JLTD

"Having too little power blows woofers"

If this were true, every time we turned our system down, we would blow the woofers. This would be very expensive and fortunately, utter nonsense. Remember that the converse is true: too much average power over time blows woofers.

usdmbB

This is so true I hate when I am walking thru my store and hear one of our sales people saying that! But the general public is used to hearing that. But it is still wrong
miss matching signal with the gain on a amp will kill as well but normal it os just the gorilla tuning the volume up, that kills speakers. Well off to work.

BrianxB

This is incorrect. You arent understanding the original statement.

grnxb

wouldn't call it a myth, but funny "this speaker has 1000w of power"

1.) speakers don't power themselves
2.)the whole thing of labeling a speaker per it's max power, even under the most suspicious, rare condition.

SuperCrunchyAction

It is true. Too little or too much power = distortion = possible damage. I don't see where attenuating volume has to do with insufficient power.

dulcimoo

The issue is that with two little power the signal clips causing much HF into the signal. [How does this happen? For example your nice lf sin wave gets clipped ... so now it looks close to a square wave Lots more of HF in a square wave then the sin] (The crossover should take care of this ... ending up with blown tweeters not woofers) However I mooing for myself think most woofers are blown by a mismatch between the amp and the speakers. To much AMP not enough power handeling on the speaker end.

VtScionGuy

Not enough power basically makes one crank it up more on the head unit and thre gains. Thereby causing more distortion. Whether or not it kills speakers is debatable. Or I could be 100% wrong. =P

couped

Clipping causes DC voltage to be run through the speaker. When you apply DC to a coil, it moves in one direction and stays there until the voltage changes. When the coil isn't moving, it heats up very quickly. Do that long enough, with enough power and you get thermal meltdown...

Sciond

what he said...at least if your going to start a thread know what your talking about

oneslowxa

I think it's mechanical meltdown ...
too much power is a thermal meltdown...

if the system isn't tuned right you can get distortion which will cause speakers to blow...

too little power doesn't blow speakers...

Nice post JLTD!

SuperCrunchyAction

It's not a nice post, he doesn't even know what he's talking about.

oneslowxa

^^^^^^^^^^^^
he's referring to this as a myth...


Read this again...

Distortion kills speakers... yes , but that's not due to little power.. that is due to the "installer" not adjusting the gains/boost properly...

If a system is set up correctly aka idiot proofed... you can have the volume all the way up, and still have a clean sound, with little to no distortion (depending on quality of components used)...

I''m not saying spend 1000 dollars on that JL sub and only throw a 250/1 on it...
you do still want to match up power as best as you can in your system... if speaker/sub works most efficient with 150 watts, give it ~150 watts if works most efficient at 1000 watts, give it ~1000 watts...

toyota_scion_tc

You can actually push more watts than the sub is rated for however when you do this it increases the distortion. The distortiotion is when subs are blown. Don't get me wrong too much power also blows subs. The main reason subs blow is b/c of the distortion.

Sciond

geez we got some experts here
Clipping will blow a driver.....you can push more power through a a driver than it is rated....but before you do it you should see how the driver is reated and same for an amp......an example an amp that is rated peak to peak will not deliver clean unclipped power at what it is rated at..people you need to do your homework here before you mislead other .........

BrianxB

for those who thinks too little power will not kill subs and cause distortion:

It will. More power is "cleaner" power, hence less distortion if tuned properly resulting in less blown speakers...

A blown speaker is a mixture of thermal and mechanical failue. The voice coil heats up thereby damaging or seperating it altogether which results in mechanical failure.

Sciond

yep..there is disinformation everywhere......

oneslowxa

okay i didn't comment on thermally "blowing" a speaker since his original statement said that too little power will blow speakers... he was trying to pull the distortion statement out of us... along with proper tuning and matching of equipment... i hope...

mechanical destruction is which is usually caused by distortion tends to make a sub "freeze," where the cone won't move freely...

thermal destruction tends to be a melting of a lead or something along that lines... which is normally caused by too much power...

oh and a drill gun that pokes a hole through a sub will also destroy a speaker...

grnxb

So, does anyone have any myths that people can actually agree on and laugh about?

ONE_HOT_BOX

its the clipping from an amp that is being over driven that causes the failure of the driver.

when u turn the amp up past its capabilities, it will clip the signal, and can damage a speaker. however, if the idiot with the volume **** in his hand stops turning it before the signal distorts, there will be no problem.

running a sub rated for 1000w rms on a 50w rms amp will never cause it to blow, unless u max out your gains, bass boost, volume etc. and CREATE distortion.

a lower power amp does not"clip" on its own, only when it is over worked...

rotarycolt

I don't just know about turbo's, I'm a well seasoned car audio shop owner and installer...

Underpowering a speaker will blow a speaker/woofer. This is DEFINATELY a myth.

You cannot underpower a speaker into dying. END OF STORY. Ask Richard Clark, or maybe Dan Wiggins... They've made some appearances in threads before regarding this, and have TIME AND TIME AGAIN said that you can't UNDERPOWER A SPEAKER.

If you don't know who the above mentioned are, then you have no bearing on this subject whatsoever.