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A note of caution: recording of16Hz organ may damage speakers ?


MeloManiac

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Heresys & book shelf speakers can't reproduce freq's that low so you're not really hearing the 16hz or anything below about 45 on those speakers. but freq that low can still damage the speakers if played too loud so be careful. 

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To some degree, it could be a bit of reverse psychology to impress about the low frequency ability of the recording.  I’m reminded of the warning placed on canned tunafish to combat canned salmon:

 

”Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can”

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5 hours ago, DizRotus said:

To some degree, it could be a bit of reverse psychology to impress about the low frequency ability of the recording.  I’m reminded of the warning placed on canned tunafish to combat canned salmon:

 

”Guaranteed not to turn pink in the can”

I agree. More like marketing BS than an actual warning.

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Yes, I have seen such a warning and it was real.  It was on a Telarc recording of the 1812 Overture.  The dynamic range was extreme and the boom from the cannon is capable of plopping your woofer cones onto the floor if you use too much power.  Like turntable rumble, ultra low frequencies, that your speakers can't reproduce, can still damage the woofers. 

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36 minutes ago, JohnA said:

Yes, I have seen such a warning and it was real.  It was on a Telarc recording of the 1812 Overture.  The dynamic range was extreme and the boom from the cannon is capable of plopping your woofer cones onto the floor if you use too much power.  Like turntable rumble, ultra low frequencies, that your speakers can't reproduce, can still damage the woofers. 

 

I still have that, 40 years old, record somewhere - impressive groove, deviates more than 1 mm during that cannon shot If I remember correctly  🙂

 

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On 4/3/2020 at 7:06 PM, JefDC said:

 

I still have that, 40 years old, record somewhere - impressive groove, deviates more than 1 mm during that cannon shot If I remember correctly  🙂

 

ha! i have the CD version!  Not sure if its that old! well. hmm early 80s? yep, that is 40 years old. 

 

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On 4/3/2020 at 10:23 AM, billybob said:

Would like to think speakers have a low pass filter.

We would all like to think that, but it's extremely rare.  Only a sealed box of the proper size is capable of doing that for a passive speaker.  You could add high-pass capacitors before the speaker, but that can mess with other things.  The reliable way is to multi-amp your setup and only feed a driver with the frequencies it can produce.

 

 

On 4/3/2020 at 9:54 PM, consistent said:

Agree, ported enclosures such as Cornwall will cause woofer overload below 25hz, if you pump more juice into the box than you ought too! The woofer's excursion moves dramatically but you don't hear anything...so careful!

Expanding on this:  Ported enclosures UNLOAD the driver below their tuning frequency, and the farther below that frequency you go, the less power it takes to drive your woofer past it's mechanical limits.  Sadly, and especially with cheaper boxes, that tuning frequency can be a lot higher than expected.

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  • 6 months later...

I have searched at length for something to really push the limits with the S-MWM. Now I got that 1812 Overture and was really not impressed.

Turn this up loud with the right set of speakers and enjoy. I use Firefox for my browser and there is a "Youtube Downloader" add on that will let you download videos like this and offers varying degrees of quality and will also let you download audio alone if you wish. You do that and run this bad boy through Audacity and then sit back as the percussion waves slap you in the face. Even with the video file as is from Youtube it blows away the 1812 cannons and you don't have to slog through to the right spot. Some of these are 42" shells and the chuff of launch and the BOOM when set off in the air is really good.

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I'm late to the conversation but I can say low frequencies CAN damage your woofers even if the frequency is below the range of your speakers.

 

I had a pair of acoustic suspension bookshelf speakers with a 6.5" woofer. I also had a Boston Acoustics set of discs used to test speakers for bass response. The first disc was all electronic stuff, with lots of program below 40Hz, and down to 20Hz, while my speakers' low end was in the 50Hz range.

 

Well, I teased the speakers too much one day playing that particular disc and the cone broke free of the adhesive bond to the spider. It now buzzed at the slightest input level.

 

I have no doubt it was the low frequency that did the speaker in and not the overall amplitude. (Amended; obviously it had to be the frequency in combination with the amplitude at that frequency which caused woofer death. What I originally meant to say was, the OVERALL speaker level at the time was within the capacity of the speaker, but bass frequencies require much more energy; it's not a linear equation.)

 

It was a blessing in disguise however. It was that speaker failure which lead to satisfying my lifelong desire to own a pair of Klipsch speakers, when I bought my Heresy's.

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As an aside to this topic. There was a time when I was satisfied with a set of La Scalas and gave deeper bass no thought. Time passes on though and we hear more speakers and in my case I began to realize there were facets to music and sound I could not begin to appreciate because the speakers I had could not play that low or play low well. I had tinkered with a few subs and was not all that impressed and I suppose they were not all that good either. I also began to discover that even though you might get to the same Hz level technically there was another ingredient and that was what kind of headroom did your low notes have to play with and how realistic/clean was that end result? This is why I like the above fireworks on the S-MWM so much. You turn it up and you not only hear it but you feel it just like you were there and the sound is just as crisp as it would be in real life. It is a source of never ending amazement to me that one lonely K-43 in each bass bin produces such prodigious sound.

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