does an amp can be damaged for playing it at the max volume and master?

[JimmyM]

I think I'll submit this one to Mythbusters and then post the results to a permanent sticky here.

No need...I've personally clipped grossly underpowered heads in bass cabs hundreds of times. No damage, even to tweeters. Get the wattages a little closer to the power handling of the cab, and they'll blow, but not from underpowering and clipping. They blow because of OVERpowering with an insanely loud clip way past the cab's safe handling ability.

In other words...

BUSTED!

 

[Korladis]

You perhaps forgot to include boosting the bass control of the on-board active EQ?

Definitely hooking up some sort octave pedal or some big gain overdrive distortion pedal will be of use for this one.

"Are the speakers farting or is it the overdrive pedal?"

You'll know that one when the smoke starts coming from the cab!

Oh right, I forgot about that, since I only use passive basses, and don't have an octave pedal. Though do use some pretty thick distortion sometimes for a couple songs where I have leads.

But yes, add "bass boosted in the on-board active EQ into distortion into octave pedal" for even faster speaker destruction.

Works even better if the speaker in question is in one of those tiny pignose portable guitar amps.

 

[NWB]

No need...I've personally clipped grossly underpowered heads in bass cabs hundreds of times. No damage, even to tweeters. Get the wattages a little closer to the power handling of the cab, and they'll blow, but not from underpowering and clipping. They blow because of OVERpowering with an insanely loud clip way past the cab's safe handling ability.

In other words...

BUSTED!

I know you're right Jimmy. I have no doubts there. I'm just thinking that if a video were made showing the experiment and a full set of results, the naysayers might, just possibly might, "get it" if they see/hear it themselves.

OTOH, I do believe that underpowering a car will blow the engine!