How hard should you push or not push your speakers?

[Futurist]

I see people on youtube without a subwoofer who are pushing their speakers... So much I'm surprised they aren't blowing them!

I love loud music and don't want to damage or short their life span!.. My speakers have made my life better and I love them..

I back off if they're moving back and forth even little.. I'm going home at X-Mas to get my 12 inch Subwoofer.. So I look forward

to hooking that up and putting my bass and treble flat and letting the sub do all the work.. I don't know the correct term.. But is it ok 

to have the speakers moving back and forth???... Aren't you wearing them out or hurting them??? 

I have include 2 vids below of how much people are pushing them... Check out the 2nd one the Elac speakers!... Thats crazy!

 

 

 

 

[The History Kid]

Don't forget that the purpose of a driver is to move back and forth to create air movement.  This air movement is what we hear.  Larger drivers create longer waves and thus the bass we perceive.  So, seeing drivers move - at least like this, is not something particularly serious.  They were design to move that way, and the reasons that the drivers are designed with flexible cones.  Clipping on the other hand is a different story, but you will hear a difference and have plenty of time to stop damage from being done in that case.

[mattSER]

As long as you're not pumping way too much power into them or, more seriously, clipping at the amp, they should be fine. 

I think clipping would be the fastest way to destroy your speakers....but I have no first hand experience :-p

[dtel]

I agree with both answers, if done right (without clipping or distortion) your ears should give up first. 

 

You know how the average car stereo sounds when you go a little to far with the volume, it quickly get's nasty, stay out of that kind distortion compleatcompletely.

 

I got to know one of Klipsch's engineers very well, and I can say they push these speakers harder than any owner would, it's shocking what they put them through when testing, it really is.   

[derrickdj1]

I've never seen my drivers moving like the speakers in the video nor do I want to.  Sure, they produce more bass and spl but, fidelity goes down.  Now, I do see my subwoofer drivers move like that at extreme spl.  For the trained person having the speaker moving like this is safe.  Increased cone movement also leads to increase distortion but, it may not be notice at high spl.

 

The more the cone moves, there will be breakup at the periphery of the cone.  Look at distortion plots of two and three way speakers full range and then compare the distortion plot when a subwoofer is added to the mix and the speaker are not full range.  It gets much better with the addition of a subwoofer.

 

 

[Woofers and Tweeters]

I've never pushed mine that hard. 

[Chris A]

7 hours ago, Futurist said:

But is it ok to have the speakers moving back and forth???...Aren't you wearing them out or hurting them???  I have include 2 vids below of how much people are pushing them... Check out the 2nd one the ELAC speakers!... That's crazy!

There is an issue with most ported bass (bass reflex) woofers trying to play frequencies below their port resonance frequency.  The woofers themselves can "unload" fairly easily if driven too hard--like in the bottom video that you posted.  It is also possible to fry the voice coils, i.e., heat the windings on the woofer cone until the glue that holds the coils to the cone softens or otherwise turns loose. 

 

However, assuming that the woofers aren't moving past their designed "xmax" displacement, they can move visibly and basically nothing happens except that it sounds pretty bad and you're heating the woofer's voice coils.  If you play them too long at those high displacements above xmax, the woofers will eventually fail, usually due to cone unloading or voice coil heating.

 

7 hours ago, Futurist said:

I back off if they're moving back and forth even little. I'm going home at X-Mas to get my 12 inch subwoofer.. So I look forward to hooking that up and putting my bass and treble flat and letting the sub do all the work.. I don't know the correct term.

Horses for courses, as they say.  Use the right tools for the job.  You're right: subwoofers are usually designed to handle very low frequencies without having to move nearly as far as the ELAC B5 video shows.  In fact, you want to insert electrical networks somewhere in the input signal path to attenuate those extremely low frequencies that your ported bass woofers are to reproduce.

 

Subwoofers either are larger diameter than the woofers in your loudspeakers (or simply using two or more woofers)--in order to move more air per unit distance of cone displacement, or the woofers themselves are designed for a higher xmax displacement...or both techniques are employed at the same time. 

