Ive Been Reading For Hours About Underpowering Subwoofers And Everyone Says Something Different Ive Heard That An Underpowered Sub With A Clipped Signal Can Cause The Sub Not To Cool Properly Resulting In Thermal Damage Then I Hear That By Underpowering A Sub It Will Not Be Able To Reach Its Limits Of not Cooling And All Kinds Of Mess Does Anyone Have Any FACTUAL Knowledge That They Would Like To Share About Underpowering Subs.All Help Appreciated.
underpowering subs is harmless. underpowering a sub and then pushing your amp to the point of clipping the signal is the problem. the triangle shaped wave is cut at the top and bottom and presents a square wave to the sub, which is essentially periodic dc current. the voice coil heats up because it is holding onto instead of releasing the current (due to the square waves/straight lines).
Yea Thats What Ive been hearing But I Also Heard That Clipping Cant Create Dc Current And That Even Though The Signal Is Clipped It Wont Be Enough To Cause Any kind Of Damage.
hey mikechec... when tuning your amplifier to a sub thats say 1000w rms and you have a 500w rms amplifier. would you tune it at full volume instead of 75% because you dont have the extra headroom?
u wanted to know about under powering a sub. if you more specific you might get some more useful information. im just trying to help you out. i dont even have that problem. i just asked for your benefit. quit cryin and suck it up soldier ;)
"when tuning your amplifier to a sub thats say 1000w rms and you have a 500w rms amplifier. would you tune it at full volume instead of 75% because you dont have the extra headroom?"
nope. that's a sure way to clip the signals. if you're an aggressive listener (like myself) you should certainly opt for a bit of headroom. this helps for good reproduction of peaks in your music also. as for underpowering, if your sub is (rms) rated 3 or 4 times that of your amplifier, then the chances of your damaging the sub is nil, even with a clipped signal. what happens is during clipping your amp sends the driver double the power that the amp is producing. when this happens, the vc essentially behaves as a resistor instead of an inductor and dissipates heat (remember the intervals of "dc like" current associated with the square wave). the added heat can cause damge to the sub in different ways, one being the coil expanding and rubbing against the magnetic gap. hence the "blown woofer test" of pushing down on the cone to see if it rubs. heating also can cause the varnish on the copper to melt and separate, turning the vc into a loose slinky. clipping is much more serious when dealing with mids and highs.
mikecheck, i dont think ur understanding quite what im saying. i mean that tun it at full volume so that when your at full volume the amplifier is pushing 500wrms... instead of tuning it at 75% volume so that when u go full volume your exceeding the amplifiers rated power. .. or is it still better to just tune it at 75% volume... because they say that si the best for performance. meaning most output with moderate clipping at full volume, well if u tuned it at full volume would you get less output but no clipping?
ok. when you said full instead of 75% i thought you were referring to the gain. tuning at 75% is just for the HU's that tend to distort after that point. a rare few can go to 100% cleanly. if you go that route, you will notice the same results at 100% that you would have noticed at 75%, had you tuned it at 75%. your ceiling is where you set the amp. just don't exceed that ceiling. i don't see an advantage. i also like to leave a bit of knob room for those recordings that were produced lower than the majority of others (like my "best of sting"). but the headroom can only be obtained by running a higher power amp to your driver for those peaks mentioned above (as well as the lower recorded productions). i would just set the gains according to the voltage output of your HU.
yes, actually you can send a bad signal to an avalanche and hear no distortion. i will be using a DMM. 63.2V at 4 ohms for 1000w rms i think it is on the 1000/1 manual. and as far as my HU. i actually never turn it up past 72/80 except for those "quiet" songs like you said. sometimes those songs are quite for the mids and highs but the bass is extremely loud lol. example: air forces, young geezy