How to avoid clipping & speaker damages on high volume?

[JustAnAudioLover]

Hi there!

A friend of mine recently purchased a stereo system made of two floorstanding speakers (Monitor Audio Bronze 200 6G), which are rated for 40 to 120W under 8 Ohms nominal, 4.4 minimum.

The amplifier is a Tangent Ampster BT II which is rated for 2x 25W under 8 Ohms, 2x 50W under 4 Ohms. And before you ask, it wasn't possible to choose another amplifier as it was part of a pretty amazing deal on the speaker + amp combo.

Now, the said friend has a pretty big room and likes a lot of bass, but doesn't want a subwoofer not having bigger speakers, so they just added a +10 dB boost on the amplifier's bass. This actually doesn't sound as bad as you would imagine, but I imagine it's putting even more stress on the amplifier.

They usually listen at very moderate volume but, once in a while, they like to push the volume a lot to hear the speakers from the other end of the house. This wasn't a problem with the previous system, which was a basic 2.0 LG soundbar, and shouldn't be with these speakers either, but I'm worried about the amplifier.

If the volume is pushed too high, with the amplifier being rated under the speaker's minimum power rating and the bass being boosted, may this damage the amplifier? Or worse, may it damage the speakers? I don't totally get how clipping (if that's the correct phenomenon) works, so if someone could enlighten me

I'm worried they may damage the system by pushing it too hard with high volume basically.

 

[antcollinet]

Hi there!

A friend of mine recently purchased a stereo system made of two floorstanding speakers (Monitor Audio Bronze 200 6G), which are rated for 40 to 120W under 8 Ohms nominal, 4.4 minimum.

The amplifier is a Tangent Ampster BT II which is rated for 2x 25W under 8 Ohms, 2x 50W under 4 Ohms. And before you ask, it wasn't possible to choose another amplifier as it was part of a pretty amazing deal on the speaker + amp combo.

Now, the said friend has a pretty big room and likes a lot of bass, but doesn't want a subwoofer not having bigger speakers, so they just added a +10 dB boost on the amplifier's bass. This actually doesn't sound as bad as you would imagine, but I imagine it's putting even more stress on the amplifier.

They usually listen at very moderate volume but, once in a while, they like to push the volume a lot to hear the speakers from the other end of the house. This wasn't a problem with the previous system, which was a basic 2.0 LG soundbar, and shouldn't be with these speakers either, but I'm worried about the amplifier.

If the volume is pushed too high, with the amplifier being rated under the speaker's minimum power rating and the bass being boosted, may this damage the amplifier? Or worse, may it damage the speakers? I don't totally get how clipping (if that's the correct phenomenon) works, so if someone could enlighten me

I'm worried they may damage the system by pushing it too hard with high volume basically.

Not much you can do about it though other than warn them of the risks. If they decide to push it anyway and it breaks, that is on them.


Having said that I'm not sure a 25W amp is going break speakers rated for up to 120W. Basicaly clipping increases the power into the speaker - it is this extra power that can damage s speaker - espicially as the extra power is at the higher frequncy end.

But clipping in the worst case results in a square wave - which at most is only double the power. So will only push 50W into the speakers. Just tell them to stop if they hear any distortion if they value the speakers.

As far as the amp goes, it should self protect.

 

[JustAnAudioLover]

Not much you can do about it though other than warn them of the risks. If they decide to push it anyway and it breaks, that is on them.


Having said that I'm not sure a 25W amp is going break speakers rated for up to 120W. Basicaly clipping increases the power into the speaker - it is this extra power that can damage s speaker - espicially as the extra power is at the higher frequncy end.

But clipping in the worst case results in a square wave - which at most is only double the power. So will only push 50W into the speakers.

As far as the amp goes, it should self protect.

So if I take an extreme example, that means a 2x 1W amplifier has a higher risk of damaging 1W speakers than 10W speakers?

 

[Sokel]

With +10dB at lows the amp is already clipping.
With every beat. It WILL damage something, itself or the speakers.

EQ should be illegal this way, I'm fed-up reading this stuff since people discovered EQ and "targets" .

 

[JustAnAudioLover]

With +10dB at lows the amp is already clipping.
With every beat. It WILL damage something, itself or the speakers.

EQ should be illegal this way, I'm fed-up reading this stuff since people discovered EQ and "targets" .

