Return to quoting peak wattages?

[RickenBoogie]

I get it. I guess I just haven't had any problems with my gear, (since I was 15) that made it obvious to me that my amp/cabs weren't matched up properly. I mean, I run a (supposedly) 1100 watt RMS amplifier into an 800 watt RMS cab, and have nothing but sweet, powerful, clean bass tone, all night long. Otoh, I have a 300 watt RMS bass head that pumps through either a 300 watt RMS single speaker box, or a 600Watt RMS double speaker box. In that case, it's obvious to me that I'm able to crank the amp much higher through the bigger cab, and the little one sometimes huffs and puffs a bit. Does any of this make sense? I just don't get where the numbers are so far off, that I would have problems. Or, how anyone would have problems, with the same gear. Are people blowing cabs in scenarios OTHER than 1000 watts into a 200 watt cab?, or is it the rated power, or power handling is so off the mark from "certain" manufacturers?

 

[JimmyM]

To hear Greenie and Bill FM talk, it's off with ALL cab manufacturers. I don't know if it's 100% accurate, but I sure am finding a lot of evidence that it's pretty freakin' accurate.

 

[greenboy]

Are people blowing cabs in scenarios OTHER than 1000 watts into a 200 watt cab?, or is it the rated power, or power handling is so off the mark from "certain" manufacturers?

It's pretty much across the board that bass cab drivers have low excursion/mechanical abilities compared to the thermal ratings bass cab manufactuers tend to use. Some of that's implicit with the types of drivers that are chosen to supply enough on-axis midrange. And you just don't find too many players happy with long-excursion drivers unless they are paired with a dedicated mid cone, so the drivers in most bass "full-range" and tweetered cabs are a given unless you like it real dark-sounding.

And as I just said in that lonmg post a few back, there's a lot of factors involved in whether certain rigs and players have problems then. Players that boost the bass a lot and use effects that slant the spectrum heavily towrd 100 Hz and below are more likely to suffer. Doesn't seem to be just among players with 1000 watts into "200 watt" cabs either, and I did outline scenarios why this is so.

 

[beans-on-toast]

Let's see if I understand this ...

Many are complaining that their speakers blow.
Many are in a never ending search of the ultimate tone, and want to upgrade because their speakers suck.
Speakers function by sucking and blowing (air).
If a speaker sucks or blows too hard, it blows.
If a speaker sucks or blows too far, it blows.
If a speaker sucks and blows too fast, it blows.

The goal is to build a speaker/cab that would suck and blow only in a good way.
But for some people, in order to make the speakers sound good, it seems they need to be pushed to the edge of sucking and blowing in a bad way.

Is it that speaker manufacturers don't want to put themselves out of business by designing speakers that are too good?
Do cabinet designs still have a long way to go?
Are musicians too fixed in their ways to try modern innovative cabinet designs?
Are amp manufacturers not capable pairing their products with proper speakers and cabinets?

I wouldn't be surprised if large audio reinforcement companies like Clair, who seem to know what they are doing, have people that do nothing but recone speakers all day.

It seems that speakers are perhaps the weakest link in the signal chain.


-

 

[will33]

but how are they supposed to know that if they have no experience with amps and the makers don't inform them?

Overblown ratings + un-informed consumers = more blown up equipment = more demand for new equipment = more sales.

+1 to greenboy's point on over-excursion. Even just modeling stuff in a free program, far below what real engineers know and can do and predict, you will see that a lot of common speakers exceed xlim before hitting RMS wattage ratings. Recipe for disaster.

 

[billoetjen]

Another great thread!

My passion is playing, but my profession is teaching.

As I repeat too, too often to my kids - there are two ways to learn something: the easy way or the hard way. Don't want to go to the trouble of a little research and learn the easy way.... there's always the object lesson of a blown driver (the hard way). Well, at least buying replacement drivers is good for the economy...

 

[billfitzmaurice]

It's more important to talk about speaker ratings in the real sense, because probably 90% of those blown drivers are due to overexcursion.

Most blown drivers have toasted coils, not physical damage. The reason is thermal power compression. With extended high power usage the driver motor structure and voice coil temperatures rise. That causes the DC resistance of the coil to go up, which reduces driver efficiency, which is usually compensated for by turning the amp up, which further raises the motor and voice coil temperatures, and so on until the coil burns out.

