things that can either come loose or stop working on an amp. Do you have any pics of the inside?

 

[SeanDub 10+ year member]

Did you blow an amp? What amp? What were the circumstances?

Dropping to 13.8 volts won't kill an amp. However, having an inaccurate instrument measuring the drop and telling you it's at 13.8 when it's at 11.9 will blow an amp.

But who knows what exactly happened. If you show us some guts there are guys on here who can identify what blew or burned and then guess at how it could have happened.

 

[Silverbane 10+ year member]

Lower Voltage = higher current = not nice to the power supply.