Now that may be one of the finest left handed compliments I've ever heard...ranks right up there with "Gee, you don't sweat much for a fat girl".

 

Haha, yeah, after I posted it I was like ".........yeahhhhhhh hmmmm.....good one....."

But I was to lazy to change it

 

By the way 97 I wasn't trying to argue with you. I was just trying to understand it better.

 

Well since we are on the subject of clipping....I put in a bass cd and when the bass drops down to about 20-35 hz my clip light came on the amp but it was just flashing, on their website it said it should only come on at peak points of music, and should not stay on, I assume that can still damage the subs, I guess the only thing I can do to make it stop is to adjust the gain level, and dbo. It's kinda hard to adjust when you listen to all kinds of music, such as metal/alternitive,rock,rap,and some country..

I also need to get a cap for the system to I notice my headlights dim majorly when it's thumping.

System.. jvc kd-dv5100 HU, built plates to put 4 polk audio 5 1/4s in doors, powered by rockford 50x4@4ohms. 2 kicker 2ohm L7 12's powerd by infinity 1300.1@2ohms. also have 4 power acoustics bullet tweeters.

 

somcoupe, Speakers are not easy to damage through slight clipping. Tweeters are very easy to damage and then mids next when the clipping becomes more severe(Yes, there are degrees of clipping). Subs are not so easy to damage. You have to be a really careless with your equipment to cause this kind of damage to subs. There are really no excuses for doing damage of any kind to equipment. There is almost always an avoidable reason when electronics fail. It is rare for gear of any decent quality to fail without being abused. It happens, but not that often. Using it beyond its design limits is almost always the reason.


Bartak1, Thanks for the "backhanded"(that's the correct term) compliment. Probably is a good word to use, because I'm not immune to making mistakes. But I usually reserve my advice for subjects I know about for sure.

 

[QUOTE=97f250]somcoupe, Speakers are not easy to damage through slight clipping. Tweeters are very easy to damage and then mids next when the clipping becomes more severe(Yes, there are degrees of clipping). Subs are not so easy to damage. You have to be a really careless with your equipment to cause this kind of damage to subs. There are really no excuses for doing damage of any kind to equipment. There is almost always an avoidable reason when electronics fail. It is rare for gear of any decent quality to fail without being abused. It happens, but not that often. Using it beyond its design limits is almost always the reason.


Cool thanks for the info, I figured it was a little harder to damage subs as opposed to mid's and highs. I spent an hour adjusting everything again I retuned the amp/subs turned amp down to half and adjusted frequency, IMO it sounds better maybe just some other tuning on the HU with different types of songs/music.

I'm not completely new with the audio world, but still no where near a pro. I would like to get new amps/subs and try to hit 160-165 db's but that will require more money and new custom box i'm sure.

 

Since I would be one to either agree or outright say, more speakers are blown due to being underpowered, I will explain to you "in a concept that you can get" just what it is this "dumbass" is saying.

The reason speakers blow from being underpowered is because the amp or radio that is powering them is driven into a clipped state, also known as distortion. Clipping is the point at which an amp is not able to produce the power that the input signal asks it to do, therefore the output wave is no longer a smooth ac wave it is now more of a square wave which produces dc voltage on both sides of the peaks. Any time a speaker is fed DC voltage it is told to stop motion, which in turn causes excessive heat in the voice coil. Too much heat and the voice coil burns up! Its that simple. A 75 watt amp will not produce 150 watts at clip, it will simply clip, or cause DC voltage across the peaks, for a longer period of time. It IS clipping that destroys speakers! A speaker with a larger rms rating than the amp being used, only means the speaker may handle more abuse before it blows, if you continue to clip the amp.
Now that we understand what clipping is/does the reason this happens with less power is the user is typically looking for more volume than what is available from the power of the amp/radio, therefore drives the speakers into distortion(clipping) and blows the speaker. The human ear easily mistakes distortion as being high volume so the untrained ear typically doesn't even notice what they are doing to their equipment.
Unfortunately because of online and big box help yourself type purchasing the end customer is almost never educated on what they actually need for the performance that they really want. And by some fluke they actually get the gear they need, they have no idea about how to set it up and tune it.

