Can't blow a speaker by under powering it.......

[Mehve]

It is very hard to break a 1 gallon container (speaker cab) by pouring 1/2 gallon of liquid into it (amplifier wattage).

But you can run into problems when too much gets diverted into the shot glass.

 

[B-string]

But you can run into problems when too much gets diverted into the shot glass.

And WHY did you think there was only 1/2 gallon to go into the container

 

[Jim Nazium]

Depends.... are you talking U.S. or Imperial gallons?

African swallow or European swallow?

 

[will33]

It is very hard to break a 1 gallon container (speaker cab) by pouring 1/2 gallon of liquid into it (amplifier wattage).

But you can run into problems when too much gets diverted into the shot glass.

And WHY did you think there was only 1/2 gallon to go into the container

I think this has more to do with blown gear than any sort of "underpowering".

 

[mtandrews]

a 15 watt amplifier driven into clipping can damage a speaker designed to take hundreds of watts of power. If someone put this up already excuse me. My experience is more on the higher end of Home Audio where amplifier and speaker matching is more important than the lower end of the equipment scale.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed])

Effects of clipping

In power amplifiers, the signal from an amplifier operating in clipping has two characteristics that could damage a connected loudspeaker:

Difference between clipped and maximum unclipped waveforms
Because the clipped waveform has more area underneath it than the smaller maximum unclipped waveform, the amplifier produces more output power. This extra power can cause damage to loudspeaker components, including the woofer, tweeter, or crossover, via overheating.
In the frequency domain, clipping produces harmonics at higher frequencies than the unclipped signal. This additional high frequency energy has the potential to damage a loudspeaker's tweeter via overheating.

 

[David Jayne]

a 15 watt amplifier driven into clipping can damage a speaker designed to take hundreds of watts of power. If someone put this up already excuse me.

Oh, it's been said many times. And once again, those of us who know better perform a collective facepalm.....

 

[Febs]

a 15 watt amplifier driven into clipping can damage a speaker designed to take hundreds of watts of power. If someone put this up already excuse me. My experience is more on the higher end of Home Audio where amplifier and speaker matching is more important than the lower end of the equipment scale.

[Invalid or Expired Link Removed])

Effects of clipping

In power amplifiers, the signal from an amplifier operating in clipping has two characteristics that could damage a connected loudspeaker:

Difference between clipped and maximum unclipped waveforms
Because the clipped waveform has more area underneath it than the smaller maximum unclipped waveform, the amplifier produces more output power. This extra power can cause damage to loudspeaker components, including the woofer, tweeter, or crossover, via overheating.
In the frequency domain, clipping produces harmonics at higher frequencies than the unclipped signal. This additional high frequency energy has the potential to damage a loudspeaker's tweeter via overheating.

OK, so using your example, let's say a 15 watt amplifier manages to damage a 100 watt speaker. Is it your contention that a 15 watt speaker would not have been damaged under those same circumstances?

 

[Bob Lee (QSC)]

a 15 watt amplifier driven into clipping can damage a speaker designed to take hundreds of watts of power.

Um, no.

 

[BassyBill]

And on that definitive note from an engineering guy who genuinely knows his stuff, I think this topic has been finally put to bed... at least until the next thread on it, anyway...

Night night (it's 11:15 PM here).