I can't site read, lol, But the scope doesn't lie. I work for my grandfather in a tv repair shop, the first thing I do with my equip is see what it will do. Yes, I know a speaker is a reactive load, actual power depends on the frequency and the enclosure the woofer is in.
That said, I can calculate true wattage on a resistive load. Also, using an impedance plot of the enclosure my 12's and 18's were in, I can say that the wattage was exceeded heftily. Seeing inefficiency in my cabinet was the reason i rebuilt it in the first place. I have had the drivers, magnalab 12's, since 1991.
A 300 watt rms amplifier, on a 320 watt woofer/sub, can be forced into clipping, and as I said before, no, not often, but it can come to pass that the duty cycle of max output is longer than the duty cycle of an unchanged wave.
The majority of failures come from strongly overpowering drivers, as well as improper enclosure design.
An amplifier can only put out what it can, however, a strong clipped signal can cause problems. Wattage is HEAT. The top of a clipped Sine wave is flat. The duration of the signal is now lengthened beyond the duration of the tiny peak of an unclipped signal. Heat dissipation of a voice coil is weakened by this duration, which can produce as much heat buildup as a pure signal of SLIGHTLY higher power.
You can touch a red hot stove eye 6-8 times quickly and not get burned. IF you hold your finger on it(even with it on med or low) for the duration of the time the 6-8 touches take, YOU GET BURNED. Just like a voice coil.
This would be at frequencies away from the resonant frequency of the driver in a certain enclosure. FWIW, the notes on your bass that sound the loudest do not necessarily take as much power as a note closer to resonance. That said, we have a habit of cranking until the weaker notes sound full...and playing lighter on the easier notes....Or adding eq to flatten response...In effect, this causes the amplifier to peak more, either scenario.
If peak heat is no different than constant heat, why dont you just peck a pot a time or two to heat it up? You remove the gun, the heat goes bye-bye. It takes DURATION of heat to heat the connection....to cause solder to flow...
I said it was few and far between for a reason! I did not say underpowering WILL cause damage, I said it CAN.
Also, in a preamp-poweramp setup, You can easily overpower a 300 watt driver with a 300 watt amp. Feed the amp too large a signal, increase the input sensitivity, and viola! You will have a clipped input signal, a clipped output signal, etc. This would require an amplifier with a hefty power supply, and ample capacitance to keep power on reserve.
Complicating matters further is the fact that any given manufacturer can vary the numbers on the ratings, and I have seen first hand the thiele-small numbers of a driver disagree with the claims of specifications by the amplifier company, who doesn't make the speaker in the first place.
More times than not, the driver is protected by the enclosure to not reveal the weakness.
Someone who has no knowledge need not set things up-right/wrong?
That said, it takes a little knowledge when overpowering a little. You gotta know everything doesn't go to 10. Likewise, when you underpower, everything doesn't go to 10 either.
Who prefers the tone of a cranked to the max bass amp in the first place?
You don't actually have any idea how much wattage went into the cabs. You know what the ratings are, but the ratings are not actually a description of the amount of wattage the amp is putting out at any one time. Maybe you "figured" it was loud enough to be reaching max wattage, but that isn't the same as knowing for a fact.
...Using your imagination and some printed ratings. Not an actual knowledge of the wattage actually reached, or how often those peaks were reached (or, for that matter, exceeded).
I don't see what that has to do with any of this. I also doubt it's true, since the powering inside an amp is usually regulated DC.
