music_lover
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Can digital clipping damage speakers? I have heard both sides on many forums. Don’t know what side is speaking the truth. What do you experts think ?
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Digital clipping or square waves damaging tweeters over time. Myth or real?
- Thread starter music_lover
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Myth. See:
www.sound-au.com
sound-au.com
Speaker Failure Analysis
ESP - The Audio Pages. An analysis of speaker driver failure with particular reference to high powered audio systems as seen in the worlds of Sound Reinforcement and Disco
Why Do Tweeters Blow When Amplifiers Distort?
ESP - The Audio Pages. Why Do Tweeters Blow When Amplifiers Distort? Find out what really happens when amplifiers cause tweeters to fail.
Probably leave out the word digital.
This is a reasoned and very well written discussion of what actually blows tweeters.
Why Do Tweeters Blow When Amplifiers Distort?
ESP - The Audio Pages. Why Do Tweeters Blow When Amplifiers Distort? Find out what really happens when amplifiers cause tweeters to fail.
solderdude
Grand Contributor
When the applied power exceeds that of the power rating of the tweeter long enough it will break.
Note that when one uses a non bandwidth limited squarewave on a high bandwidth amp there can be a high amount of harmonics above the audible band that add a power but are not audible and can somewhat increase the voicecoil temperature.
So it not the squarewave that is the problem but how long a high enough power level is present. Some tweeters have a low power rating and others can be a lot higher. In music there usually is not a lot of power present and is not constant like in a continuous square wave or sine wave.
When power amplifiers clip there already is a lot of power present and is a very different situation from digital clipping but with the volume below clipping levels of the amplifier.
Note that when one uses a non bandwidth limited squarewave on a high bandwidth amp there can be a high amount of harmonics above the audible band that add a power but are not audible and can somewhat increase the voicecoil temperature.
So it not the squarewave that is the problem but how long a high enough power level is present. Some tweeters have a low power rating and others can be a lot higher. In music there usually is not a lot of power present and is not constant like in a continuous square wave or sine wave.
When power amplifiers clip there already is a lot of power present and is a very different situation from digital clipping but with the volume below clipping levels of the amplifier.
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Clipping 101
Amplifier clipping has been cited as the cause of audible distortion, destruction of speakers (especially tweeters), and total annihilation of the known universe. More or less. In fact, clipping does cause distortion that adds significant high-frequency content not in the original signal, and...
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JBL are the one of the primary villains, bless their hearts.
It's a rather sordid tale.
www.audiosciencereview.com
www.audiosciencereview.com
It's a rather sordid tale.
The bestiary of the most common (and debunked by science) audiophile myths
What are the audiophile myths most heartfelt and senseless things you have ever heard (and perhaps even believed in?) I'll start by saying mine in order of memory - 200watt amps sound "strongyer" than 80watt amps when running at 3watts - dacs all working perfectly but at the same time sounding...
www.audiosciencereview.com
The bestiary of the most common (and debunked by science) audiophile myths
What are the audiophile myths most heartfelt and senseless things you have ever heard (and perhaps even believed in?) I'll start by saying mine in order of memory - 200watt amps sound "strongyer" than 80watt amps when running at 3watts - dacs all working perfectly but at the same time sounding...
www.audiosciencereview.com
restorer-john
Grand Contributor
This has been discussed ad nauseam. Do a search here on ASR.
TLDR: digital no, amp yes.
When an amp clips it generates a spray of harmonic information - all of which are higher frequencies than whatever signal caused it to clip. If it's enough, more signal will go to the tweeter than intended, and that can exceed its short term power rating. It's the power rating being exceeded that causes failure, not the clipping itself.
The only other time I've seen that happen is when people cause feedback loops using pro audio equipment.
That said sometimes tweeters just pop especially with older drivers that lack effective cooling (NS10s are notorious for this) or that use too low of a crossover point sans driver protection (looking at you, Amphion).
When an amp clips it generates a spray of harmonic information - all of which are higher frequencies than whatever signal caused it to clip. If it's enough, more signal will go to the tweeter than intended, and that can exceed its short term power rating. It's the power rating being exceeded that causes failure, not the clipping itself.
The only other time I've seen that happen is when people cause feedback loops using pro audio equipment.
That said sometimes tweeters just pop especially with older drivers that lack effective cooling (NS10s are notorious for this) or that use too low of a crossover point sans driver protection (looking at you, Amphion).
That's actually the myth, but I can't find the explanatory AES paper (Siegfried and Linkwitz?)
Ah wait! Here it is
An Investigation into How Amplifier Clipping is Said to Burn-Out Loudspeakers, and How Limiters Can Save Them
https://secure.aes.org/forum/pubs/conventions/?elib=5737
"...This paper investigates the clipping phenomenon said to damage loudspeakers. It is shown that clipping is not what causes the damage, but, rather compression of the audio spectrum..."
In other words, it's not really the extra ≤50% more power that kills the tweeters, it's that if the gain gets turned way way up the bass signals will saturate out, but the tweeter can suddenly see huge amounts of power.
That's pretty much what I said, though? It's not clipping, per se, it's too much power going into the voice coil.