It's true that displacement limited power is usually on the order of only 50% of the voice coil rating, but that's what causes drivers to fart out well below their rated power; it's not what kills them. Reaching the mechanical excursion limits seldom kills drivers, as those limits are usually not reached until beyond the Pe rating. The exception to that rule is when the driver xlim to xmax ratio is significantly less than 2:1, which is not common.

Bottom line, drivers blow when you don't use enough of them for the volume you're playing at. No rocket science there.

 

[JimmyM]

Let's see if I understand this ...

Many are complaining that their speakers blow.
Many are in a never ending search of the ultimate tone, and want to upgrade because their speakers suck.
Speakers function by sucking and blowing (air).
If a speaker sucks or blows too hard, it blows.
If a speaker sucks or blows too far, it blows.
If a speaker sucks and blows too fast, it blows.

Stop David, you're turning me on!

The goal is to build a speaker/cab that would suck and blow only in a good way.
But for some people, in order to make the speakers sound good, it seems they need to be pushed to the edge of sucking and blowing in a bad way.

Is it that speaker manufacturers don't want to put themselves out of business by designing speakers that are too good?
Do cabinet designs still have a long way to go?
Are musicians too fixed in their ways to try modern innovative cabinet designs?
Are amp manufacturers not capable pairing their products with proper speakers and cabinets?

I wouldn't be surprised if large audio reinforcement companies like Clair, who seem to know what they are doing, have people that do nothing but recone speakers all day.

You would think that Clair Bros knew what they were doing, but a few years ago I did a gig in Bethlehem PA with a Clair Bros crew that maybe were the biggest bunch of clueless idiots who thought they were geniuses that I ever saw. They were ordering us around and treating us all like crap, even Bowzer. And they had a horrible ground noise coming through every piece of gear up on that stage, and refused to acknowledge that maybe they did something wrong. Only gig I ever did with one of their crews but if that's the kind of crews they send out on a regular basis, then they've fallen way downhill.

It seems that speakers are perhaps the weakest link in the signal chain.

Second weakest link...behind the players who blow up said speakers from misuse

 

[rbonner]

I've been doing some heavy research on low frequency drivers lately. What I have found in design is the major problems with XMAX / XLIM numbers as Greenboy states.

I've been playing with box tuning trying to get a lot of performance down in the 30-75 Hz range for my subs. In ported-tuned box scenarios you run into POWER LIMITATIONS as the driver will suffer overexcursion around all the resonances.

A rated 1500 Watt driver all of a sudden can only take 200 watts or exceed it's max excursion numbers.

MAN, there's no way a cabinet manufacturer can get by these issues. Not one of them says the cabinet is XMAX limited at 55HZ to 200 watts, they just go along with their rating of 800Watts.

That's why I'm going to be experimenting with sealed subs and Infra Integrators. The super XMAX and Power rated subs, Can take massive power in a sealed box according to some of my calcs. Just how much actual power they can take under these conditions is not quite known with my software here.

I'll just have to experiment with it.

So where GB and BFM lined up on polar opposites as far as blown drivers, I say both are issues. When A cab is farting, it's reaching the drivers limits. I have enough power here to fart out any of my cabs at any time. It's pretty clear to operate them considerably BELOW that point.

If that point was still ABOVE the thermal limits of the cabs, which it could be in some situations, a guy could have melted voice coils.

I think most of the destroyed speakers on the forum are not from 810 cabs, but from 2X10's and 115's etc. Just flat trying to make massive music from a small box.

Massive cannot be done with one speaker. And in that all of us are in total agreement.

What was this thread about?

BOB

 

[Rick Auricchio]

My take on why people are blowing more drivers now than 10-20 years ago:

- Guitarists cranking up the bass with their distortion;

- Bassists tuning down to compensate and "get below" the guitar;

- Distortion usage hiding speaker farting;

- And, yes, cheap amplifier power.

 

[Metal Matt]

Interesting thread.

I think a lot of people just aren't aware of how much of an impact EQ settings have on speaker movement. Hell, I wasn't until recently.

