Basics - why you don't clip.

[Tim Lam]

so i found this video and it just confirmed some of my pre existing knowledge and thought i'd share with the community.

hopefully some of the less experienced guys will learn some things from this.

(if you can even understand or decide to sit through it haha)

[bassfreake]

Hmm... I always thought that the reason why when i put my old ap 1800w amp on a pair of Lanzar Max which were rated at like 1600 rms each and they blew in less than 24 hours that it was that the subs were Lanzar and massively over rated... Turns out it might have not been the subs at all but it might have been that the gain was too high on the amp and i was clipping it...

[Torres]

^^ or both lol

[Skullz]

Good video, much better explanation than many other videos have tried to accomplish.

[KenC210]

will watch this later...

[Emmet]

That wasn't really a video about underpowering... the whole video could have just been replaced with "set your gains right from the beginning and don't be a tit." Nice representation for people who wouldn't have access to an o scope though. Good find.

[bassfreake]

^^ or both lol

Lol ikr.... It's still hard to imagine that a pair of subs that's rated at 1600 rms each was so drastically over powered by an amp that was rated at almost half what they were supposed to be able to take that it took a grand total of maybe 4 hours of real playing time to blow the coils lol but yea being that it's lanzar ours certainly possible

[Noel989]

So you have to play full tilt all the time? So it won't be underpowered?

I've been underpowering my sub by over 50% of it rated power for over a year and half and it's still playing

It doesnt matter if you have a small amp (underpowerred) or big enough amp (giving it rms or more power) for your sub as long as it's a clean signal

[Wicks]

Great video, very informative!

Let's help squash a rumor.......you CAN NOT damage a speaker by under powering it.

Otherwise you'd have to run your system at full tilt ALL the time which is obviously not the case.

Example:

You have a speaker which is being driven by an amplifier and both legitimately match each others rated limits.

Whenever you turn your volume down on your headunit or play content at low volumes, you're "under-powering" your speakers and there's nothing wrong with that.

As long as you don't clip or distort your signal, you're fine.

Keep this in mind:

Speaker sensitivity ratings for subwoofers are something around 85-90dB / Watt / meter.

That means that the subwoofer will play 85-90dB with 1watt of input power at 1 meter away.

Here's a link online, may not be super accurate but close enough.

http://airportnoiselaw.org/dblevels.html

85-90dB is relatively LOUD for only 1watt of input power, especially 1 meter away from the speaker which most vehicles should be within.

I bet a few of you would be pretty surprised to find out that your system is only playing a few watts when you have it turned down (residential neighborhood, stop light, etc).

The biggest thing to take from this video / thread is that when you clip your signal, it feeds a DC voltage to your speakers.

A voice-coil is basically a ~1-4ohm short circuit with DC voltage and will do nothing but generate heat.

This will damage them no matter what their rating is.

[bassfreake]

85-90dB is relatively LOUD for only 1watt of input power, especially 1 meter away from the speaker which most vehicles should be within.

I bet a few of you would be pretty surprised to find out that your system is only playing a few watts when you have it turned down (residential neighborhood, stop light, etc).

pfft I turn it up at stop lights!! (as long as there's no cops around)