Amp Woes

[Boon]

I think so. An AC wave will still give a reading on a DC meter. After all you could argue it's just a really rapidly changing DC voltage (in fact that's exactly what it is, an amplifier just controls how much of the internal DC rail voltage is allowed through to the output)

[chewie]

well if thats normal then it had to be a defective sub somehow

we werent dropping voltage and i belive it wasnt clipping. cause it was gettin hot real quick. like withing half a song not even.

now i did have it sub up port up. with the sub sonic approx around 20 hz (guesstimate) could it have been over working itself facing up? it was in the optimum box. that it called for on the cv site

[snafu]

1. No matter what your CV rep told you, the motor on ANY woofer will become hot when you operate the sub at high power levels.

2. In order to get an accurate measure of how much DC voltage your amplifier allows to "leak" to the speaker, you need to have a load on the amp and increase the volume until the amp clips. Set your DMM to capture PEAK DC readings (MIN / MAX setting) and you'll know what you're dealing with.

DC will cause the voice coil in a woofer to heat up rather quickly as will clipping. Heavy doses of both will spell the end of an otherwise good speaker.

Good luck.

[chewie]

1. No matter what your CV rep told you, the motor on ANY woofer will become hot when you operate the sub at high power levels.

2. In order to get an accurate measure of how much DC voltage your amplifier allows to "leak" to the speaker, you need to have a load on the amp and increase the volume until the amp clips. Set your DMM to capture PEAK DC readings (MIN / MAX setting) and you'll know what you're dealing with.

DC will cause the voice coil in a woofer to heat up rather quickly as will clipping. Heavy doses of both will spell the end of an otherwise good speaker.

Good luck.

well i was operating it near the rms rating. i wasnt pushing it past that. this was the HOTTEST ive ever seen a speaker get within that time frame.

not saying i know all or anything but i set up all my systems like i have this one. and this one got the hottest. all my other systems have barely gotten past luke warm.. so im gonna try my vmax 15 inch from them and if that gets hot too then obvioiusly its something with the amp.

thanks for all the help guys i really appreciate it

[Toxiccasper]

Its not the sub its the amp

[MickyMcD]

I think Boon thought of the right one. It sounds like a DC offset issue. Since I haven't seen or heard the setup or have too much information I really don't know, but I think Boon's guess has it...

How we used to check our old Crown Com-Tech's for offset issues was, and don't laugh, we would get a small DC electric motor, the kind that runs like the clappers on a AAA or AA battery. We would put it to the terminals of the amplifier at no gain, half gain and full gain (WITH NO SIGNAL) and see if it runs. If it runs fairly well at half gain and if it runs at all when no gain is applied or it is muted, it's borked.

Cheers,

Mick