Damage to a system?

[GarrettMaster1]

What are some common rules I should look out for when using my speaker system to avoid damaging them? I understand the broad nature of this question, but what have you seen that has damaged speakers in the past? Certain frequencies/volumes/voltage issues etc...

Thanks,

GarrettMaster1

 

[jaxvon]

The thing to remember is that you should not try to play them way too loud. If you notice your speakers start sounding harsh, turn it down. This is an indication of a clipping amplifier (this is bad) or drivers being driven beyond their limits (also bad). When an amplifier starts to clip, the distortion level rises very fast and can start to put high level DC current to the speakers, which fries the voice coils. Overdriving a transducer will start to damage the the motor structure, surround, or cone. Basically, just use your ears and common sense, and you should be fine. This means that you should not be letting your drunk friends man the volume control

 

[Sheep]

The thing to remember is that you should not try to play them way too loud. If you notice your speakers start sounding harsh, turn it down. This is an indication of a clipping amplifier (this is bad) or drivers being driven beyond their limits (also bad). When an amplifier starts to clip, the distortion level rises very fast and can start to put high level DC current to the speakers, which fries the voice coils. Overdriving a transducer will start to damage the the motor structure, surround, or cone. Basically, just use your ears and common sense, and you should be fine. This means that you should not be letting your drunk friends man the volume control

Heh, I don't let them inside!

As jaxvon said, you will be able to hear it. You will not however see a tweeter showing signs of death. Only bass, and maybe the odd midrange driver. Use common sense, and you'll be a happy man(or women).

SheepStar

 

[GarrettMaster1]

Which brings me to my next part of this: I have an amplifier that has 2 amber LEDs (one for each channel). They are marked for a signal and as such will blink according to an input. Do I want my input volume to put the LEDs on a constant 'on' state or let them blink?

 

[Sheep]

Which brings me to my next part of this: I have an amplifier that has 2 amber LEDs (one for each channel). They are marked for a signal and as such will blink according to an input. Do I want my input volume to put the LEDs on a constant 'on' state or let them blink?

Consult your manual. It will tell you what each LED state means.

SheepStar

 

[GarrettMaster1]

The manual makes references to the signal LEDs but does not mention the recommended state they should be in. The red colored Clipping LEDs are the only feature the manual goes into great detail about.

 

[Sheep]

Well, don't make them red then! I would assume green and blue are safer colors, while orange, yellow, red being bad...

SheepStar

 

[GarrettMaster1]

haha that's just the thing though--> there is only one signal LED per channel. But I understand what you mean

 

[Leprkon]

This is an indication of a clipping amplifier (this is bad) or drivers being driven beyond their limits (also bad). When an amplifier starts to clip, the distortion level rises very fast and can start to put high level DC current to the speakers, which fries the voice coils. Overdriving a transducer will start to damage the the motor structure, surround, or cone.

To expand just a little on Jax and Sheep here, quality is at least as important as quantity.

In most cases, the amplifier will start to clip long before the speakers would have been in any danger from pure power.

A cheap receiver putting 100 watts of clipped sound into a 300 watt speaker will cause damage much more quickly than a 500 watt receiver would do if it was putting in clean sound.

the best thing you can do for your speakers is provide a good, clean signal

 

[bandit]

Adding yet a bit more to the story - If you overdrive an amplifier to the point of severe clipping, you are basically sending your speaker systems square waves. Square waves have very sharp leading and trailing edges - the crossover typically sees this energy as "high frequency energy" thus passing this energy directly to the tweeters. The tweeters simply can't handle this type of abuse and are destroyed. Everyone else on this thread is correct is saying if you hear distortion - back it down.

 

[Nuglets]

The signal LED tells you when there is a certain amount of voltage going out of the amp. This is a safe amount of power and the lights can either: stay off(when music is quiet), blink(at somewhat moderate levels), and stay on(at louder levels) without any harm. The red LED's indicate when your amplifier is clipping and this is the one that should not do more than blink once in a while when listening at very loud levels.