how to avoid breaking speakers
 

hello,
i found out i have a broken speaker this morning and i was wondering if you have any tricks or instructions so that this doesnt happen to me in the future. I am now running 120W on speakers rated for 60w RMS (focals 160v2 slim) but I have been told this is not a problem. I can kind of assume putting volume too high can break them, but what else?

If you are running 120w rms into a 60w rms speaker, that is a major problem. In all cases, blowing a speaker is due to overpowering. Overpowering also brings mechanical failure to the table as well. Start by turning the gain way down, engage a HP crossover and limit the low end response to the speaker. Avoid bass boost and loudness setting when you can. Next if you want to continue to operate with that much power, find some speakers that can handle that kind of power. A speaker will do what it is told to do, you feed it distortion, it will play it. You overpower it, it will play it until it dies.

Having headroom(toomuch power) can be a good thing,but like stated above you have to set you gains right!I run my fronts x-over so low they are always on the edge of high volume failure,but thats my choice and I understand the replacment cost vs great sound difference.If its a midbass problem look to a driver that can handle more power at a lower x-over point.

can you not blow a speaker from underpowering(distortion)?????

No. If you "blow" a speaker it is due to too much power, be it clean or distorted. Either scenario is a signal that is going to the speaker. If the speakers thermal barrier is not breached, you can play a distorted signal into the speaker all day long. Underpowering does not and will not ever damage a speaker.

Running a distorted signal into a speaker may have an adverse effect on the mechanical operation of the speaker. A mechanical failure is far different than a thermal failure.

OOOOhhhhhh boy... it's been a while since we've had the "underpowering blows a speaker" debate...

I think it would be good for the newer members to see people make their points... but please try and keep it civil. :smilie_da

I cannot agree with this entirely. I would rather say that it is unlikely that a car speaker, running in it's proper passband, will be damaged by an undersized amplifier.

LOL
I like this kind of discussion.
Yes, you can destroy speakers with distortion. And it doesn't take much power. Happens a lot with deck power. I know all this from expericance, but it was also greatly covered in my college courses.
When you try to get loud, without enough power, you're driving the amp into clipping. This puts a combination of square waves and DC into the coils. The DC simply heats up the winding on the coil and if it doesn't actually melt the copper, it will melt the glue that holds the windings in place.
At the same time, square waves (picture a sine wave with the top and bottom cut off flat) which are really harmonics of a ton of frequencies combined, are driving the speaker crazy! That's where the mechanical failure comes in.
I had to get a warrantee replacement once on a pair of ImageDynamics Mid-bass. They told me they'd been over powered, I told them yes, it was there "authorized" installer who blew them up. He had them hooked up as subs, even though the drawing i gave him had them on a crossover for mid-bass only.
This is where it gets interesting... My solution is more power!! I have enough power to seriously hurt my speakers IF mistreated. And the trick is i never play it that loud. My system will go loud enough to hurt my ears, but why would i want to. I already have permanent damage to my right ear, which was just about at the focal point of all 6 or 8 speakers in all the cars and systems i've had.
The other trick is i don't show it off to my freinds, or at least i don't show them how loud it will go (anymore). I take them for a drive and let them listen to how Good it sounds, No SPL for me. I've blown speakers showing people how loud it is. Not only is that embarassing, it's costly.

AND, I always take out my faceplate when the car goes for service.

That's a good idea, I had shop people cranking up my system so many times :stroke:.

Ive never seen distortion cause a mechanical failure... only power in general...

as far as distortion blowing speakers thermally if your amps have lots of current on hand you may even double output but the distortion would be pretty outragous.... given a sub amp set up to run at %20 duty cycle you would gain a minimum average of 8% THD to increase output by 1db... for example...

