I don't know that I completely understand your question.
If you like to play your tunes very loud, it is possible to blow them up with any amount of power. You are more likely to blow up speakers with a 20 watt receiver than a 300 watt amp.
When you turn the volume up, your amplifier ask for more electricity to produce the current or volume to get louder. When you keep turning it up, there comes a time when your outputs are giving you all the volume that it can produce. When you turn it up past that point, your amplifier doesn't know what to do with the extra electricity that it has drawn to get louder, so it passes the raw electricity on to your speakers, this is what we call clipping. Clipping distortion is the number one cause in fried voicecoils on speakers. Adding bass draws much more current than just volume alone, often, you can just turn down the bass to maintain a safe volume level. If the volume of your music is not loud enough, you are typically much better off getting more power, than replacing your speakers. Raw electricity can burn any speaker, even those rated for very high power handling. If you like the sound of your speakers, you are typically better off getting more power to play louder. This is a guideline, not a fact. There are other things that come into play... Excursion limits of drivers, voice coil size, crossover points & slopes etc. I hope this answers your question, Tim |
You have to double your power to get a 3db gain. It takes 3db to get a noticable difference in volume. If you are listening to a speaker of 90db @ 1 watt, 2 watts give you 93db, 4 watts give you 96db, 8 watts give you 99db, 16 watts give you 102db, 32 watts give you 105db, 64 watts give you 108db, 128 watts give you 111db, 256 watts give you 114db.... 121db is our threshold of pain. This tells you how speaker sensitivity dramitically effects how much power is needed. |
Just a quick add on to make the point of sensitivity and power. All other aspects being equal, a 93db sensitivity speaker will play a volume of 111db using 64 watts. A speaker with 84 db sensitivity will play a volume of 111db on 256 watts.
Your speaker choice makes all the difference in the world on how much power is required to hit the volume levels that you seek. |
I appologize, I had just run the numbers off the top of my head, but the formula is fact, not opinion, so
84 @1 watt 105 @256
87 @2 watts 111 @512 watts @ 84db sensitivity
90 @4 111 @ 64 watts @ 93db sensitivity
93 @8 I missed one line in figuring.
96 @16 110 @ 16 watts @ 98db sensitivity speakers
99 @32
102@64
105@128
Thanks Atmasphere, your chart is correct, but I was quoting how much power it took to achieve a 3db gain, not how much voltage it takes to double your volume. My numbers are correct with all things being equal. |
Thanks Al,
I was trying to make very general terms understandable and as much as you are generally correct. Crossovers do see DC as High frequency and do route 1st to the tweeter. This DC is raw current. Crossovers do not block DC. In fact, Through the years, I have used circuit breakers to protect against current and have even put small light bulbs on 6x9's in cars. The kids used to think it was very cool to see them flash with the music. The sole purpose of these bulbs was to filter off DC. It worked very well. |
Thanks for your kind response Almarg, Pulled my old Speaker
Craft notes out, here is what I had word for word. I'm just old.
The bulb wires in series with the tweeter, under normal average music conditions it is just a low value resistance as the power sent to the tweeter increases the current through the bulb increases. since the bulb filament has a positive temperature coefficient as it heats up it's resistance goes up and takes a larger share of the power that the tweeter would get without the bulb in series. this does cause compression but saves many tweeters in a cheap easy way. Ideally the bulb should go before the tweeter crossover circuitry so it does not affect the crossover frequency. |
This is from Club knowledge, an article about clipping distortion. I hope this makes sense. Tim
Glad you asked! The amp will try to meet the power demand placed upon it, but it cannot exceed its design capabilities. This in turn, produces the deadly "square wave" output to the speaker. The speaker sees this severely clipped signal as DC current. Speakers cannot deal well with DC inputs. The cone goes in or out and stays there. No motivation to cool the voilce coil and sooner or later, the speaker will fail.
YEAH... YEAH... SO WHAT CAN I DO TO PREVENT THIS?
Alright, we know what clipping is, how it affects amps and speakers. What do we do to keep this problem from destroying our expensive drivers? Easy deal:
1. Use amps that closely match or modestly exceed the power rating of the speaker. A 100 watt speaker will love getting 125 watts of "clean power" vs a 100 watt speaker getting 25 watts of badly clipped (distorted) power.
2. Know what distortion sounds like and prevent it by proper amp setup procedures. (HU/amp gain matching, limited bass boost usage)
3. If you are not sure your system is clipping, best thing to do is get out
of the vehicle, open the doors and step to the rear of the vehicle about 10 feet and listen...
a. Are the highs and mids clear and natural sounding or harsh, shrill and very poor SQ? You are clipping the amp if you hear the latter!
b. Does the bass sound full, tight, have a definite thump and smooth transitions from one note to another? If not, good chance the sub amp is clipping or your enclosure design is not optimal for the subs.
OK, that's about all I can do for now on this topic... Class dismissed and PLEASE... NO CLIPPING ALLOWED !!! 15 yard penalty and you will pay the piper eventually. |
Sorry everyone if I have put you through all of this, I hope it has been beneficial, but I think that I'm going to leave this one alone, I didn't sign on to argue or prove anything, only to help, I'm a big stickler on seperating fact from opinion. I need to learn when to quit, I'm not trying to hurt feelings.
See you on the next thread,
Tim |
