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Amp Clipping? with my Swan 6.1's

Hello,
A few years ago my wife purchased these speakers for me from you. I have been very, very happy with them, great looks and even better sound. Something strange has happened to them though. I have two young children and only once and a while, when everyone goes to sleep early, do I have a chance to "rock-out". When given this chance I crank the system to it's maximum, using a Sonance Amp rated at 165 watts a channel, and a Angstrom 100 Pre-amp, I also use Xindak PC-03 Bi-Amped cables. Well, this time after about a half-hour on maximum volume the system crashed, No sound at all. I realized that the amp had blown its fuse. I replaced the fuse and the system came back up. Something did not sound correct. I realized that the speakers were no longer producing sound from the mid-range drivers or the tweeters, both speakers! Still there is no sound from the mid and tweeters. It is not distorted just simply missing. When the system is used with other speakers there is no problem with the highs or mid-ranges. Are they blown? The speakers are rated at 200 watts and my system only goes to 165 watts? Is there something I can do, or do the tweeters and mid's need replacing? Now, I have heard that I blew my crossovers due to Amp Clipping and they probably need to be replaced. Is this true? Can I put in a better set of cross-overs and still use the bi-amp connectors it came with??????
Regards,
Jim
augeanpoop
7 responses Add your response
bignerd100
515 posts
 
You have likely blown your crossovers and possibly the drivers.

Remove individual drivers and play them (softly) to see if they are indeed blown.

If they play then rmove the crossover and play them through the crossover individually.

Number of watts means very little in this hobby. Amperage is a more important figure. Max watts for speakers means very little. It is easy to blow up a speaker rated for 200 watts with 15 watts of distortion. Give the same speaker 300 watts of clean power (at a reasonable volume level)and you are o.k.

If you play any of this stuff at Max you are likely to blow it up. Go get you some Klipshchorns and 20 watts of anything if you want your ears to bleed.
rwwear
2,867 posts
 
Silly boy. You will blow your speakers sooner with too little power before you will with too much power. When you crank it up all the way, you are running out of clean power and sending a distorted signal into the speakers. The first thing to go is the tweeters which can handle the least amount of distorted power then the mids. The fact you blew the fuses in the amp shows you had run out of power. It is most likley the drivers are blown but, take the xovers out and look for scorched resistors.
wstritt
170 posts
 
Out of curiousity, is there any amp that doesn't clip when actually playing music at maximum volume setting?
distortion
571 posts
 
Wstritt, you could biamp with a pair of Innersound Kilowatt Monoblocks per side!!!

From my limited technical knowledge, I'd say, you dun blow'd 'em up, Jim!
morbius396c
134 posts
 
Wstritt,

NO - there's no such thing as an amp that doesn't clip.

An amplifier produces a given gain and outputs to whatever
load you have attached. For any given combo of gain and
load; there's some volume level that exceeds the capability
of the amp. If you put enough signal into it - you will
eventually exceed its capability.

It's like asking if there is a table that will never
collapse no matter what the load placed on top of it.

For every table, there's some load that will exceed the
table's ability to carry that load.

It's up to YOU to operate your equipment within its
capabilities.

Dr. Gregory Greenman
Physicist
david99
1,467 posts
 
seeing the swan diva speakers only offer a 2 year warranty and according to av123 the drivers cant be replaced,I think you are in trouble.
I have a friend with the 6.1's who blew a tweeter and he had to send both speakers back to av123 for a complete 2 speaker replacement!
I know the tweeter is glued to the top so I can see how this would cause some problem to replace them.
The drivers are screwed in though so I dont know why av123 sez they cant be replaced.Unless they dont have access to raw drivers.
Good luck.
wstritt
170 posts
 
Distortion/Gregory - Thanks, that's what I thought. Mine was a rhetorical question for the poopster - suggesting perhaps he shouldn't "crank the system to it's maximum".
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