 

Sorry for not answering your question somcoupe. Changing to a better quality speaker and resetting your gain on the amp would be your best bet, and it looks like you already got new speakers. Infinities right now are popular because they are sold to EVERYBODY including ebay supporting outlets and carry a huge profit margine. So if your a retailer that carries them and they are extremely profitable then sell the crap out of them. Thats why you were able to get such a good deal on the amp you got from your brotherinlaw. Anything approaching 150+ takes some doing, if you are serious pm me I can give you some ideas that will help you get started.

 

Well for some reason I cant access PM's is there a mod, that can make it work for me?

 

Yes, clipping can destroy a speaker but the output still has to exceed the power handling capabilities of the driver. Like you said "too much heat and the voice coil burns up!" In order to have too much heat you need too much power.
You can clip all day long and as long as you do not exceed the mechanical limits (thermal or otherwise) of the driver it will not burn up. "Underpowering" does not blow speakers. Misuse of, or incorrect setup of your "underpowered" amp could blow speakers due to the increased power of an amp driven to its rail voltage by serious clipping.

Look at how your speaker failed and you will understand what happened. If the voice coil overheats and seperates from its former then the power was more than the voice coil could handle. If the coil windings are burnt or shorted then the power was more than the coil could handle. If the coil seperates from the suspension then the power was more than the driver could handle. See where I am going? All cases of overpowering speakers.

97f250 is completely correct.

 

Although it would be nice to educate those who don't know, or have been misinformed by others, such as is happening here, I don't expect to change everyone's mind. Especially someone who obviously has a lot of knowledge about car audio. But doing a lot of high end installs, knowing something about clipping and waveforms, etc., doesn't mean squat. You can say forever that underpowering and/or clipping destroys voice coils, but that doesn't make it so. There are many myths being passed around by well meaning people. This is only one of them. The fact is, it is physically impossible to ruin a speaker's voice coil by simply supplying less power to it than its RMS rating. And the term "underpowering" is misleading because it suggests that it can, in fact, do damage. Unless a voice coil is faulty, too little power will never, ever do damage to it even if the signal is distorted, clipped, whatever. As long as the thermal limits are not exceded, the speaker will be fine. At some point someone with an amp that would normally NOT do damage to the speakers used, abused that amp to the point that it ruined his voice coils. Because of the conditions created by the abuse, which led to too much power from a "low powered" amp, this guy came up with the underpowering fiasco. I'm not suggesting that this is not a problem because it is. But using the term "underpowering" is wrong. Several things need to come together to create this situation. "Underpowering" is NOT one of them. That's why we need to educate people on how to buy correctly matched equipment, set their gains, etc., instead of filling their heads with crap like this.

 

Well said! The "Underpowering" myth needs to die.

 

Norm, do you not visit here much? Over 1200 post and you've been here over 5 years and I dont recall every seeing you around. Hmmmm.

 

I stopped coming into the audio section because of some of the personal attacks and arguments over myths like this one that used to happen a few years back. There were some nasty ones. I hang out in the Engine and Supercrew sections.

 

and a quote from 97f250
Unless a voice coil is faulty, too little power will never, ever do damage to it even if the signal is distorted, clipped, whatever. As long as the thermal limits are not exceded, the speaker will be fine.
I'm not suggesting that this is not a problem because it is. But using the term "underpowering" is wrong

I would like to thank the both of you for agreeing with me. You don't like to use the term underpowering but you both list cases of an underpowered amp blowing speakers. And by the way Norm CLIPPING CAUSES EXCESSIVE HEAT PERIOD ! I know that both of you tried hard not to agree with the "myth" but because of my explanation you could not definatively say that is not true.
Again to quote you Norm
"In order to have too much heat you need too much power.
You can clip all day long and as long as you do not exceed the mechanical limits (thermal or otherwise) of the driver it will not burn up."
So what you are saying is if I always install speakers that have a higher power rating than the amp that is powering them, I will never blow my speakers. I know many on here have blown speakers or had a customer blow a speaker is this always the case, I would say not. I have worked in car electronics since 1987 and have seen many customers damage speakers. Most of the cases are due to misuse of the equipment, some intentional (changing gains etc.) and some not, but they all relate to one thing, they wanted it to be LOUDER. They could not get the volume they wanted because they did not have enough power. The reason I do high end installs is because I push the limits. I have successfully competed in both sq and spl for many years with many different customers and have gotten a lot of knowledge by always pushing the envelope. If you read my posts most contain valuable info to help others with accurate info. I have nothing to gain by doing so, but the people I have helped seem to appriciate it. Somcoupe I'm sorry for hijacking your thread hopefully I can help you out with something in the future.