Dumb Question of the Day:
 

"Bottoming out" - I've heard this term get thrown around a lot but I don't really know what it means, is, or sounds like.

From the term I'm guessing that its when a driver gets over-driven past its x-max... am I right or wrong?

Don't beat me up too bad, I'd just like to know for sure.

Thanks

that's it, makes that slapping, thudding sound...not a good thing.

Cool, that's what I thought.

Thanks

There are 2 kinds of bottoming out. The hard bottom is what most people think of and it is a sharp cracking/slapping/knocking noise as the voicecoil literally contacts the backplate of the driver. A soft bottom occurs when the spider contacts the top plate and results in a thud or dull clunk. Both are bad news.

Here's a sound clip of an 4x6" speaker bottoming.....Clicky

Thanks for the further info guys. I'll check out that sound clip when I get home as I don't have speakers here at the office. :(

This has happened to me a couple of times. But its only when I play something that puts out 20Hz or something really low, under my ports tuning freq. If you play something under your ports tunning freq then the sub is unloaded and has more freedom to jump all over the place, sometimes hitting the magnet. Subsonic filters can cut those unheard freqs out and stop that from happening. To bad my mmats doesn't have that built in.

Ya, I have always been aware of this. But I have also never ran a ported box. I was more looking at it for my interiors speakers as I not long ago put a descent sized 4 channel on them and I don't want it to become a weapon lol.