Possible to blow out a sub?

A

adri1456

Gawd
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Jan 15, 2004
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527
Lately, I've been playing my speaker and sub system at a louder volume than usual.

I fear that I might blow the subwoofer and/or speaker by playing it at full bass (at what the computer and speaker can dish out). I sometimes use Creative's Audio HQ to increase the bass also.

Will this shorten the life of the equipment?
 
what do you have specifically?

turning up the bass with an eq can cause distortion and shorten the life.. theoretically just playing them at a loud volume would be within the design specs of the speakers.. but that's only in theory...
 
From AudioVideo101.com via Google's cache since the site's down...

Speakers are blown by being overdriven. In truth, it is the amplifier that is overdriven causing the amplifier to go into clipping. This causes distortion. The high output power coupled with a distorted signal can damage a speaker driver causing a blown driver. If you have a blown speaker, you must replace the driver that is damaged. Tweeters are the most susceptible to damage from being driven too hard with too much distortion. It takes a lot more to blow a woofer, but it can be done. How do you prevent this? Do not drive your amplifiers into clipping. If you start to hear distortion in your speakers turn the volume down immediately (audible distortion means your amplifier and speakers are being driven too hard). Keep the volume turned several decibels below audible distortion levels; before distortion becomes audible it is most often present at lower levels that may still damage a tweeter, particularly when an unexpected loud passage appears. You can also control distortion by powering your speakers with larger amplifiers. Larger amps with more power reserves can be driven harder without going into clipping (some amplifiers also include anti-clipping circuitry to help protect your speakers).
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Basically, if you hear clipping, it's bad and you should turn the volume down. Clipping suxors the donkey ass anyway, so you'd want to avoid that even if it wasn't bad for your system.
 
actually a lot of people prefer clipping.. espeically in a car.. but its bad...

ok.. hmm.. basically.. clipping and distortion are squared waves.. and both things cause heat..

so.. your "creative HQ eq" thing could possibly be creating a distorted signal, because it is basically saying to play more bass than the system is designed to put out.. i can't put it into words..

what speakers are you using? i will just ask again.. even though i know oyu haven't had a chance to answer yet...
 
scottatwittenberg said:
actually a lot of people prefer clipping.. espeically in a car.. but its bad...
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*shudder*

As if car alarms weren't enough of a nusiance.
 
Subwoofers are generally damaged from being bottomed out. Square waves might damage them also, but it would be hard to know whether the amp would run out of power before the woofer hit mechanical limitations. In short, the answer is maybe :D
 
i have the logitech z-2200 speakers. the subwoofer they came with is pretty good, but i was listening to music one day and turned the bass on high with the music at 3/4 max volume. i think a cone or something came loose, because the bass sounds really distorted now, it makes a loud dull farting noise.
 
jamestime88 said:
i have the logitech z-2200 speakers. the subwoofer they came with is pretty good, but i was listening to music one day and turned the bass on high with the music at 3/4 max volume. i think a cone or something came loose, because the bass sounds really distorted now, it makes a loud dull farting noise.
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Take a look at it if you can. See if there is any damage to the cone or surround. Also, tap the cone and see if you can hear anything rattle, like a snare drum. It does sound like you busted the driver though.
 
BO(V)BZ said:
Take a look at it if you can. See if there is any damage to the cone or surround. Also, tap the cone and see if you can hear anything rattle, like a snare drum. It does sound like you busted the driver though.
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i shoved a stuffed animal into the large wind pipe thing on the side (sorry if i sound like a COMPLETE idiot). It seemed to have fixed the distortion.
 
It's a vent. You've just changed your subwoofer from a vented enclosure to a sealed enclosure. Just a little education.
 
GodsMadClown said:
It's a vent. You've just changed your subwoofer from a vented enclosure to a sealed enclosure. Just a little education.
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thanks. but what does that say the problem with my subwoofer is?

also, if i just stick my hand in and press on the side of the vent it will stop the distortion, that's why i tought something was loose.
 
Your driver is probably partly blown. That descriptions sounds alot like a driver that's overextending. A sealed chamber helps to damp the extention of any given driver, making it generally more forgiving of crappy woofers.

Technically, your driver probably has a much lower Q value than when it was new.

Read. Learn.

http://www.diysubwoofers.org/
 
BO(V)BZ said:
Subwoofers are generally damaged from being bottomed out. Square waves might damage them also, but it would be hard to know whether the amp would run out of power before the woofer hit mechanical limitations. In short, the answer is maybe :D
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True, but I've seen plenty of high schoolers clip their stuff into death....usually with those "2000w" $40 bargain-bin amps that have 10%THD or some outrageous figure like that.

In general, know your sub's limits...what's it's maximum SPL, and understand what that means.

The other is some subs are designed so they can't bottom out....well they don't hit the backplate...but the suspension will still go non-linear and mess the woofer up.

It's almost always non-linear cone movement that kills a woofer. I've only seen one over-power incident, and that was my fault for puttin a 50w woofer through 240w of bass abuse...funny part was it never bottomed out or went non-linear...but it did blow it's dustcap off one day :p

That woofer died after one day's 6 hour blast session on the freeway...I smelled smoke, my bud looked around, and I freaked when I smelled fiberglas, then heard him screaming "OMG OMG your box is on fire!"...the box wasn't on fire, but the woofer was billowing smoke from the exposed voice coil area...
 
cliping your sub (over excursion), distortion, underpowering,

those things will kill your sub
 
the z-2200's are well known for this, which is why they discontinued them. I did it myself about 6 months ago.

You've just loosened the port about 1/16" from the rest of the box, there isn't really any way to fix it other than a C clamp pinching the top of the box down to the port, but this is really risky. Call logitech and they'll send you a brand new set of z-2300's which don't have this problem.
 
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