Thermal Damage From Clipping?

[dirthog 10+ year member]

How noticable is thermal damage caused by clipping?

Click to read more...

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

Depends on the severity of the clipping and how much the amplifier is overdriving the speakers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clipping_%28audio%29

 

[bdawson72 5,000+ posts]

It can be pretty bad actually

 

[Decipha 10+ year member]

x2 i have a set of boston nx87s i decided to throw on my orion 8004 for shiits and giggles... you could say i burnt up the speaker, the little cap died first though

 

[DejaWiz 5,000+ posts]

What a terrible wiki ... By far the worst explanation of clipping I've seen in my life ...
As for how noticable the thermal damage is, it's the same as when you exceed the thermal limits of the speaker with a clean signal.

It's Wiki... edit it for accuracy if you feel it's sub-par. Or provide a better source please.

 

[Gary S 10+ year member]

How noticeable is it? I guess it depends on the extent of the damage... some speakers won't play if they get too hot and that heat causes severe damage.

Kind of like a car I guess... if the A/C breaks, you can still drive it but it's not as much fun. But if your car breaks down and you have to hoof it, you are really going to hate your car.

Clipping does not matter... it's how hot your speaker/coils get... you can heat up a speaker, clipping or not. But I will say you are more likely to get it hotter with clipping. But it is not the end-all be-all of speaker damage.

If I hold a lighter under your boo-boo for three minutes (moderate power clipping over time), or hit you with a flamethrower (mondo musical peak), either way, it's still going to leave a mark. Would you like to be burnt to a crisp quick or slow-cooked?! Do you smell what I'm cooking?! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/flamer.gif.1fb8372af2de4b576aa9428ccc8a8f2f.gif

 

[alexlindeman 10+ year member]

We made some videos and had some fun.

Some people tried claiming the class D and class AB clipping signals not only look different, but kill a coil in different ways.

They both overheat a coil the exact same way when clipping.

We took a coil rated at 400 watts and put 700 watts of clean tones into it. It took quite some time to overheat the voice coil, but eventually it was gone.

Then took the rated 400 watts and started to dirty up the signal. Overheated the coil in 1/3 the time.

We then took a 200 watt signal and clipped it all to hell. It went very fast.

So does clipping damage a speaker, yes...how fast...it depends on the severity of the clipping.

 

[dirthog 10+ year member]

So is there any way to find out if there is minor damage? Or if there is it would be noticable?