paranoid listener-damaging speakers?


I am one of those guys who is always wondering if he is listening too loud for his speakers capability. my system briefly consists of a prima luna prologue 2 integrated, custom eton 2 way speakers with a silk dome tweeter and 8 inch midrange, with a mhdt labs constantine dac. my room is 15x12 feet roughly. i listen about 6 feet away.
I like to listen at a level where i can feel the bass and midbass and feel that the speakers are loud enough to recreate their original acoustic on the recording. is there a rough guide to know if i am listening too loud without a meter? i will occasinally think i hear some distortion on loud passages, but it may be on the recording, i may just be paranoid? advice please? thanks.
djwilbourn

Showing 1 response by honest1

I would worry more about damaging your ears. Eton drivers are only $200 each or so. Your ears are priceless. As a rough estimate, try talking at a normal volume level, as if you were talking to someone else in the room. If you can't hear your own voise very well, the music is really loud.
As for your speakers, it is very frequency dependent. The more very low frequency content, the less loud you can play them before they reach their limits. there are at least 2 ways to damage a speaker - emlting the voice coil and bottoming out the voice coil. I'm not swure there's a good way to tell your overheating the voice coil until it's too late. If you hear a buzzing sound or a loud crack on loud deep bass notes, your hitting the voice coil against the magnets, and are at risk of bending the voice coil and ruining the speaker.