I've done some stuff with an octave pedal that made every speaker in my five cabs look like they were about to explode. All my cabs are getting way less power than what they are rated for, which for the longest time I've always and still am under the impression that it's the correct way of doing things. Just because your cab can handle 700 watts doesn't mean you need to or should put 700 watts into it to drive the speakers. And like I said, I'm delivering way less power to my cabs than they can handle, and I've seen how far they can be pushed with absurd EQ setting, or using certain effects, low power or not.

I remember somebody posted on here, not too long ago, an amp and cab combo (not combo amp, just an amp and cab sold together).. the amp was like 700 watts and the cab was 500. Seems completely backwards to me. I understand WHY, the desire for clean power, but it just seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

 

[will33]

The overheating coil problem could be solved by throwing a chunk of dry ice through the port hole before each gig?

Could also produce a cool fog machine effect that corresponds to the bassline, kinda like hooking lights up to drum triggers.

 

[Korladis]

Accurate amp and cab specs would sure be nice, as would some sort of standard way for measuring such, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

 

[JimmyM]

I doubt it'll happen without a whole lot of pressure from the public. Maybe a few million more threads like this on every single forum on the net and it'll happen

 

[Korladis]

Maybe if some third party started testing different amps under the same conditions, or as similar as possible and publishing the results in some sort of chart form.

 

[Rick Auricchio]

But the testing still won't stop people from cranking up the volume or EQ.

It's more a cultural problem, with a lot of modern music trying to simply get louder and over the top. How many threads to we hear where bassists are trying to compete with guitarists?

It isn't a competition...it's supposed to be a musical ensemble. The idea is to play together, not to be the loudest on stage.

 

[lbwdog]

It's more a cultural problem, with a lot of modern music trying to simply get louder and over the top.
It isn't a competition...it's supposed to be a musical ensemble. The idea is to play together, not to be the loudest on stage.

It's the "Video Game" mentality of today's culture....SOMEBODY has got to win!!

 

[rbonner]

I doubt it'll happen without a whole lot of pressure from the public. Maybe a few million more threads like this on every single forum on the net and it'll happen

I think you missed the point here in the middle of my post, maybe just too long and you blew by it.

A 1500 Watt Driver in a sub enclosure can only handle 200 watts at certain frequencies.

If they were using your new method of rating cabs it would mean this is a 200 watt cab. BUT you get away from this "block of frequencies" and the cab can handle 1500 watts... But the block is right in the middle of the cabs frequency response.

This would be a very expensive 200 watt cab.

BOB

 

[JimmyM]

No, I saw it, and point taken. The thing is, though, your tastes are quite...um...unique, and I wonder how much your 1500w/200w thing applies to most cabs, or if it's just because you're trying to get a cab to do something it's not supposed to do.

But yeah, if a cab will blow with 200w worth of power at the 30-75 hz range, I think they should rate it at 200w. It'll never happen, but we can hope for it and world peace

 

[Buster Brown]

You get a ton of posts on here with the title "I just blew my cab."

Ricken, the problem is not only the lack of education with the users, but it's also the fudging of stats, and a ton of really stupid misinformation being put out as fact such as the underpowering myth. I think I explained it really well in another thread last night...if you have 32 oz of water, does it really make sense if someone tells you that you need a 16 oz glass to hold it all? Think of your amp as the water and your cab as the glass, and the underpowering myth really looks ridiculous on its face. But when you have major manufacturers putting out that nonsense (just saw it on SWR's website last week as a matter of fact), people tend to believe it, even though it couldn't be farther from the truth.

So I can't hold the end user 100% responsible. However, I do hold the end user partially responsible for not exercising common sense and diming their amps way past what the cab can take despite signs of potential blowing. And I can hold them responsible for turning up to such ridiculous levels that even arena bands don't turn up to.

Still, it would help greatly if manufacturers would quit trying to paint rosy pictures of their gear that are inaccurate, and be honest about the limits of their gear, especially cabs.

I think this response is absolutely right on! I recently came into the possession of an Acoustic 370...(300 Watts), that will absolutely blow your head off. Why? Simple. The standards set forth today - are not what they were 30 years or so ago. My SVT4Pro (rated at a gajillion watts) seems like a little boy compared to the pure POWER of the older amps. The result? Many "younger" players (not a slam) tend to attempt to run their big amps at full power.....for hours at end...and eventually it takes a toll........