Oh it's possible we're at a semantic crossroads. Your phrase "spray of harmonics" was what I focused on-they do add some power but the sheer volume kills tweeters. Love the sound of frying tweeters in the morning!
david moran
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people, study p65 here
someone did the work and made the measurements
supereminent audio engineer produces and publishes the data ... 46 years ago
a bit over 6W of power
someone did the work and made the measurements
supereminent audio engineer produces and publishes the data ... 46 years ago
a bit over 6W of power
OMG ads for CIGARETTES (p.48)! How awful! Because everyone knows Salem are piss and Camels are where it's at!
As for the power, there is an AES paper convincingly arguing that what blows the tweeters is essentially too-high gain. What should be 6.4 watts per the Stereo Review article becomes 64 watts when the nutty listener trying to make the music really loud turns it up "to 11" and thus the tweeter fries. Sorry I can't find the paper and am blanking on the authorship...I think it was those two Canadian fellows that wrote a lot together.
So back to
Stereo Review would say no; it's turning the source volume way up that lets normally-low-wattage treble peaks between the clipped bass notes become huge.
david moran
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omg, is this funny
'convincingly arguing' !
the myth is that clipping kills tweeters, and here the response is well, what about if you up the power
duh
anything is possible if you up the power applied
no one questions that ... heat dissipation etc
as for becoming 64W of harmonic distortion, that is priceless ... imagine what the poor amp is doing, also what else it is doing
64W
doubt that that is possible
somehow I think Toole and Olive did not put it quite that way
Anyway, it is not SR, it was Roy Allison, a working engineer and researcher quite at the intellectual and accomplishment level of anyone up north
>> normally-low-wattage treble peaks between the clipped bass notes become huge
no idea what this means, but maybe reread that page and grok what really happened ??
Ah sorry, obviously I didn't describe well because you misunderstood me on various points.
First off the paper I meant is "An Investigation into How Amplifier Clipping is Said to Burn-Out Loudspeakers, and How Limiters Can Save Them"
5737 Author (s): Ross, Montgomery F. Affliation: Rane Corp., Everett, WA Publication Date: September 1990 Type: Convention Paper
https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=5737
and not Lipshitz and Vanderkooy (nor Toole and Olive who yeah are also Canadian) which was who I was thinking of but could not articulate.
In the paper Ross states that a 100W amplifier is putting 2W into the tweeter with some music spectrum. However if you overdrive the amplifier 10 dB, this will result in 20W at the tweeter (during lulls in the bass) and hence the tweeter burns out.
- Nothing to do with harmonic distortion (well very little to do with, certainly not 64W in Ross' case, though having worked a lot in autosound I can assure you there are folks getting probably 200W of distortion out of a 100W amp lord save us).
- Not changing the amplifier for a more powerful one.
The moral of the story as I tell folks is the more power the merrier so long as they TURN IT DOWN if the sound distorts, it's the clipping that kills. People who just turn it up to 11, there's no hope.
david moran
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You patient and civil reply appreciated!
yes, I read that Rane paper when it came out, and generally would trust anything from Rane
20W to the tweeter?? From overdriving? Is this an actual measurement?
I guess I must reread it.
How do you get 200W of distortion out of a 100W amp? Truly not following. What is the power device mechanism, the rails, the power supply ...? Allison and everyone since *his actual measurements* knows that amp misbehaviors, snapping, pulsing, passing dc, etc., will kill just about anything. But that is not 'clipping distortion destroys tweeters'.
Anyway, I remain unpersuaded, will go read that paper, and again appreciate your explan attempt tone !
yes, I read that Rane paper when it came out, and generally would trust anything from Rane
20W to the tweeter?? From overdriving? Is this an actual measurement?
I guess I must reread it.
How do you get 200W of distortion out of a 100W amp? Truly not following. What is the power device mechanism, the rails, the power supply ...? Allison and everyone since *his actual measurements* knows that amp misbehaviors, snapping, pulsing, passing dc, etc., will kill just about anything. But that is not 'clipping distortion destroys tweeters'.
Anyway, I remain unpersuaded, will go read that paper, and again appreciate your explan attempt tone !
david moran
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link is dead, cannot access, will pursue other means
Yes. It's the heat. Whether the heat comes from the flat tops of a clipped signal, or an unclipped signal being played too loud, or some of both, makes no difference.
david moran
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Yes, yes, we are all in agreement about how it works theoretically.
Roy Allison actually measured it 46y ago and concluded that the total energy level of the distortions was simply not great enough to be the cause for any decent tweeter.
Has anyone else measured the total distortion wattage levels?
see p65
https://www.worldradiohistory.com/A...iFI-Stereo/80s/HiFi-Stereo-Review-1980-08.pdf
a bit over 6W of power
Looking thru that magazine sure highlights how audio magazines have turned into worthless rags spouting nonsense and in the pockets of the manufacturers.
From the Nikko Alpha amp review. A page of tech details, than a page of measurements and than the flowery verbal diarrhea of subjective description ?
No, just this:
"comment: As we have found in almost
all our power-amplifier tests, good ampli-
fiers sound alike, within their power ratings,
if their noise and distortion levels are keep below audible levels."
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