Good ol cliping, it works two fold, first it sends much more power to the speaker, but at the same time it negates much of the speakers cooling capability. One could even say it leads to premature death to the amplifier itself.

Those graphs are pretty interesting.

Everyone has known someone who blew their stock or cheep canadian tire/FS upgraded speakers off of deck power. And who hasn't known some guy have one or 2 of his subs on a crappy amp just stop working?

And as much as 40% distortion or more is unlistenable to most of us normal folks, a lot of "kids" or punks out there have the bass so loud they cant hear how raspy and distorted their speakers are playing. There is no doubt to me that this is very comon.

 

Seems your argument is still deck power would only kill a speaker that is already on its way out but there aren't a lot of 15wrms speakers around and their aren't many aftermarket speakers that a deck can properly power close to its max without clipping.

 

how does clipping reduce cooling capabilities ? I can think of a few possible arguments but they are pretty far fetched......

Also an amp prefers to operate in switch mode... an amp clipping should actually run cooler then one that is not...

lastly I don't know how anyone could stomach 40% THD through full range speakers.... subs behind a seat ? thats still pushing things pretty far IMO....

3% THD should be audible and by the time you hit 10% things start to sound pretty nasty IMO... maybe I am just out of touch with todays 'punk youth'.. lol...

 

Easily. Compared to a speaker playing a normal signal the clipped speaker's coil is not moving as far (and therefor not cooling as much) but is still receiving the same power. Therefor the cooling capabilities are reduced.

Running an amplifier into clipping means you're overdriving your amp which is a great way to shorten its lifespan.

 

if you want to say you'll strain the psu Ill agree... but the outputs prefer to be clipped...

10w pure sine versus 10 w clipped... I suppose I will agree because power would shift from the fundamental... (that was one argument that I mentioned I could think of) just keep in mind that the speaker will still move back and forth with the harmonic as it moves with the fundamental.....

pretty hard to say there will be a significant difference IMO...

 

I think this explains most of it:

"Damaging Woofers:
When a woofer is driven with a high powered amplifier to high levels, there will be a significant amount of current flowing through the voice coil. Since the voice coil has resistance, there is a voltage drop across the speaker's voice coil (which the amplifier appreciates greatly :-). This means that there may be a great amount of power being dissipated (in the form of heat) in the voice coil. When a speaker is driven with lots of clean power, the cone moves a great deal (in proportion to the output voltage from the amplifier). For speakers with vented pole pieces (or other types of venting), this movement forces a lot of air to flow in the magnetic gap (area where the voice coil rides). When the woofer moves out of the basket, the chamber that's under the dust cap and around the voice coil expands (increases in volume) which pulls cool air into the magnetic gap. When the woofer moves the other direction, the chamber size is reduced and the hot air is forced out of the vent in the pole piece. This air flow cools the voice coil. If a relatively low powered amplifier is driven into clipping (to a full square wave for a lot of people), a relatively large portion of the time, the voltage delivered to the voice coil no longer resembles a sine wave as it would with an unclipped signal. While the amplifier's output is clipped, the voice coil is not being motivated to move as far as it should for the power that's being delivered to it and therefore is likely not being cooled sufficiently (since the speaker is driven by a linear motor, the voltage applied to the voice coil determines how far the voice coil moves from its point of rest). At points a, b, d, e, f and h the voltage is changing causing the voice coil to move in the gap and therefore pull in fresh cool air. At points c and g, the voice coil may still be moving a little due to momentum but may not be moving enough to cool properly. Remember that during the clipped portion of the waveform current is still flowing through the voice coil. Since the displacement of the voice coil (and therefore the airflow around the voice coil) is no longer proportional to the heat being generated, the voice coil can overheat. This excess heat may cause the voice coil former to be physically distorted and/or melt the insulation off of the voice coil wire and/or cause the adhesives to fail (especially if the speaker is rated to handle no more than the power that the amp can produce cleanly). If your speakers are rated (honestly) to handle the maximum 'clean' power that your amplifier can produce, slight clipping isn't generally a problem. Severe clipping is more likely to cause a problem."

There is also data comparing excursion vs. clipped/clean signal.
Quoted from bcae