Topic: why speakers distort at high volume?

[pedro]

, just wanna ask bakit ang speaker nagdidistort during high volume? lalo na pag may bass ang music. pag palo ng bass sabog na ang tunog. is it the amp's power or the speaker's power handling ability which is at fault? this is usually i encounter sa mga sound system. thanks in advance

[ATJr.]

, just wanna ask bakit ang speaker nagdidistort during high volume? lalo na pag may bass ang music. pag palo ng bass sabog na ang tunog. is it the amp's power or the speaker's power handling ability which is at fault? this is usually i encounter sa mga sound system. thanks in advance

commmon thinking is that the speakers are at fault. but i say it is the amplifiers that is running out of steam that is misbehaving, at high volumes, the ouptut of the amps are overloading, ie. output transistors are saturating, ditto with tubes, and so power supply ripples easliy get to the speakers, also the amps become unstable and go into all sorts of oscillations!

the simple cure is to back down on the volume when this happens....

[JojoD818]

or use the most powerful amp you can get your hands on. 

[rascal101]

The speakers these amps get tested on and the speakers you have are probably not the same. Well ... you can only test a number of speakers anyway at the lab. You don't want to spend your time (development time) that is testing all speakers in the market - you won't be able to deliver your amp in time and you will lose a lot of R & D money. Hence, the term matching your amp and speakers come into play.

[aHobbit]

, just wanna ask bakit ang speaker nagdidistort during high volume? lalo na pag may bass ang music. pag palo ng bass sabog na ang tunog. is it the amp's power or the speaker's power handling ability which is at fault? this is usually i encounter sa mga sound system. thanks in advance

You should have identified what gears were at play.

Scenario1: your amp is high powered and your speaker is at fault - speakers are mechanical device that have to be operated within its intended limit. There is what we call bottoming out - and this is more pronounced when you have bass passages beyond what the speakers can handle. This results in obvious distortion and unusual sound.

Scenario 2: your amp is low powered and your speaker is not at fault - this is what 2ny explained. Your amp is already beyond its amplification limit, that what is being pumped into your speakers are not pure AC signal (amplified music signal - variable signal) but DC (your power supply) signal, being thrown directly to your speakers. this scenario can easily destroy your tweeter first followed by the other drivers (mid or woofer) - short circuit condition.

[av_phile1]

Check also the physical condition of the speakers.  Sometimes, if the spyder is loose, or the voice coil bobbin and coil assembly is deformed, you could hear some rattling or what they call,  "sayad."  This becomes more evident at high volumes.  And depending on the condition, it may also be triggered by some frequencies, even at low volumes. 

Speakers also will distort at their break-up nodes and this may not be obvious until they reach a volume level where the break-up distortion becomes unacceptably audible.

In general, speakers will distort if it gets square waves instead of sine waves it expects from amps.  That happens when the amp is underpowered and you are operating the amp into its clipping regions.

Speakers will also distort when its compliance is exceeded so that its cone cannot go where the amplifier wants it to do, so you get clipped accoustic waveforms.  This happens more due to some construcction deficiency in the speaker, rather than power handling. 

   

[atomicat10]

Are relatively new speakers more prone to distortion than say older (broken in but same model) ones?

Howabout knocking (grrr grrrr) all the way to the baffles on HT, are LFE causing them, can these damage the speakers?

[av_phile1]

Are relatively new speakers more prone to distortion than say older (broken in but same model) ones?

In general, newer speakers benefit from computer aided design and newer materials inherited from NASA technologies (like Kevlar) and do enjoy a century worth of research and manufacturing experience as well as close-tolerance built thanks to robotic-assisted mass production.  Better materials and design should give us better performance than previous models, however incrementally.  But, like any other product in time, there are still not so good speakers.  But I have to credit modern technologies and mass production in driving speaker costs down.  Some great speakers that are affordable today would have cost immensely for the same quality 20 years ago.  High fidelity that  used to be the province of rich audiophiles are are very affordable.