Driver Cone Wear-Out Problems?

[SurferJoe46]

Hypothetically*-

--- if one were to take two identical cabs, say a pair of 210s or so, and exclusively drive one set with a lot of distortion and the other on purely clean sounds and they got the same number of hours and volume - would one kill the driver cones (or even the aluminum ones if they have them) faster or at the same rate?

I tend to think the distortion is harder on the speaker cones trying to force them into odd signal compliance and wave reversals and such. Bigger drivers maybe more so!

Any enlightened answers to this thought?

* conjectural: based primarily on surmise; e.g. maybe other than adequate evidence

[billfitzmaurice]

Originally Posted by SurferJoe46

I tend to think the distortion is harder on the speaker cones trying to force them into odd signal compliance and wave reversals and such. Bigger drivers maybe more so!

It's not the case. A clipped signal is no more complex than an un-clipped signal. It's often assumed to be, usually by those who don't know what a typical musical waveform actually looks like. But the assumption is incorrect.

[megadan]

Right, it's sort of like saying that playing complex chords would be harder on the speaker than playing single notes. It's just not the case.

[Hector_G]

Forgive me for being so vague with my question. I really can't remember where I read this.

I'm assuming it would be the same answer as above but I'd still like to make sure. What about square wave distortion? Say, a Wooly Mammoth on the most gated setting.
Or a synth pedal on this type of setting?
I remember reading somewhere that this type of fuzz/distortion signal is very hard on speakers due to the odd cone movements.

[SurferJoe46]

Originally Posted by billfitzmaurice

It's not the case. A clipped signal is no more complex than an un-clipped signal. It's often assumed to be, usually by those who don't know what a typical musical waveform actually looks like. But the assumption is incorrect.

I place you knowledge on a very high pedestal and honor your statements.

You just KNOW that a 'but' is coming around at this point, don't you?

BUT: I wonder about the mass of the cone itself, trying to comply with the acceleration and reversal of direction that seems to me to cause all sorts of dynamics to the cone.

The cone cannot be zero-mass. It must require energy consumed for acceleration and deceleration that can prolly be understood by you on a much better scale than I.

I see that the linear motor and electromagnetic windings themselves are quite capable of the rapid and repeated acceleration/deceleration - but the high frequency rate of driving the cone should put it into repeated dissimilar waves that take it into distortion and quite possibly exceeding it's limits of flexible recovery at some point - right?

Fatigue must set in after so many zillion cycles of demands from the center motor to make the cone comply, especially with colliding waves across it's surface, coming both from the center motor and returning from the edges of the cone at the same time.

I cite the Josephsen Wye Phenomena. In essence, it states that electrons cannot enter into a conductor until all the previous non-legacy electrons have exited and voided the area. His theory has created 'anticipatory electrical flow" analysis, that by extrapolation can also be applied on a larger, macro-scale I believe since we are all under the same gun of physical law.

There must be waveforms traveling across the paper/aluminum radiating from the motor and that's like a bi-directional tsunami happening to the forward surface of the driver - right?

Now - I'm not concerned about things like bottoming/topping out of the voice coils (farting) - just fairly normal amplified (although high) levels of stress induced onto the sound wave forming surfaces, (speaker cones) that's all.

If the driver cone of a bigger (e.g: 15"-18") driver is considered in comparison to a smaller (8"-10") one, then it might show earlier fatigue if what I feel is indeed present.

Oh ::: Please don't yell at me.

[Bassmec]

Originally Posted by Hector_G

Forgive me for being so vague with my question. I really can't remember where I read this.

I'm assuming it would be the same answer as above but I'd still like to make sure. What about square wave distortion? Say, a Wooly Mammoth on the most gated setting.
Or a synth pedal on this type of setting?
I remember reading somewhere that this type of fuzz/distortion signal is very hard on speakers due to the odd cone movements.

This is another bass playing old wives tale, it comes from the fact that
a distorted/clipped or square wave sounds like what happens when you overdrive a power amp. So people don't realize that with the eventual dime-ing of gain settings on the pedal the volume has risen to the extent that the amp cannot deliver anything like the same power clean.
Its excessive power alone that stresses and causes speakers to fail.

[BassmanPaul]

A speaker reproduces the signal fed to it no matter what that signal is. Consider a theatre speaker system, at any moment in time they have to reproduce music, dialogue, gunfire, explosions almost anything all at once. If complex signals damaged such speakers the home theatre industry would fail immediately!

Paul

[SurferJoe46]

Originally Posted by BassmanPaul

A speaker reproduces the signal fed to it no matter what that signal is. Consider a theatre speaker system, at any moment in time they have to reproduce music, dialogue, gunfire, explosions almost anything all at once. If complex signals damaged such speakers the home theatre industry would fail immediately!

Paul

Excellent! That's so-o-o obvious and yet so simple.

You're right of course, and I appreciate that.

[Hector_G]

HOORAY!

[BassmanPaul]

Originally Posted by SurferJoe46

You're right of course, and I appreciate that.

I always try to be so!