Underpowering subs

[KyleBechtold 5,000+ posts]

I blow all my speakers when i turn down my radio.. have to keep it full tilt all day.. its annoying but worth it

 

[Boomin_tahoe 5,000+ posts]

I'm underpowering my subs now until I get the other amps switched over.

 

[Blue Fury 10+ year member]

WHAT IF...

Just saying what if you constantly gave a 1000 watt rms woofer no more than 10 watts rms? I dont know who would or why but its a possibility. Would there be any negative consequence?

 

[BeAlLsTaR13 10+ year member]

just think of it this way, when you under power a sub, it has the same effect as if the volume is lower

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

WHAT IF...
Just saying what if you constantly gave a 1000 watt rms woofer no more than 10 watts rms? I dont know who would or why but its a possibility. Would there be any negative consequence?

When I had my Klipsch Fortes (rated at 100W), I gave them no more than 2 watts per channel.

They were fine //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

It is really simplistic to say that under or over powering any driver in and of itself leads to a blown speaker. It's usually a combination of things. I could underpower any speaker by 75% and be fine all day. But if I am only underpower it by a bit then crank the gain excessively and play continuously at high volumes the power is probably no longer clean. If the amount of power generated by the clipped wave form exceeds the speaker's thermal limits for an extended period of time it'll blow. If the amount of power generated by the clipped wave form is still not enough to overheat the voice coils I'll be good to go. However, the speaker may sound like ***. What's more important than under or overpowering (in the sense it's most commonly understood which relates to RMS ratings) is whether the speaker sounds good with reasonable amplifier and head unit settings.

But to directly answer, no, underpowering doesn't matter unless maybe you crank the gain AND the bass boost AND keep the sub level at max AND play at or near max volume at all times AND the 'dirty' power is enough to overheat that speaker's voicecoil.