please help me not to blow another speaker !!! (1 Viewer)

[pauld.nz]

Hi guys, last night i managed to blow one of my right speakers after pushing it way to far. What supprised me is that i didnt blow the left.
A few days ago i upgraded from an Kenwood KR-A4080 (80x4rms) amp to a pioneer VSX-604s.

specs on the 604s r as follows..
Continous power output : Front (1kHz THD 1% 8oams) 165 W + 165 W.

Continous power output (dolby pro logic): Front 110w + 110w center 110w rear 110w

Speakers : Jenson (DR-1205) 130 W 92 inpedance

Im not sure about the pioneers, they don't have the model number or specs but they r really small and about 10 years old. They r part of a system (not mini system) that my parents bought.

I made the assumption that if i wired the jensons (which sound great even when i was pushing it) with the pioneers (not in surround mode) (there are 4 ports/holes for 2 sets of front speakers in the amp) , that they would only take as much power as they needed and would be fine.

I really don't want to blow another speaker !

Im getting a brand new Wharfdale Pro Active Sub in a few days. If i continue to run 2 sets of speakers through the front ports, at the above power, will the sub minize the chance of me blowing another speaker by taking the pressure of ?

specs on sub:
(New PB-120
2 x 8" speakers
rca in and outs
parallel input
auto on / off with signal
120 watts)


Also, i plan some day to use the surround sound, would the left pioneer speaker be ok as a center ?


I really sorry if you (the reader) is shaking his head at the momemt. But i really am lost, and any help would be really appreciated.

Thankyou so much
Paul

 

[John Garcia]

Yes, the sub will help by giving you more headroom on the amp, but it may not prevent distortion, which is what kills the speakers. Distortion occurs when you run out of power to properly recreate the sound's wave form (clipping). Burning one and not the other is actually not uncommon. The second factor that may be aggravating this problem is having two sets of speakers hooked to the main outs. These are almost always NOT separate channels, they are split from the same channel. The receiver may be able to handle either of the speakers separate from each other, but when you combine the load of the two, you could easily exceed the receiver's capabilities.

 

[pauld.nz]

Thanks for the reply ....

So what you r trying to say is that I didn’t have enough power running through both sets of speakers because the front channel was split. At the moment, I have disconnected the right (small speaker) but left the other pioneer speaker (left) running split with the jenson.

I looked through the GUI on the pioneer setup and it didn’t appear to have any options for dropping the power. Some further questions if that’s ok guys ...

Will the right pioneer serve as a centre speaker in a surround setting ? If I did wire the remaining pioneer speaker as a centre, would 110W be far to much power for it, or would it only use what it needed ?

Is it better to purchase speakers that have a rating that far exceeds what the amp is likely to put out ?



Thanks again ..
Paul

 

[ChrisWiggles]

No, it's better to have far more powerful amps. Clipping your speakers by driving them with underpowered amps is what John was explaining, which is what you were likely doing.

 

[pauld.nz]

I guess thats because i was sharing the jensons with the pioneers.

I do know that in stereo mode i can run the fronts at 165 X 165.

Would it be better to buy 2 rears and use the remaining pioneer as a center and switch to surround (i use my stereo for mainly audio not video) and reduce the load ???

Is 110W enough ?

 

[Dennis Gardner]

I think that when you put 2 sets of speakers on the main outputs you may be giving the receiver a 4 ohm load which makes the amps work extra hard. When pushed into this load, your amp was probably running out of power and distorted which fried your speak.

The receiver may put out the 110 or 165 as you claim, but that is into the proper load and since you changed loads, only the amp knows how it will react at high power.

Hooking the speakers on the surround channels and running the receiver in a multi-stereo mode if it has it would give the amp even loads on each channel to amplify.

Dennis

 

[Chu Gai]

If you can't be sure of being careful, then fuse the speaker wires with an in-line fuse.

 

[pauld.nz]

I did wire the front jensons into front A and the pioneers into front B. It sounds logical that doing this would make the amp work alot harder. I thought about wireing the pioneers into the rear channel in surround pro logic mode but it sounded like crappppp.

I get my sub in 2 days. I think i might have to start saving for some pro rears that can handle the juice. I am on a real budget. 400 NZD or about 200 american dollars. Any ideads on brands / inpedance / DB rating ???

 

[Dennis Gardner]

Prologic is a decoding mode used for movies and thus music through this mode doesn't have material put into the surrounds at the same volume level as the fronts. Does your receiver have an all channel stereo mode. It may not, being an older model.

