When are the speakers maxxed?

[Only The Best 10+ year member]

I have a box in the roof of my truck with two 6x9's 2 super tweeters and an 8" sub with 2 6x9's in the front doors and 2 Dayton audio 4"'s in the dash... they are all on an amplifier... when I turn it about 29/35 its pretty loud and I want to go louder and there is no distortion even when I hit 33/35... but how do you know when the speaker cant take any more or it will blow as well as knowing if its getting too hot or overplayed?? besides the obvious of smell and hearing for distortion

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[Only The Best 10+ year member]

gain on the amps are prolly only halfway as well

 

[trumpet 5,000+ posts]

I like lists for breaking up info so here's a list:

1. The relative position of the gain knob has nothing to do with how "hard" the speakers are being played.
   
2. You're likely hearing a good amount of distortion, but it might be good distortion. We like hearing a small amount of distortion as it makes the music sound lively and exciting.
   
3. Without setting up your levels with an oscilloscope you don't know if the speakers are getting clipped power. An oscilloscope doesn't 100% guarantee there's no clipping, but it's the best method to dial in your gains.
   
4. Without knowing if your head unit is clipping you don't know if your signal is fucked from step 1.
   

As it is now you could be slowly cooking your speaker voice coils. We can be trained to know when the speakers are being overdriven, but it may take someone else in the car to tell you, "back off the volume, that's too much".

 

[fasfocus00 5,000+ posts]

use either an oscilloscope or a DD1 to find distortion than go from there.