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Did I damage my speakers? (1 Viewer)

ShiftyMiata

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Justin Bailey
Hello! I did something the other day that I probably shouldn't have done. Before I get into the details, here's my setup.
2x Bose 2.2 (from 1992)
Technics SU-G91 amp (150wpc)
Technics EQ SH 8017

Okay. Me and my friends were playing around in Audacity, and I decided to amplify a song by its maximum amount. Obviously, it clipped. A LOT. I had the volume very low, almost inaudible. Do you think it still could have damaged my amp/speakers? I'm very paranoid about damaging these speakers, they're my first set ever (I'm only 15) From what I understand, no matter the volume, clipping will damage your amp/speakers. Do you think I did anything to them? I can't hear anything wrong when I play at loud volume, if that helps.

Thanks,
~Justin
 
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JohnRice

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That's not clipping. It's a distorted source, but clipping only happens when the amp runs out of headroom and sends large amounts of distortion to the speakers. I can't imagine any way you could have possibly damaged your speakers if the sound was almost inaudible.
 

ShiftyMiata

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Justin Bailey
That's not clipping. It's a distorted source, but clipping only happens when the amp runs out of headroom and sends large amounts of distortion to the speakers. I can't imagine any way you could have possibly damaged your speakers if the sound was almost inaudible.
Thank you! Makes sense now, but for whatever reason, in audacity, there's a button that says "allow clipping". Huh. Thanks :)
 

Al.Anderson

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It sounds like you clipped the signal, but didn't send that signal to your speakers. So the audio track was distorted (clipped), but that distortion never had any effect on your speakers.

And for what it's worth, brief clipping won't necessarily damage speakers; it just starts then down the path. (Not that it's a good thing, it should be avoided; but it's just not an instantaneous hit to the speaker.)
 

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