Is this clipping?

Sounds like textbook tube soft clipping to me.

PEople are sometimes under the misconception that rock/pop music is the easiest to get right. When it does not sound good, the recording is blamed. I have not found that to be the case. Large scale classical and many rock/pop recordings especially newer loudness wars recordings were some of the toughest for me to really get right. The thing these have in common is longer high energy passages that get choked out in an underpowered system. Also smaller drivers may be challenged to deliver full dynamics with these as well. You may have a double whammy going on in your case with the low power tube amp and the single full range drivers. The recipe for good rock and pop in general is usually lots of power and larger or multiple drivers.

Unsound,

My experience over the years has been that most all rock/pop recordings suffer if the system is underpowered or undersized, among other things. The ultimate quality of these compared to others on the grand scale of things doesn't matter.

Whatever their other issues on the grand scale, the newer louder pop/rock digital recordings out there are more challenging from a power perspective, not less. I think it just follows that louder requires more power to reproduce accurately, for better or for worse.

Modern rock pop along with perhaps big band and large scale classical are exactly the types of music I would expect a flea powered SET running single driver full range speakers to demonstrate limitations with, at least at realistic volumes, although this kind of setup should sound heavenly most of the rest of the time.

Play the drum intro to "Know Your Enemy" By Green Day for example. WHen the song starts and the drums hit, they should sound very real and knock you out of your seat. Other than that, the recording is acceptable for what it is, but nothing special by any stretch otherwise.

Well, if the system is clipping as a result, the results will not be good, that is for sure!

Overdriving the speakers won't help either.

Both together is the double whammy.

Agree overdriving amp (clipping) and overdriving speaker are two different (bad) things.

With loud recordings, you have a lose/lose scenario if amp is underpowered. You can keep the volume up as intended and distort due to clipping or be forced to turn it down whether you want to or not.

Regarding overdriving the speakers, you have a different issue but the same choices, distort or turn it down.

if you have both, ie underpowered amp and speakers/drivers that cannot go loud and dynamic effectively, you have th edouble whammy which is more common and more severe with modern loud recordings.

Address both these issues and at least you are in a position to play the game optimally regardless of recording quality.

That's a nice article.

My technical intuition tells me that fast and highly efficient Class D switching amplifiers like the Spectrons or Icepower are tailor made to accurately address the issues associated with dynamics, transients, and clipping better than conventional SS or soft clipping tube amps. What I hear on my BelCanto ref1000m Icepower monoblocks support that. For my application and speakers, in that I want realistic dynamics and transients as much as possible with minimal fatigue causing distortions, none of the power or current available in the ref 1000ms are optional or unneeded I believe. The OHMs in particular are capable of very good dynamics, articulation, detail and and muscle (a tough combo to achieve together) if provided the power needed fast enough and the BC icepower amps have set the bar in regards to that for me.

TGE,

But you say it sounded good with realistic dynamics and loudness in the studio, right?

So the recording would not seem to be the issue. Sounds like your amp clipped and blew the tweeter. Clipping is usually the case when a tweeter blows. Loud, dynamic passages are usually the culprit.

When I used to sell audio years ago, with vinyl as th emain source, many more tweeters were blown by 15 or 20 watt amps tha 80 or 120w/ch ones. Warped records in particular were problematic in that the low frequency noise created used up the power and left the actual music to clipp fairly easily. This is not an issue with digital and I believe fewer tweeters get fried these days in practice due to clipping with digital sources, even though clipping is still a common occurence and affects the sound quality otherwise..

Overdriving a speaker with too many clean watts without clipping can occur also and limit or distort the sound perhaps somewhat, but damage to the speaker is less common than when clipping occurs.

I'll try to check out the Metallica. The Metallica I do have (S&M, Metallica Black album) finally sounds about as good as it can sound these days since moving to the 500w/ch Icepower "monster" amp.

Its true that a lot of modern "loudness wars" CDs feature peaked out/clipped waveforms in the recording. Combine that with amp clipping during playback and things can get really ugly!

