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Epifani web page cabinet compatability warning.

USAJO

USAJO

Apr 13, 2005
1,137
1,480
#1
First off please note I love Epifani cabs and they are my cab of choice. I just happened to visit Epifani web page and saw an interesting bulletin. For those interested please go to the site and read it.

I'm curious to hear the reaction of the players here with more knowledge about gear than I have. It is significant that they would post such a bulletin.
What's your take? Is there an inferior head on the market that Epifani feels is causing damage to the cabs or maybe just aren't a good match? Is it a general notice about under powering cabs? Is it that neo speakers aren't as abuse tolerant as traditional speakers?

Any thoughts?

To me it seems that Epifani feels a particular brand is not being made correctly and is damaging speakers. Yikes.
 
#3
I thought it's pretty well understood that pushing a low wattage amp to the limit to produce more sound than it is designed for will produce square waves and damage speakers. I hope this isn't the direction this thread goes. Please start another thread on that topic.
 
#4
I wonder which 'certain bass specific amplifiers' they are referring to? Sounds like they've singled out some class D manufacturer but don't want to name names? hmmmmm
 
#5
USAJO said:
I thought it's pretty well understood that pushing a low wattage amp to the limit to produce more sound than it is designed for will produce square waves and damage speakers. I hope this isn't the direction this thread goes. Please start another thread on that topic.
Click to expand...

It's debated on here pretty strongly, as I'm sure you know because of your concern about "the direction this thread goes". So clearly it is not "pretty well understood", it is instead pretty well argued with strong views on all sides. I'll agree though that this thread should be kept to the subject of the Epifani "compatibility" warning, just to keep the peace. :)

I'd be curious to know if there are any other speaker repair centers with similar complaints about class-D amps from certain manufacturers.
 
#8
I hadn't yet associated the bulletin to a specific head yet. I had expressed concern that the new micro heads might later turn up to have some issues due to the newness of the technology. I don't know that they do. I'm not going to assume they do. In the same way I am thrilled with UL cabs , lightweight heads are a plus to me. But not to the same degree. A head under 20 lbs is plenty light enough for my needs. I don't ride the subway or take a bicycle to gigs as some city people do. But oops I'm going off topic a little and it's my thread. seeesh.
 
#9
Stereo Joe said:
I thought that whole 'underpowering a cab will blow it' thing was debunked?
Click to expand...
It is bunk, and in my professional opinion the mere existence of that reference should raise serious doubts about the entire article's validity and intent.
I thought it's pretty well understood that pushing a low wattage amp to the limit to produce more sound than it is designed for will produce square waves and damage speakers
Click to expand...
What is well known is that this notion is patently untrue and carries no creedence in the community of professional audio engineers. This topic has been beaten to death so many times that it's hard to imagine it being raised again.
Cue Kelly to close the thread. :rollno:
 
#10
billfitzmaurice said:
Cue Kelly to close the thread. :rollno:
Click to expand...

:confused:

So if a thread pops up that someone doesn't agree with we should just close it automatically? What ever happened to discussion, as long as no one is flaming, why not? At least this isn't pointless like the BAN WAR thread that FINALLY is getting closed.

This is a SPECIFIC concern with a SPECIFIC manufacturer that they posted a bulletin on their website.

Man this site never ceases to amaze me now, day after day. It never used to be this sterile.
 
#11
What they seem to mean by underpowering there is guys using smaller amps than they need and cranking them up past their limits. I'm not going to argue the square wave thing but they do seem to make repeated mention of the class D amps being a problem. Hard to tell as they aren't specific on that and likely couldn't actually mention other manufacturers for liability reasons. They seem to be saying "make sure you have enough power so you'll quit cranking everything to 10 and blowing our speakers." Apparently they have customers repeatedly blowing their cabs and expecting warranty work for what would be considered operator error.
 
#12
USAJO said:
I thought it's pretty well understood that pushing a low wattage amp to the limit to produce more sound than it is designed for will produce square waves and damage speakers. I hope this isn't the direction this thread goes. Please start another thread on that topic.
Click to expand...

I thought we were discussing the article? The issue of damaging speakers by pushing an underpowered head was specifically mentioned as a cause of the damage in that article. It should fair game to talk about this especially if Epifani has their science wrong and are blaming speaker failure on a non-existent problem.
 
#13
Stereo Joe said:
It should fair game to talk about this especially if Epifani has their science wrong and are blaming speaker failure on a non-existent problem.
Click to expand...

+1

As an Epifani owner, I want to hear opinons about whether or not the company is making valid claims! I'm running 450w, so I'm not worried about underpowering personally, but it's good to know what drives their claim, especially if I have to utilize the warrany in the future.
 
#14
Bill I'm sure you are a very educated and knowledgeable person when it comes to speakers. Unless every intelligent knowledgeable person in your field agrees with you then the the subject would remain open for discussion. If you can factually say every person in "the community of audio engineers" agrees with you then I will take your word as the gospel. Can you say every single person in this community agrees with you? Or are you going to say the ones that don't agree aren't in your community?
 
#15
It's also interesting because Epi seems to be saying that their heads are not able to be run past their abilities. Which implies limiters I suppose, and makes me wonder if all that stands between them and the amps they are warning about is an output limiter?
 
#16
Just so I understand Bill are you saying that if I run my Eden head with the my clipping lights all the time this will not result in damaging the speakers in my cab. I don't have the education in the science of speakers and amps but this is what I'm hearing you say.
 
#17
Stereo Joe said:
I thought we were discussing the article? The issue of damaging speakers by pushing an underpowered head was specifically mentioned as a cause of the damage in that article. It should fair game to talk about this especially if Epifani has their science wrong and are blaming speaker failure on a non-existent problem.
Click to expand...
+1. Low frequency drivers blow from overpowering. Period. the waveform is of no consequence. As far as this statement goes "An amplifier can burn a voice coil by emitting square waves (clipping distortion)" that only applies to midranges and tweeters, and there isn't a qualified transducer engineer in the world not aware of that fact. As for "or by releasing DC Voltage which overheats voice coils" there is a technical term for an amp that does this: Broken.
 
#19
So we are seeing a CYA technique from Epifani if what you say is the truth Bill, unless this particular amp they reference is faulted by design. I wouldn't think their cabs would be the only cabs susceptible to this "fault" they are claiming unless there is some sort of design flaw in a crossover circuit or just poor speaker design.

I call malarky. Someone is blowing some serious wind somewhere.
 
#20
That's why I found the bulletin so noteworthy and I am not going to jump to conclusions about it. I'm interested in opinions and I understand many opinions are and will be based on less than subjective reasons. My only motivation is to understand what led them to post a bulletin that surely would trigger a significant response. Some will say it is CYA other will say that possibly they see a poorly designed amp bass players are using with the Epifani cabs that are causing damage and they aren't going to replace speakers that blow through no fault of Epifani. Maybe they just aren't a good match and players need to be aware of it to avoid cab failure.
 

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