 

...Or they are horn loaded to increase their efficiency at producing those low frequencies--so they only have to move about 1/5th the distance as the same woofers not using horns in order to produce the same loudness (SPL) on-axis.  However, horns tuned to very low frequencies are usually quite large: to produce 25 Hz using a horn-loaded woofer of conventional design, the horn would have to have a path length from the woofer cone to the mouth of the horn of about 11 feet (1/4 wavelength).  See the following thread for more:

Even if you're not damaging the woofers by those large excursions, it doesn't sound very true to the original recorded signal.  You produce large amounts of distortion (modulation distortion) which shows up as not-so-pleasant-sounding distortion sidebands on the higher frequencies that are simultaneously being reproduced by the woofers, thus producing opaque and fuzzy sound at those higher frequencies that the woofer is trying to reproduce at the same time. 

 

By breaking up the input music signal into frequency bands, the input music signal low frequencies can be handled by a subwoofer, woofer, and a higher frequency driver or drivers (midrange, tweeter, etc.), respectively, reduces frequency bad-sounding modulation distortion by confining those low frequency/high amplitude portions of the music to the subwoofer, and woofer, etc. 

 

If you can see the woofer or subwoofer moving, then modulation distortion is being produced--in large quantities.  It doesn't sound very good. 

 

Chris

[Futurist]

6 hours ago, Chris A said:

There is an issue with most ported bass (bass reflex) woofers trying to play frequencies below their port resonance frequency.  The woofers themselves can "unload" fairly easily if driven too hard--like in the bottom video that you posted.  It is also possible to fry the voice coils, i.e., heat the windings on the woofer cone until the glue that holds the coils to the cone softens or otherwise turns loose. 

 

However, assuming that the woofers aren't moving past their designed "xmax" displacement, they can move visibly and basically nothing happens except that it sounds pretty bad and you're heating the woofer's voice coils.  If you play them too long at those high displacements above xmax, the woofers will eventually fail, usually due to cone unloading or voice coil heating.

 

Horses for courses, as they say.  Use the right tools for the job.  You're right: subwoofers are usually designed to handle very low frequencies without having to move nearly as far as the ELAC B5 video shows.  In fact, you want to insert electrical networks somewhere in the input signal path to attenuate those extremely low frequencies that your ported bass woofers are to reproduce.

 

Subwoofers either are larger diameter than the woofers in your loudspeakers (or simply using two or more woofers)--in order to move more air per unit distance of cone displacement, or the woofers themselves are designed for a higher xmax displacement...or both techniques are employed at the same time. 

 

...Or they are horn loaded to increase their efficiency at producing those low frequencies--so they only have to move about 1/5th the distance as the same woofers not using horns in order to produce the same loudness (SPL) on-axis.  However, horns tuned to very low frequencies are usually quite large: to produce 25 Hz using a horn-loaded woofer of conventional design, the horn would have to have a path length from the woofer cone to the mouth of the horn of about 11 feet (1/4 wavelength).  See the following thread for more:

Even if you're not damaging the woofers by those large excursions, it doesn't sound very true to the original recorded signal.  You produce large amounts of distortion (modulation distortion) which shows up as not-so-pleasant-sounding distortion sidebands on the higher frequencies that are simultaneously being reproduced by the woofers, thus producing opaque and fuzzy sound at those higher frequencies that the woofer is trying to reproduce at the same time. 

 

By breaking up the input music signal into frequency bands, the input music signal low frequencies can be handled by a subwoofer, woofer, and a higher frequency driver or drivers (midrange, tweeter, etc.), respectively, reduces frequency bad-sounding modulation distortion by confining those low frequency/high amplitude portions of the music to the subwoofer, and woofer, etc. 

 

If you can see the woofer or subwoofer moving, then modulation distortion is being produced--in large quantities.  It doesn't sound very good. 

 

Chris

Thanks for all the info Chris!..

[Zen Traveler]

6 hours ago, Chris A said:

Even if you're not damaging the woofers by those large excursions, it doesn't sound very true to the original recorded signal.  You produce large amounts of distortion (modulation distortion) which shows up as not-so-pleasant-sounding distortion sidebands on the higher frequencies that are simultaneously being reproduced by the woofers, thus producing opaque and fuzzy sound at those higher frequencies that the woofer is trying to reproduce at the same time. 

