Can an equalizer damage speakers?

[J87X]

I have Swan M10s and I've been using my sound card's equalizer to turn up low freqs and high freqs several db. When I flip my custom EQ settings on it sounds so much better to me, but will it damage the speakers?
Also will it damage headphones? I like jacking up 62 and 31hz up almost all the way so explosions/gunshots sound more intense.

 

[jtm55]

Hi All

Only the person with their hand on the volume control can damage your speakers. Use common sense & you'll be fine.

 

[J87X]

I don't listen to it blasting loud with the eq on. The bass sounded nice and deep, so I'm pretty sure it never clips. But I have been noticing a lot of bloat that I don't think used to be there with the EQ off, is it possible that the woofer may have taken some damage already?

 

[450]

If there isn't any distortion/clipping you should be fine.

 

[Sycraft]

In this case, probably not. Your soundcard's EQ can't boost the total output level of the soundcard. It is all digital and so has an absolute ceiling. The volume control on our speakers, being integrated, should be set up such that it can't go too loud. So over all, you should be fine.

EQs themselves can't actually cause any damage in any case, all they can do is make it easier to overdrive your speakers. If you aren't driving your speakers or amps past their limits, you should be fine.

 

[keenan]

In this case, probably not. Your soundcard's EQ can't boost the total output level of the soundcard. It is all digital and so has an absolute ceiling.

You can't boost the output levels, but you can make the soundcard clip digitally, which can damage your speakers even at a level that would be fine with normal music content. In this situation it's probably not a major concern, but the main point is of course that only YOU can prevent speaker damage. Don't run them too loud and certainly don't run them when there's audible distortion, even if the distortion is 'just' introduced by your EQ.

 

[Sycraft]

Depends on the soundcard. Smart ones won't clip, they adjust their overall gain such that the EQ doesn't clip things.

 

[phide]

You can't boost the output levels, but you can make the soundcard clip digitally, which can damage your speakers even at a level that would be fine with normal music content.

The D/A converter will smooth out these full-scale peaks to a certain degree. Unless the clipping is extensive, in the 100's of samples range, this shouldn't be much of an issue.

 

[keenan]

The D/A converter will smooth out these full-scale peaks to a certain degree. Unless the clipping is extensive, in the 100's of samples range, this shouldn't be much of an issue.

With a lot of these EQs offering 30-40dB of gain on a band and most popular music being heavily compressed and close to clipping already, it's really not that hard to drive your gear with a much less pleasant signal than its designed to handle. Probably not in the bass frequencies since the amp is usually underpowered here, but in the mids you can be very mean to your speakers. Even with the nyquist filter in the DAC limiting the signal bandwidth.

It'll be damn obvious though, so avoid audible distortion and you'll be fine...