cliping?? (1 Viewer)

[R:o:b]

just curious, how do you know if your reciever is clipping your speakers/sub. ive been reading a lot about it and im getting a little scared about my speakers (i want to be proactive...) any advise and help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[ChrisWiggles]

you can hear the HF getting harsh, and as you raise the volume more, teh harshness worsens and things don't get any louder. You can do this to computer speakers easily to experiment.

 

[John Garcia]

Pretty much everything will start to sound unclear and "fuzzy" for lack of a better term. It's hard to describe unless you've heard it. A good example is a cheap car stereo that, when you turn it up, it sounds like crap - that's distortion because there isn't enough power to drive the speaker correctly.

Sub's generally have their own amps and protection circuitry, so it's less likely that you will have that happen.

 

[R:o:b]

is this a common problem with systems? i.e. does it happen alot? is the the speakers or amp that causes the clipping?

 

[ChrisWiggles]

It's the user causing the clipping by mis-designing the system with inappropriate sources that are inadequate for the task and they run out of power, thus "clipping" off the tops of the waves. This is dangerous for the speakers, moreso than overpowering them which can stress the drivers in different ways. So yes, it is more the amp being insufficient, or source outputs being insufficient/mismatched earlier on in the chain that causes clipping. The signal is clipped before it reaches the speaker. But again, this is user error pretty much...

 

[Pete Gia]

Hello R.o.b. Everyone is on the right track here with their replies. It is the amplifier that "clips", whether it is the amplifier(s) in a receiver, car system ,or separates. Any given amp, no matter how powerful it is, can only do so much before it clips (distorts). On a mass market receiver,this is usually somewhere around the 12 o'clock position of thr volume control. If you can hear distortion ,your setup is clipping. Most likely, more speakers are damaged from being underpowered,rather than being overpowered. Hope this helps-Pete