Hi, I just bought a SuperQ box with 2 eight inch subwoofers, prbobably about 200 watts each subwoofer. Right now my amp is 100 Watts per channel.I am afraid I will blow those subs with too little power, cause i blew a few of those Wal-mart cheapo boxes with just the 6 and 1/2 inch regular woofers before with the same 100 watt amp, untill I put lower powered Sony 6 and 1/2 inch co-axials in the box, then no problems. Does this mean i should push those subs with a, like, 600 watt Sony amp or something?
You will never blow a sub by sending it too little power.
You can however blow a sub by overdriving the sub by having the gain too high(clipping)
Do you have a link to the specs on the subs and a link to your amp model? Or do you at least know how the subs are wired and what ohm load they are?
I think I know what the problem would be now. I blew my other speakers because i turned the volume up too high on them and clipped my little amp, which is a nice amp(linear power), but just not enough watts to crank into those speakers. The same thing would happen to the subs i have now am pretty sure now, so Im going to need to get a nice high power amp- a Sony or Pioneer to crank the fuggin sub.Thanks
I think I know what the problem would be now. I blew my other speakers because i turned the volume up too high on them and clipped my little amp, which is a nice amp(linear power), but just not enough watts to crank into those speakers. The same thing would happen to the subs i have now am pretty sure now, so Im going to need to get a nice high power amp- a Sony or Pioneer to crank the fuggin sub.Thanks
As cam mentioned you cannot blow a sub with too little power! If that were the case every time you turn the music down you would blow up the sub, right?! One of two things happened that blew those subs-you thermally overloaded them (too much power) or you mechanically overloaded them (too much power). A clipped signal alone will NOT blow a sub. A clipped signal that sends too much power to the sub CAN blow a sub.
Example 1:
You have a sub that is rated for 100 watts RMS (can safely operate with a continuos 100 watts).
Your amp is rated at 50 watts RMS
Under heavy clipping your amp could theoretically produce 100 watts.
This will NOT blow the sub since the sub can handle 100 watts RMS and cannot tell if it is "clipped" power or "clean" power.
Example 2:
You have a sub that is rated for 100 watts RMS.
Your amp is rated at 75 watts RMS
Under heavy clipping your amp could theoretically produce 150 watts.
This CAN blow your sub however it is not the clipping that does it, it is the fact that you have sent more power than the sub can handle.
This scenario is why you will hear people say "I blew the sub by underpowering it" when in fact the opposite is actually what happened. It was "overpowered" due to the extra power clipping causes and the sub is not rated to thermally/mechanically handle 150 watts.
On another note, those old Linear Power amps are very underrated! My guess is it is putting out WAY more power than you might guess it is which is what actually blew up your speakers (and will possibly blow the new ones if they can't handle the actual power). My feeling is you don't need a new amp rather you need to have the gains properly set with a multi-meter to determine the actual amount of power you are sending the subs .
You will never blow a sub by sending it too little power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mr Marv
As cam mentioned you cannot blow a sub with too little power!...This will NOT blow the sub since the sub can handle 100 watts RMS and cannot tell if it is "clipped" power or "clean" power.
Wrong!!!
You can and will damage any speaker when using a smaller-rated amplifier from noise/distortion when turned up too much, where the FETs are oversaturated, resulting in sending a square wave to the speaker. You can argue semantics, is damaged = blown? Nevertheless, the speaker WILL get damaged.
If the names there are not recognizable to some, I will let you know several of the posters are top grade electrical engineers (RobM, werewolf etc), IASCA/USACi multi crown world champions (Mark Eldridge) as well as Manville Smith (msmith) from JL Audio.
You can and will damage any speaker when using a smaller-rated amplifier from noise/distortion when turned up too much, where the FETs are oversaturated, resulting in sending a square wave to the speaker. You can argue semantics, is damaged = blown? Nevertheless, the speaker WILL get damaged.
You can blow speakers using any size amp if the gains aren't set properly. But you will not blow a speaker by using an amp rated for less power than the speakers are meant to handle. It's all in the gain setting. If you want to get louder, of course get more power, but by having a smaller rated amp and having the gains properly set you will not blow your speakers by sending them an unclipped signal of less power than what the speaker is rated for.
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