Thermal Distortion your loudspeaker most likely suffers from it. But do you care?


 Thermal Distortion is much more serious than just a maximum power handling limitation or side effect.TD is overlooked by most manufacturers as there is no easy (low cost) solution and TD is audible and measurable most of the time at most power levels. TD is caused by the conductive metal (aluminum, copper, or silver) voice coil getting hotter when you pass electrical energy through it. The more power you pass through it the hotter the metal gets. The hotter the metal gets the more the electrical resistance increase. The efficiency goes down and you need to ram in more and more power for smaller and smaller increases in SPL. It can be the reason you get fatigued while listening. If you are running massive power you are creating more TD in your transducers. But do you care? And is it a reason some prefer horn-loaded designs or SET-powered systems since they have the least problems with TD? 

128x128johnk

Showing 1 response by mrskeptic

@teo_audio 

 

When you say "it is also happening in the cables (eg, preamp to power amp and speaker cables), where they get overloaded and they reach a certain threshold of distortion vs clean, and we hear it" are you implying that electricity slows down or gets backed up in a cable if someone turns the volume up?