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Clipping, The Usual Suspect, Not guilty in a lot of Cases!


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Blown tweeter, amp, bass driver and subwoofers are often blamed on clipping.  Clipping may be the easy scapegoat and although related, not the primary cause.  Continuous to much DC current is also one of the old myths. I've killed at least on speaker and am a suspect in a subwoofers demise.    It is late so, more tomorrow, :D  Yes, we are going to start a little heated discussion.  It may turn out boring if people don't join in-that sucks.  It is not about right or wrong just chime in with your opinion to start.  Without no good questions, there will be no good answers!

 

 

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Over the last several years I have read about many people blowing a speaker or sub watching certain movies.  People even claimed the movie was clipped.  What puzzled me was why this was happening to some folks and not others.  Also, speakers see clipped waveforms quite often and the speaker and subs are not blown?  Tube heads like a certain amount of clipping to get their lush tube sound.

 

Now, clipping of a tweeter is a bit different than a subwoofer due to the respective passbands.  A clipped wave has a square top and contains all the nasty harmonic.  This is a factory in the tweeter passband.  In the subwoofer passband, a lot of these harmonics are filtered out by the lpf.  Some of the subs damage in watching movies range from SVS, PSA to JTR.

 

I have read about POWER DENSITY as the culprit.  Highly compressed signals all of a sudden being released as the cause.  Clipping and power density are related but separate things.

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For tweeters, one contributor to the forum has often stated that clipping is not the cause, but sufficient term power beyond the tolerance of the tweeter is   Maybe he will post here.

 

Others, manufactures included, say that clipping alone can do it.

 

Yes, when does the fur fly?

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Gary, that is the focus of the thread.  Some music or movie have a few  places in the track that have an increase power density.  This is common in today market when mixer purposely make things loud.  Chris on the forum always talks about the loudness war but, not much on it's ability to damage a speaker.  This is directly related to the dynamic range of a track.

 

The emergence of DC current was thought to be a cause in the process of clipping.  AC current goes thru 0 in the sine wave.  DC never goes thru 0 from what I've read.  The speaker cone also does not get stuck out to X max and stay there for heat buildup from lack of movement.  The VC inductance will prevent this.  So, we are back at power density.  Clipping and power density are related, just not the same thing.

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On May 21, 2017 at 6:48 AM, pzannucci said:

Coytee,

It's Sunday morning.  Most people sleep in til at least 7:00 AM :rolleyes:

 

Oh yeah - tell that to my dumb asss neighbor who lets their dog(s) out to bark at 6am! Last year I unleashed "electronic" Fido on them. Ran a speaker outside connected to computer, found an irritating Youtube clip of dogs continually barking, turned 'em Loud and allowed Fido to run free for an hour or so. Dogs didn't bark very long after that. I may be ready to once again  unleash the hounds. Sic 'em boy ---

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40 minutes ago, richieb said:

 

Oh yeah - tell that to my dumb asss neighbor who lets their dog(s) out to bark at 6am! Last year I unleashed "electronic" Fido on them. Ran a speaker outside connected to computer, found an irritating Youtube clip of dogs continually barking, turned 'em Loud and allowed Fido to run free for an hour or so. Dogs didn't bark very long after that. I may be ready to once again  unleash the hounds. Sic 'em boy ---

Richie, you shouldn't have posted that.  I'll probably be posting from jail soon.  How loud do you think I can reproduce barking dogs with a pair of 396's and a 500wpc QSC amp?

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^^^^^

Now That will get someone's attention! All I gave 'em was a little Klipsch surround speaker backed up to a small Adcom. It was just gonna' be too much damn trouble to haul a Jube up the stairs!! But next time they will looking at the working end of a Heresy!!! Aarrff, Aarrff ---

--- and I should have added a good prosecuting attorney could probably charge you with assault with a deadly weapon! Five huns through 396's -- Now Thats a Big Dog --

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I believe clipping gets blamed because clipping is so often involved, but the real problem is the average power levels are too high.  A clipped amp will be putting out a lot of average power, something like a compressed track.  Add the HF required to create (created by) that square topped clipped off wave and the tweeter gets a double shot of energy. 

 

Van Halen's "Runnin' With The Devil" has a square wave generator applied to the guitar.  This was my first clue that a clipped amp sounded worse than it was damaging.  Square waves are found often enough in music that a speaker should be able to tolerate them. 

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2 hours ago, richieb said:

 

Oh yeah - tell that to my dumb asss neighbor who lets their dog(s) out to bark at 6am! Last year I unleashed "electronic" Fido on them. Ran a speaker outside connected to computer, found an irritating Youtube clip of dogs continually barking, turned 'em Loud and allowed Fido to run free for an hour or so. Dogs didn't bark very long after that. I may be ready to once again  unleash the hounds. Sic 'em boy ---

Can't count the number of times I've wanted to do this in my life. But in the past I always thought first I'm gonna have to make or get a recording of dogs barking. But Youtube, yea now that's the ticket. Thanks @richieb

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12 minutes ago, babadono said:

Can't count the number of times I've wanted to do this in my life. But in the past I always thought first I'm gonna have to make or get a recording of dogs barking. But Youtube, yea now that's the ticket. Thanks @richieb

 

Just Google something like annoying dog barking and you will see several options and some will drive you nuts. Thats the one you want!! And man did it work! Ya can't beat electronic Fido - Dont need to feed it, no vet, no poop to clean up, etc. And it will bark 24/7 should you choose. Nice doggy ---

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Two things damage speakers:

Mechanical damage (from too much excursion).

Too much average power.

(notice that clipping is not one of those two things?)

Compression raises average power, and thus burns out drivers.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Clipping blows out drivers, not because of the clipping, but because of the increased average power in the program material during the time when the amplifier is not clipped.

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