On a slightly different subject--How do you know if you are underdriving your speakers? I've seen people state they've added an external amp to their speakers and it drives the LF drivers even harder and I was under the assumption that as long as the impedance dips are being met you aren't going to improve the sound with more power being added...

[Chris A]

The easiest way to tell is using your ears and a much higher power amplifier of even better distortion figures than your current lower-power amplifier--since the specifications for amplifiers usually are done at their rated output, thus hiding the likely case that the higher power amplifier produces more noise and distortion at less than one watt output power than does an existing lower power amplifier (the reason why so many people here like tube electronics, etc.).

 

If you hear a difference at all, assuming all other things are nearly equal (like you're not changing amplifier topologies or device types--e.g., tube vs. transistor, FET vs. BJT, SET vs. push-pull, etc.), then you're listening to a lower power amplifier that probably cannot fully drive the loudspeaker drivers and its crossover filters with enough headroom to avoid the very transient effects of power (voltage and/or current) limitations. 

 

To do this under test and verify analytically is possible, but not easy without some pretty good test gear, like Kippel R&D system setups costing more than a few kilobucks.

 

Chris

[ZEUS121996]

10 hours ago, derrickdj1 said:

I've never seen my drivers moving like the speakers in the video nor do I want to.  Sure, they produce more bass and spl but, fidelity goes down.  Now, I do see my subwoofer drivers move like that at extreme spl.  For the trained person having the speaker moving like this is safe.  Increased cone movement also leads to increase distortion but, it may not be notice at high spl.

 

The more the cone moves, there will be breakup at the periphery of the cone.  Look at distortion plots of two and three way speakers full range and then compare the distortion plot when a subwoofer is added to the mix and the speaker are not full range.  It gets much better with the addition of a subwoofer.

 

 

Go to the next GTG at Derrick's and check out his subs. LOL, never mind the drivers on the subs, watch the stuff on top of the subs dance. That stuff jumps more than the drivers in the videos

 

Mark

[JJkizak]

Very low rumble will make the speaker cones move to their maximum even though you hear almost nothing. You can get that on some FM stations also but I haven't seen it on CD's. Some DVD'/Bluray movies  can also do this. Throw a record on and watch the cones move during the entrance groove. That will put some hair on your chest.

JJK

[babadono]

Need I say more.

[MORE KLIPSCH PLEASE]

It seems to me the woofer's that have a "rubber like" surround seem to more than woofer's that have a paper accordion surround like Klipsch Heritage line. 

There's one track that will get the 15's moving big time on my Chorus.......INXS, Tight.....really bass heavy track..... and yea at higher power I can tell the woofer's are being pushed to there x-mas limit.... and your right Chris.....it doesn't sound right.......

Now I've noticed that my new to me JBL's woofers hardly move at all....... but the bass is truly house shaking......

 

MKP :-)

[wvu80]

In my Living Room 5.1 setup where I have my best stuff (Khorns are L/R) , I also use my most modern AVR an Onkyo @110 wpc.  Reference is 92 and I can drive it up to 100.  I set my AVR limiter to 90 so I don't have to worry about over driving the system.

 

I can play it at 90, it is plenty loud and there is no distortion I can hear.

[Travis In Austin]

@Chief bonehead say "push 'em"

[Futurist]

18 hours ago, dwilawyer said:

@Chief bonehead say "push 'em"

I decide that I am going to push them!...

[The History Kid]

Push the button!

[Futurist]

1 hour ago, IbizaFlame said:

Push the button!

Ya I change my mind I'm not going to use a sub woofer and I will push the RF 82's... But not this much!

 

 

 

 

[mattSER]

On 11/21/2016 at 7:45 PM, Futurist said:

I look forward

to hooking that up and putting my bass and treble flat and letting the sub do all the work.. I don't know the correct term..

 

 

 

Psshh . .... the bass and treble should be flat anyway