Shouldn't it sound weird then? The sound seems perfectly normal to me.
(also I just checked the manual, the amplifier has a builtin +8 dB limit)

 

[Sokel]

Shouldn't it sound weird then? The sound seems perfectly normal to me.
(also I just checked the manual, the amplifier has a builtin +8 dB limit)

I'm sure it does sound weird, but you only find out with comparison.
Distortion low is more forgiving. Until it's not.

10dB is ten times the usual energy. On top of the usual needs at this occasion.
It won't take much time.

 

[JustAnAudioLover]

I'm sure it does sound weird, but you only find out with comparison.
Distortion low is more forgiving. Until it's not.

10dB is ten times the usual energy. On top of the usual needs at this occasion.
It won't take much time.

Makes sense, thanks for explaining it

 

[staticV3]

With +10dB at lows the amp is already clipping.
With every beat. It WILL damage something, itself or the speakers.

EQ should be illegal this way, I'm fed-up reading this stuff since people discovered EQ and "targets" .

There's plenty of ways that an Amp like the Tangent can offer 10dB bass boost without automatically clipping.

It might use analog tone controls, or perhaps it features automatic preamp adjustment like what you see in Mathaudio Headphone EQ for example.

 

[Sokel]

There's plenty of ways that an Amp like the Tangent can offer 10dB bass boost without automatically clipping.

It might use analog tone controls, or perhaps it features automatic preamp adjustment like what you see in Mathaudio Headphone EQ for example.

By lowering the rest of the spectrum, yes, maybe it does.

We don't know for sure though. The added danger to the above though is ending up with cranking the volume even higher as the perceived loudness greatly reduces by the reduced highs.
It's usually that avalanche that burns stuff.

 

[valerianf]

Here is a real word case: I have a Yamaha AVR not really powerful that drive two large tower speakers since 13 years.
I do not have a sub but I am using the bi-amp capability of the AVR.
All was fine until a few days ago when some books from my wife slided at the top of the remote: suddenly the volume went to a maximum and the AVR protection was triggered!
My guess now is that the tweeters of the tower speakers have been damaged as there is a new distortion coming from them.

This real world issue could have happened with any power rated amp that is remote controlled.
A too low power amp is only limiting your normal day to day listening level.
It is the first time that I damage a tweeter, but I know it could happen when listening many hours at high volume (party mode).
It is due to the limited power handling of many tweeters.

 

[DVDdoug]

Both the amplifier and speakers should be fine. Most amplifiers can take constant full-power or clipping. It's more dangerous to run the amplifier at high-power speakers that have too-low impedance.

The general rule for speakers is that a 100W speaker should be safe with a 100W amplifier that's hitting 100W on the peaks. Speakers are blown from the average power which is much lower than the peaks with normal program material. Constant full-power test-tones can fry a speaker, especially the tweeter which can't take as much power as the woofer.

If you push an amplifier into clipping the average goes-up even though the peaks are limited/clipped so it can be dangerous even if the speaker and amp are "matched".

So if I take an extreme example, that means a 2x 1W amplifier has a higher risk of damaging 1W speakers than 10W speakers?

Yes, the higher-rated speaker is safer.

There's an old JBL paper that says guitar speakers should be rated for double the amplifier power because guitar amps are often over-driven into saturation (clipping, distortion). The same paper says that with highly dynamic program material (like uncompressed classical music) the amp can be rated for twice the speaker's rating .

 

[Old_School_Brad]

It’s power that destroys drivers. So if a small 25W @ 8 ohm amp clips, it’ll simply be doing its best, which isn’t much. Tweeters, in particular, can’t handle much continuous power because of their fragile voice coils and limited heat dissipation. In this case, I wouldn’t be concerned about the speakers at all given the modest output of the amplifier.

The amp itself is more likely to fail than to take out your speakers.

Good luck with the boost!

 

[JustAnAudioLover]

Thanks a lot everyone for your explanations

I did a little trick by moving the speakers super close to the wall, which gets a little more bass. I then disabled all boost and my friend seems pretty satisfied with it.

I put the amplifier at roughly 50% volume, and then he can control everything with his TV's remote. So even if he puts the volume at 100% on the TV, it'll stay at 50% of the amp's capacity. I also told to not be afraid of going all the way, be be wary of increasing bass a lot AND putting volume on high levels. Especially since, as someone else mentioned in another thread, damages are less likely given the speakers have higher power "tolerance" (120W) than the amplifier's maximum output (25W), so even in case of clipping the risk of damages are reduced.

So all in all this should be fine now. But I'm grateful to know a bit more about these things. So thanks everyone for your help