I have 13000+ CD tracks on my music server. I often play them randomly like a jukebox. I usually set levels to be loud enough for most recordings. WHen a newer loudness wars track comes on the overall loudness is clearly audible in comparison to other tracks. If my amp were clipping, I would probably not dare do this. As is, there is no audible distortion or breakup with these loud tracks unless in the recording, but yes the relative volume level is apparent. These tracks generally still sound pretty good, but definitely loud and they often succeed in grabbing your attention which is what is intended.

SPL Calculator

Here's a tool you can use to determine how loud your system can go given 10w/ch if you know your speakers efficiency.

These things are usually just ballpark estimates to determine where you are on teh grand scale perhaps. Playing a system at a believed safe volume level still does not tell you how accurately transients are handled at various volumes for example, so the more subtle effects of clipping are still possible.

If you are way into the green zone based on how loud you like to listen given the factors considered, though, that probably means clipping is less likely than otherwise, at least.

It would not surprise me if some full range drivers are undersized overall and/or have limited driver excursion and are thus more of a challenge to produce high level volumes and realistic dynamics with than multi driver designs , especially with low power amps.

BTW the way, I think the OHM Walsh speakers I am fond of and use are perhaps one of teh best designs out there for maximizing what you can get out of a single driver. Everything up to 8000hz or so is produced by a single omnidirectional driver using Lincoln Walsh's principles that can be scaled up or down in size accordingly based on room size with minimal or any change to the resulting sound. Properly amplified and in room sizes typically found in residences (I use 500w/ch Icepower amps) these go as loud as you want with fantastic dynamics and essentially no sign of stress. They are true "muscle" speakers also capable of finesse and detail. Conventional box designs have to be much bigger and way more expensive to compete IMHO.

After many years of trying, I think my current combo of high power Icepower amps and the OHM Walsh speakers finally puts my system performance into the upper echelons of performance possible in regards to ability to go loud, clear, and dynamic yet for comparatively modest cost.

"The 300B amp can reach the peaks, but can't sustain them. "

That sounds like clipping to me?

Psag,

I think it is a safe thing to say that it is generally harder and more expensive to get a system to sound really good when played (realistically) loud than unrealistically soft.

Louder requires more power than soft. That is pretty intuitive, right?

Well, a lot of new recordings are louder overall, so more power than ever is now required as well.

Efficiency helps. Suitable degrees of efficiency overall to deliver loud recordings without clipping can be achieved readily these days with a more efficient amp, like Class D, and/or more efficient speakers.

Here is an interesting site to find out more about dynamic range of specific recordings:

[url=http://www.dr.loudness-war.info]Dynamic Range Db[/url]

Lots of red and much less green in recent years.

Still, you can't generalize that recordings in general old or new are good or bad. It depends which ones specifically.

Any particular examples in mind Unsound that others may have also to offer an opinion on?

There is no doubt that most pop/pock recordings these days, including newer remasters of old stuff, are louder overall in general. Some are also clipped. Most are compressed to some degree. Some sound very good. Some sound more "average". Most are enjoyable to me and have at least some good qualities although many are far from perfect.

In lieu of crunching the numbers, I think a greater % of new recordings that I buy sound good than ever before. Some of that is the sysem I am playing them on these days, but that alone would not save them if there was no merit otherwise.

Then again I am a music lover and will listen to almost anything once unless it is just so noisy, distorted or poorly produced that I can't handle it. That occurs rarely.

My opinion is in many cases it is totally consistent artistically with the kind of music being performed, if not necessarily teh result of teh artists vision.

Most artists are not influential enough to control factors that affect the marketability of the product.

Perhaps with smaller indie labels.

It is what it is and in the end its mostly all good though often far from perfect.

Compressed or clipped dynamics are more bothersome to me than over loudness. They are three different things. With some pop/rock recordings, together they can constitute teh triple whammy for sure.

Not all women need look like Minka Kelly to be attractive nor act like Mother Teresa to be good.

BTW I believe myself to hold pretty high standards in general, but I am a big yin/yang person philosophically and as a result am able to not let recording quality cause me a dilemma these days.

Sure, they could all be better. So what? In the pseudo words of the immortal Frank ZAppa 'They are what they is".