Clipped Signal

[Deto1992 5]

Just out of curiousity, what is wrong with a particular signal if it is clipped?

[ssh 924]

The signal changes from a sine wave to a square wave, when the signal is being played and reaches peaks it stays there a bit longer since it's square (cut off). While it sits at the peak for this millisecond or what ever, the voice coil isn't getting cooled This is all happening incredibly fast and heats up the voice coil.

But it doesn't mean it can actually harm the speaker, just depends on the signal amplitude, amount of clipping, and length played.

The amplitude of a square wave is 1.414 times a sine wave. So if your signal was being amplified to 1000watts cleanly, it could theoretically be max clipped with an output of 1414watts (along with less heat dissipation).

A lot of people could argue that they can run 1500watts to their 1000watt rated driver with no issues, yet with max clipping they could burn up the voice coils in 5 minutes. It's not the extra 414watts (don't get me wrong, it helps warm things up) but the killer is the voice coil's cooling going out the window...

[ibanender 2]

The signal changes from a sine wave to a square wave, when the signal is being played and reaches peaks it stays there a bit longer since it's square (cut off). While it sits at the peak for this millisecond or what ever, the voice coil isn't getting cooled This is all happening incredibly fast and heats up the voice coil.

But it doesn't mean it can actually harm the speaker, just depends on the signal amplitude, amount of clipping, and length played.

The amplitude of a square wave is 1.414 times a sine wave. So if your signal was being amplified to 1000watts cleanly, it could theoretically be max clipped with an output of 1414watts (along with less heat dissipation).

A lot of people could argue that they can run 1500watts to their 1000watt rated driver with no issues, yet with max clipping they could burn up the voice coils in 5 minutes. It's not the extra 414watts (don't get me wrong, it helps warm things up) but the killer is the voice coil's cooling going out the window...

A clipped INPUT is also different from a clipped output. The speaker is dumb, it only plays what you tell it to. You can clip the input and the output power will remain the same as clean.

For the people that run 1500 watts daily on their 1000 watt sub without problem, there are 2 things to consider. Is the sub designed to take more than rated because they know the user will exceed it? What's the ACTUAL power going to the driver? I have an SAZ-3500d on a single SA8 @ 1 ohm DAILY, does that mean that sub is getting 3500 watts while I drive around? No.

[manrossdamn 57]

I'ma just leave this here...

Great stuff.

[Deto1992 5]

The signal changes from a sine wave to a square wave, when the signal is being played and reaches peaks it stays there a bit longer since it's square (cut off). While it sits at the peak for this millisecond or what ever, the voice coil isn't getting cooled This is all happening incredibly fast and heats up the voice coil.

But it doesn't mean it can actually harm the speaker, just depends on the signal amplitude, amount of clipping, and length played.

The amplitude of a square wave is 1.414 times a sine wave. So if your signal was being amplified to 1000watts cleanly, it could theoretically be max clipped with an output of 1414watts (along with less heat dissipation).

A lot of people could argue that they can run 1500watts to their 1000watt rated driver with no issues, yet with max clipping they could burn up the voice coils in 5 minutes. It's not the extra 414watts (don't get me wrong, it helps warm things up) but the killer is the voice coil's cooling going out the window...

Interestingg haha I wouldve never thought that clipped signals reduce the cooling of adriver. Well, I guess you learn soemthing new everyday. Thanks for the help