Can an amp overdamp a speaker?

Looking at the specs on the Totem I think you'll have no problem. The little boogers are 4 ohm and fairly low efficiency. The 4 ohm resistance actually lowers the effective damping of the whole amp/cable/speaker system. In general, damping is less important with a smaller number of smaller drivers, but it'll still be a positve.

The Belles' 500 watts into 4-ohm is not an issue. Just set the volume by ear and you won't blow anything up or fry your tweeters.

I'm sure you've thought of this, but you'll need excellent sources and cables or that setup will reveal any shortcomings.

Let us know how you like it after you've got it set up.

Dave

Duke, is an amplifier's ability to damp a speaker a function of several things including damping factor, amplifier power, the resistance of the speaker and resistance in the cable?

All other things being equal, wouldn't an amplifier with 500 watts into 4-ohms and a damping power of 1000, for instance, have a much higher damping ability than a 50 watt amplifier into the same load with the same damping factor?

Dave

That Duke, I appreciate your thoughts. However, this makes me wonder what I was hearing as both damping factor and power went up and ringing went down. This was in the DALI Helicon 400Mk.2. The difference wasn't subtle at all. All were SS amps and the bass was out of control with the low powered amp, tighter with the medium power stereo amp and the best with 500 watt mono-blocks. Do you think this was not so much due to damping, but more so to the power guiding the woofers? Or, is it something else?

Dave

03-31-08: Atmasphere said:
"Dave, its likely something else, in this case power and distortion. Audiophiles like to think that 'damping factor' is what they are hearing when the bass is better, and a lack of 'damping' when the bass is muddy. What is really happening is that an amplifier with clean bass is not making distortion. The amp that has muddy bass is making a lot of distortion. It really is that simple."

Well, that doesn't explain why one Jeff Rowland amp with 100 watts (into 4 ohms) of power sounded so much better in the bass than another Rowland amp with 275 watts into the same load, but with similar IM and harmonic distortion numbers.

There WAS distortion, but it seemed to be introduced by the woofers, not the amps. One amp controlled the woofers better than the other. (I'm a musician, so I know "real" bass. There were "Poster board" images of instrument in this case).

The least controlling amp was a relatively low powered Primare. Some might say it's bass had more "bloom", but I would have said it was "bloated". The lower powered Rowland improved the bass by a couple of orders of excellence, but the Rowland monoblocks really brought us very close to real bass.

When you speak of distortion, are you speaking of the entire system, including any uncontrolled resonance of the speakers' drivers? I heard that distortion and it's very real and obvious. The publish distortion numbers of amps are not measure with a big woofer on the other end of the wire. If we include that distortion, then it seems like damping and power will decrease system distortion given equal measurement of the amps under test loads without speakers attached.

Thanks for continuing to try to help Duke.

Dave

Thanks for trying. I'll be seeing Jeff Rowland in the next few weeks, so I'll ask him about it.

Dave