Coytee Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 If you have a pair of Khorns, LaScala, (enter speaker) and play it in a stereo situation..... you can push the amp to far and clip the amp. Clipping the amp might fry the tweeter. (I'm sure I've clipped something during college yet my LaScalas keep on keeping on ) Change the game a bit....now you are biamping with an active in the middle. If you have excess signal input into the amp and it clips, would it be expected to clip both channels? Would it be reasonable that since there might be more energy in the bass half, the bass channel might clip (only) thereby saving the tweeter? If you cross low enough where the workload on each channel is a theoretical 50/50 split and the amp clips would you be just as apt to be clipping the tweeter channel? What brought this up? I was cleaning up around the house, preparing for company. Had some Elton John 60 birthday DVD playing (great show by the way). Decided to change. Put something in I've not listened to in several years.... Metallica Cunning Stunts DVD. Sound was a bit harder than Elton (duh!) and they had some explosions. If those explosions are full sound, then I really need to hook up my subs because I think they would shake the house and I love stuff like that. Anyways, it was that excess energy that got me wondering. Now I go back to preparing for company. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NBPK402 Posted June 6, 2015 Share Posted June 6, 2015 I would think that it would clip both channels if... They both were using the same PS, otherwise I would say only on the clipping channel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
derrickdj1 Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Both channel have 50/50 split around 300 Hz. Two things can happen with two much power, thermal damage and mechanical damage. Thermal damage usually occurs first and mechanical damage latter when Xmax is exceeded. Usually clipping is related to prolong power which can occur with overdriving the amp. Since woofer are larger and can take more heat, tweeters usually go before the woofer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 CLIPPING IS NOT WHAT DESTROYS DRIVERS !!! Clipping will not hurt your speakers in any way, shape, or form, unless it causes too much long term average power to reach the driver during the un-clipped portion of the program material, or it causes mechanical damage (usually from amplifier instability issues and destroys the woofer). The type AA networks have a hard clipper in the pair of 2N3996 zener diodes, to save the tweeter from mechanical damage. NAD amplfiers have their famous 'soft clipping circuit', that reduces the failure of woofers by clipping the input signal to the amplifier (so that the amplifier itself does not clip). This reduces the amplifier instability issues from the feedback loop in the amplifier when driven into clipping. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Audio Magazine did a study of an Altec 604 type monitor being biamped (in the 70's) and found that if you keep the tweeter amp reasonably clean, you could clip the woofer amp hard, more than 10dB into clipping, and it would overall measure to have less distortion than the same speaker driven full-range just slightly into clipping. Most people cannot hear clipping until it exceeds 40mS in duration. The APT model 1 power amp has a 'distortion alert' that detects clipping, but does not light up the indicator LED until the clipping exceeds 40mS (and becomes audible). Peavey amplifiers with DDT delay the limiter for 100mS. I don't remember the attack delay on the Dynaco Dynaguard circuit, but it allows for clipping for an interval before it starts to limit, and essentially does nothing until the peak-to-average level drops below 10dB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coytee Posted June 7, 2015 Author Share Posted June 7, 2015 Heh... I'm dumb enough to not know if my question was answered. If you have a speaker that is actively biamped and the amp (channel?) goes into clip mode.... do BOTH channels clip or since they have different signals, are they independent of each other and one channel could clip while the other not? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jpc2001 Posted June 7, 2015 Share Posted June 7, 2015 Heh... I'm dumb enough to not know if my question was answered. If you have a speaker that is actively biamped and the amp (channel?) goes into clip mode.... do BOTH channels clip or since they have different signals, are they independent of each other and one channel could clip while the other not? Yes, when biamping, you might clip only one amplifier. There are two types of clipping. The amp can run out of volts (output driven all the way to the rail) or it can run out of amps (current limiting protection circuit kicks in). My understanding is that current limiting is worse: the amp output goes to high impedance from the speaker's point of view. If a reactive speaker has stored energy and the amp can't accept that energy back, it's gotta go somewhere, the speaker may produce big voltage excursions and big mechanical excursions. If you have a pair of Khorns, LaScala, (enter speaker) and play it in a stereo situation..... you can push the amp to far and clip the amp. Clipping the amp might fry the tweeter. (I'm sure I've clipped something during college yet my LaScalas keep on keeping on ) Change the game a bit....now you are biamping with an active in the middle. If you have excess signal input into the amp and it clips, would it be expected to clip both channels? Would it be reasonable that since there might be more energy in the bass half, the bass channel might clip (only) thereby saving the tweeter? If you cross low enough where the workload on each channel is a theoretical 50/50 split and the amp clips would you be just as apt to be clipping the tweeter channel? What brought this up? I was cleaning up around the house, preparing for company. Had some Elton John 60 birthday DVD playing (great show by the way). Decided to change. Put something in I've not listened to in several years.... Metallica Cunning Stunts DVD. Sound was a bit harder than Elton (duh!) and they had some explosions. If those explosions are full sound, then I really need to hook up my subs because I think they would shake the house and I love stuff like that. Anyways, it was that excess energy that got me wondering. Now I go back to preparing for company. Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ClaudeJ1 Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 (edited) The type AA networks have a hard clipper in the pair of 2N3996 zener diodes, to save the tweeter from mechanical damage. I'm sure you meant a 1N3996 the 2N designation is reserved for transistors. The back to back Zeners conduct when the drive voltage to the K77's reaches 10.2 volts peak to peak. So it "clips" the voltage there at about a 13 Watt peak. which is 13 dbWatts above 107, or about 120 db SPL, which is really loud for a tweeter, more or less with about a 10% tolerance. Edited June 11, 2015 by ClaudeJ1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djk Posted June 11, 2015 Share Posted June 11, 2015 Sorry about the 1N 2N thing. You need to add the forward voltage, about 0.65V, so the thing clips at about 5.75V P, or 11.5V P-P. A 5.75V square wave is 4.13W into 8Ω, no peaks on a square wave. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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