Its also worth noting that an amp under heavy load tends to clip differently then an amp that has solid rail voltage.... basically if an amp is already at or near its limits chances are you aint gettin a spit more without driving THD through the roof....

so if i try to make sense of all this, basically if you are going to put your system very loud then you better underpower them so you dont put enough power to blow them up even though they might distort. If you are into SQ you overpower the speakers to control them better but you cannot krank the volume in distortion. SO if i listen to music medium-loud but not ear poping during a 5 hour trip, powering my speakers 120w and they are rated 60w rms i should be ok? I know this will sound bad but the GUYS AT THE SHOP told me not to worry (of course they wont pay if it breaks...) although i would not go there again if they lied... and if they told me my speakers could not survive 120w then i would have bought more expensive ones that have higher rating... It is a confusing topic :dunno:

To a speaker, there is no difference between noise, distortion, or music...
it's all the same in the end, as far as the drivers concerned.
Mark

I would have to disagree with that. Distortion in the form of cliping is very different from other types of sound. As mentioned previously, straight DC to a woofer will make it act and cool differently then it would if it was from regular music/noise/ect.

it can be shown with asymetrical program material (which I guess isn't uncommon) one rail will clip more then the other... over time this could be considered a DC potential.... But a clipped wave or even a square wave is still very different then DC power.......

yea 5 hrs might be pushing it.... but it all depends on your listening tastes..... if you listen to folk music Id give different advice then if you listen to pop music...... so without knowing that or having any experience with your speakers my advice is basically to set the gains so the amp isn't exceeding 15-20volts RMS with your speakers hooked up and you should be OK....

20 volts rms? If my physics are not too far P = VI where p is the watts and v is the volts. now depending on the gain you set on the amp the volts will oscillate around 0.2V (min) and 4V (max) Is the current constant or the current what you change when you up the volume on the HU in a system? That would mean I payed for more power than I need since I use about 50W of the 120 possible at my gain. Now, that doesnt make my speakers receive 120W so I should be ok, just have to be sure the gain is set correctly...
Let me know if this makes sense

Lmao. Here we go again... Underpower... Overpowering... This is me getting the hell out of this thread.:3gears: *blasts off*

a driver distorting because it is being pushed passed it's limits, so you can hear the distortion is quite different from the speaker playing a distorted signal...

Mark

EDIT: I'd like to add a few things.


High peak power, may cause the cone to move too far, thus Mechanical failure sets in. too much RMS power over time will cause Thermal failure...

you can play a clipped signal into a driver for as long as you like without any damage whatsover, as long as it's at a low enough volume for the driver to dissapate the built up heat, and the cone doesn't extend past it's limits.

So it seems like we agree. Great.

don't see what you mean. I made a statement, you disagreed, and then I refind my statement, and then you agree? :dunno:

Mark

If it makes you feel better, I could disagree :D

it does :)

Mark

You just refined what I was saying, wich is what I did to your first post, so now it seems we are on the same page :)

you said Distortion or clipping will damage speakers... it doesn't, and now you agree with me?

whatever, don't really care.. think whatever you want.:)

Mark

Look, your first quote said that distortion could not hurt a speaker, I said distortion in the form of clipping can. Then you said if the cliping power is low enough it wont damage the speaker. How can I not agree with that?

My only point was that the amp cliping can damage the speaker and that cliping is distortion. My point is especially true when it seems a cliped amp can put out up to 50% more of what its RMS power is. I dont know what's hard to get.

Unless you dont agree clipping is distortion?

It doesn't matter that clipping is or isn't distortion. I said that distortion or a clipped signla won't hurt or damage a speaker... Yes if the clipped signal is high enough, then it wil damage a speaker, the same way a clean signal that is too high will damage a speaker. it has nothing to do with the signal, but the level.

I don't know why this doesn't make sense to you. clipped signal, distortion; it doesn't matter, it's all about the level, or power you're pushing to the driver, and when it comes down to it that's what is gong to kill a speaker, thermal overload, or mechanical limits being passed.... it has nothing to do with weather the signal is distorted, clipped or anything else with the signal...

is that clear?