Using the sub to take the bass off your main speakers will make it sound better, but that will only serve the 2 front stereo channels. You may not have any way to hook up a second pair of speakers to your receiver even through your sub and impedance match your receiver to your speakers.
This is remedied in the newer digital surround models by giving full spectrum sound to all channels. Prologic doesn't have this.


Dennis

 

[Andy_Steb]

It sounds like to me, that you are severely under powering your speakers. Disconnect that other pioneer speaker.

For now, hook up the receiver, the Jensons, and the new sub. And take it easy on that volume knob. The sub should help you out with the power.

I wouldn’t spend any money on new speakers until, you do some research. Search the forum about power ratings on receivers, real watts, dB vs. watts, speaker sensitivity, SPL, crossover cut offs and how they all work together. Read as many posts as you can, I have learned a lot from the members on this forum.

What you will learn, is for about $900 - $1000 US you can buy a HK 7200 that puts out 100 watts a channel, which your receiver claims. I’m not saying you have to spend a thousand dollars to have a nice system. Everyone has a budget. But I would hate to hear that you bought new speakers and blown them too.

I know I didn’t give you a direct answer to your question, but if you take my suggestion on studying up, in a couple of months you will thank me,

 

[pauld.nz]

By the sounds of it, there is no easy answer to my question/s. Im a little bit gutted after JUST buying a new amp that was totally in my budget, that it is not advanced enough to run different speakers of differeing qualitys at the same volume.

Im a little lost here. So even if i do buy some decent rears, i will run the risk of blowing them at high volume. If i kept my current setup as it was and used the remaining pioneer as a center (in pro logic or 3 channel mode ?

I know i have to back of the volume, but is there a cheeper solution to getting good sound in pro logic and 3 channel mode/s ???

Cheers

 

[Dennis Gardner]

Paul,

I think that your receiver for 2-3 channel may be adequate if the speakers are kept around the 8 ohms that the receiver prefers. When you hooked it A+B the receiver effectively saw 4 ohms. Todays receiver's amps are split into 5-7 channels from a single tranformer as it is and pushing 4 ohms at volume will tax even the best of receiver amps.

In step with what Andy stated, I know the rating for your amp is 110x5, but I would be surprised if it would be driving 50-60 real watts into each channel. Enough about power!

The new processing options with even the lowest level of the new crop of receivers really makes it easy to build a truly great system today that just wasn't available a couple of years ago for most budgets. I would suggest that you look into the Pioneer VSX 912 receiver. It has 7.1 decoding as many of the current batch has, but it also has preamp outputs to connect those giant amps that we all want to own but can't afford right now! The going street price for this sweet little receiver is around $300.

Here is a link to Pioneer specs:
VSX-D912K

I here your frustration, but the road to having the system that we all want is normally long and full of wrong turns.


Good Luck!

Dennis

 

[pauld.nz]

Cheers Dennis.

 

[pauld.nz]

Wow, just got my new sub this morning.

specs are --

New PB-120
2 x 8" speakers
rca in and outs
parallel input
auto on / off with signal
120 watts)

Specs on pioneer VSX-604s. ( for reference)

Continous power output : Front (1kHz THD 1% 8oams) 165 W + 165 W.

Continous power output (dolby pro logic): Front 110w + 110w center 110w rear 110w

Speakers : Jenson (DR-1205) 130 W 92 inpedance



On top of the sub there are 4 ports. A right line in + line out and a left line in + line out. The seller said that he would send me an RCA cord (the same as my CD player cord RCA) which would work fine.

I guessed that i should run either one of the plugs from the line out on either left or right to the sub out on the amp.

Is this correct ? How come the sub has left/right ports when the amp only just has one sub out ???


Also i noticed that when testing the sub at low volume, it makes nxt to no difference. R the jenson floor standings just drowing out the twin 8s ???? I even disconnected the jensons to see whither the sub was actually running !!

// Note this was at lowish volume.

I really hope this is not another mistake ----

Please advise

 

[Andy_Steb]

Sub out on the reciever, line in on the subwoofer. also try a y-adapter on the sub to connect the left and right together.
Do you have any sub output at all? sometimes you have to turn the volume up a little bit to get the auto on circuit to work (Not loud enough to blow speakers)
Check your reciever settings, make sure you have sub output turned on. What sound field and source material are you using?
If you have a link to a online manual for your reciever, It would help.