How can I tell if I'm driving my speakers too hard?

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Matt_47

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So I just got myself a sexy new pair of hi-fi floorstanding speakers for listening and bedroom DJing, but as they weren't exactly cheap i'm terrified that i'll fuck them up with excessive bass (which is what i did with my last pair - lucky they were cheap!).

So does anyone know how I can tell if I'm playing too loud and driving the speakers to hard? (Apart from the obvious stuff of hearing distortion, cracking, mixer volume lights are red etc... If one of these happens I'd know to turn it down, but I wanna avoid doing it in the first place!)
 
What speakers and amp are you using? Specifically, what wattage and impedance are they?

If you know the wattage and impedance of your speakers then you can calculate the maximum safe input voltage. Then using a test tone, an 8Ω dummy load (assuming your speakers are 8Ω) and a voltmeter or osciliscope you can find at what point your amp is at the max voltage.

If your amp is power rated less than your speakers then it could start to clip before the calculated max voltage. The problem here is that clipping dramatically increases the power being sent to the speakers. There's a method for finding the clipping point using a piezo but I'm struggling to remember how it works. If I remember I will post more...
 
Great post but not many people will understand that lol :p

As with any new speakers you should "run" them in for a month or so, gradually increasing the volume over this time. If you rag them straight away they will fuck up and burn out the coil, standard.

How much did they cost? If they are decent speakers then you shouldn't need to worry bout breaking them, you get what you pay for the majority of the time. Your cheap speakers blew up for that exact reason, they were CHEAP lol...
 
Warm them in. If you are using say 2 speakers and a sub, if possible try and do a hi pass filter at 100 hz on the speakers and a lowpass at 100 hz on the sub.
Ive been doing this and I can have my music up alot louder.
Also the bass is cleaner and I dont get an irritating boom from kick drums from the speakers.

Smell the woofers, if you're driving them too hard the emitt a wierd smell
 
thanks for the tips guys! The speakers cost 140 reduced from 250, they're q acoustics 1030i floorstanders. My amp is a reallly old sony one, 50W per channel (the speakers are 25 - 100W recommended amp input so this seems fine)

To be honest I dont have the time or money to fiddle around with voltmeters and oscilloscopes, so I think just wearing them in slowly seems like the sensible idea.
 
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