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Audio and Video Talk
General Discussion
Audio 101 - Can your speaker be too big for your amp???
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<blockquote data-quote="Vaughan" data-source="post: 60245" data-attributes="member: 693"><p>Then you answered your own question. What happens when an amplifier clips ? The signal waveform is distorted. A fully clipped sine wave resembles a square wave. The peak of a clipped waveform is DC. Large amounts of DC current, unblocked by a capacitor can and will overheat and distort the voice coils in a speaker. It will sound bad too. Note, clipping in and of itself isn't an immediate death sentence for a speaker. You could run an amp into soft clipping all day long and it probably wouldn't cause any real damage. </p><p></p><p>I'm sure people often run their amps into a state of soft clipping with no ill effects. Hard clipping is another story. Tweeters usually suffer the consequences of amp clipping because a clipped signal waveform has a predominant amount of high frequency harmonics and on top of all that, tweeters are relatively fragile devices to begin with and are intolerant of excess power. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>If clipping occurs more frequently due to inadequate power then the answer is self-explanatory. Clipping is not a good thing. As mentioned, it's not a death sentence but if the clipping is severe enough, it can and will damage a speaker. Of course you can damage a speaker with too much power but in my opinion, clipping occurs <em>less frequently</em> when you have power in reserve. FYI, I am a salesman, so take my comments with a grain of salt. <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Vaughan, post: 60245, member: 693"] Then you answered your own question. What happens when an amplifier clips ? The signal waveform is distorted. A fully clipped sine wave resembles a square wave. The peak of a clipped waveform is DC. Large amounts of DC current, unblocked by a capacitor can and will overheat and distort the voice coils in a speaker. It will sound bad too. Note, clipping in and of itself isn't an immediate death sentence for a speaker. You could run an amp into soft clipping all day long and it probably wouldn't cause any real damage. I'm sure people often run their amps into a state of soft clipping with no ill effects. Hard clipping is another story. Tweeters usually suffer the consequences of amp clipping because a clipped signal waveform has a predominant amount of high frequency harmonics and on top of all that, tweeters are relatively fragile devices to begin with and are intolerant of excess power. If clipping occurs more frequently due to inadequate power then the answer is self-explanatory. Clipping is not a good thing. As mentioned, it's not a death sentence but if the clipping is severe enough, it can and will damage a speaker. Of course you can damage a speaker with too much power but in my opinion, clipping occurs [i]less frequently[/i] when you have power in reserve. FYI, I am a salesman, so take my comments with a grain of salt. ;) [/QUOTE]
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Audio and Video Talk
General Discussion
Audio 101 - Can your speaker be too big for your amp???
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