Mark

Many of the speakers that I have seen have been damaged not by severe under or overpowering but because of incorrect settings by the user where the speaker cannot handle the frequncy and level being played with the power applied.
I've seen speakers underpowered and work for years like this just fine (although underpowered they never lived up to there full potential that they were designed for). If the customer wants to rock out just set up the system correctly and let them know the performance that they're going to get with less than required power levels (ie. make them pay the few dollars extra for the added power they require).
I've also seen more commonly a speaker powered much higher than rated work great for years and years. If you want to take mine for example my comps are rated for ~100rms per side but with 125rms to each I find the midbass not as strong as I would like from them. EQing doesn't work as well for them as adding power. The most I've had on them is 500rms per side with fantastic results. At the moment they are capable of receiving ~300rms per side. Nwo I know someone is going to chime in and say "the added power is going to shorten the speaker's lifespan" and "they'll play but only for so long until they give out from the stress". I've listened to these speakers playing strong for more than 13hrs straight on my drives to see my parents on N.S.
Need more, well how about I tell you these speakers are also 8+ years old now. It's all about proper settings, knowing limits, and proper design. And yes I like my music loud sometimes.

Wow man. Those are some old speakers. What are you running that has held up so well?

Orion 6MB and crossovers with a Crystal tweet that I got in another comp set and really liked so I swapped it in.

8 years of abuse, thats impressive :thumbsup:

You can keep on arguing that its the extra power that distroyes the speaker and not the clipping, but I am sure you can agree that your not getting that extra power without the amp clipping. They go hand in hand in this scenario. This is the reason why I point my figure to the clipping.

Of course I never said cliping will always damage a speaker just like overpowering wont always damage speakers.

The key is when "theboy" mentions this: underpowering(distortion)?????

I agree that only underpowering wont damage the speaker, but when adding distortion in the form of the amp cliping then that leaves the door open to my scenario where the amp can now produce more then its rated power, lower the heat dissapating capabilities of the speaker and potentially damage it.

ok let's try it this way...

you have a driver that can safely handel 500w RMS

Take an amp capable of putting out 100W RMS, and for the sake of argument, I'll use your stats that an amp can put out 50% more power when fully clipped...

are you saying that the 500w driver will suffer any damage from an amp putting out a 150W clipped signal???

Mark

Mechanical failure= clipping signal and drive the voice coil beyond its limit

Thermal failure= clipping signal and drive the voicecoil melt down, clipping causes the air not coolinn voice coil.


remember: any amp can blow any speaker, set right the gain, avoid any clipping.

correct me if ^^ is wrong.

really?

mechanical failure is merely overpowering the driver to extend past it's limits, and thermal failure is too much power, and the driver's inability to disipate the heat built up.

^^^ how do you arrive at that conclusion?

Mark

This is freakin silly....
AMP 200 watts
Subwoofer 250watts
I am sure you can come up with many other types of scenario similar to mine.

In any case, it has become quite obvious to me, Mark, that you can never be wrong. I know this now especially after correcting you in the jackhammer thread yet somehow, according to you, you are stilll right. It is obviously futile to continu this here. I have made my point, others can make of it what they will.

correction on my other post, mechanical failure = Speakers can also be damaged mechanically by driving it beyond what the suspension can handle. Mechanical damage is generally caused by driving the speaker with too much power but it can also be done when a speaker is in a ported enclosure and is driven with frequencies below the port tuning frequency. <bcae1.com

remember, ur volume control adjust ur speakrs life

you haven't offered any information other than running around in circles why you are right. if you want keep telling me you're right, then go ahead... it still doesn't change anything...

Mark

how is this 'silly'? I gave an example of an amp putting out a highly clipped signal, distorted and all, and yet it won't have any effect on the driver, as far as damage... how does that not make sense to you?

MArk

If underpowering can never damage a speaker, how does one explain people blowing up 40-60watt RMS speakers off of the 14-17watts RMS you get out of a deck?

Well I have a good website for you

Too Little Power Blowing Speakers