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Hi-Fi Speaker Safety Tips
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| ultimate7 |
| With my decks arriving tomorrow, I am curious to know what precautions I should take when playing them through a pair of Hi-fi speakers to ensure that the speakers/amp are not damaged. Thanks in advance for the help. |
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| miamitranceman |
| quote: | Originally posted by ultimate7
With my decks arriving tomorrow, I am curious to know what precautions I should take when playing them through a pair of Hi-fi speakers to ensure that the speakers/amp are not damaged. Thanks in advance for the help. |
Don't play them obnoxiously loud, and, most importantly, don't redline your mixer. It could really mess the speakers up if you send a distorted signal out though them. |
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| SteelWolf |
| ^Agreed, watch your levels, don't overdrive your audio |
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| dark_Omens |
First turn on your CD players or turntables. Then turn on your mixer, and then your amplifier. This prevents any power surges or pops from potentially causing damage.
Just don't clip. Remember, loud music doesn't damage speakers... a distorted signal does though. |
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| T-Soma |
| quote: | Originally posted by dark_Omens
Remember, loud music doesn't damage speakers... a distorted signal does though. |
So your saying if I ran my 1200 watt amp through my 200 watt speakers I wont blow them unless I send a clipped signal from my amp? ::wtf: |
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| cmay119 |
| quote: | Originally posted by T-Soma
So your saying if I ran my 1200 watt amp through my 200 watt speakers I wont blow them unless I send a clipped signal from my amp? ::wtf: |
Actually, I thought that combo was completely healthy for a system? I thought it was the reversed that was the probability for damaging components (I.E. Underpowered Amp into High Wattage Speakers).
This stuff get's confusing. |
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| n3lly |
| quote: | Originally posted by cmay119
Actually, I thought that combo was completely healthy for a system? I thought it was the reversed that was the probability for damaging components (I.E. Underpowered Amp into High Wattage Speakers).
This stuff get's confusing. |
It does, and it's debated a lot.
But you're essentially right. The 1200rms up a 200rms speaker will obviously damage it at full pelt. Well it can. But send a 200rms signal up a 1200rms speakers ass and you'll really be pushing the 200rms amp. End of the day i'm no expert on this stuff.
But i'm sure there are plenty of lads on here that'll know what they're talking about.
I'm shoving 700rms up my subs ass in my car. The sub is under warranty to 600rms. I know of guys in the Uk who have for months on end sent 1100rms through this particular sub for months on end without it being damaged.
Clean signal FTW..
Once all your equipment is turned on. Play a song with your hifi's amp turned down low. Now turn up the gain on your mixer till it's sitting just on or below 0db. (still in the green) once you've got that set. Start turning up your hifi's amp up until you can hear the speakers struggling. Turn the amp a tiny bit down to give you a bit of headroom.
Now you've got your max output of your system.
Probably give yourself a little more headroom again on the hifi's amp as you don't want to send an unusually loud/clipped signal into it on pull blast.
Think i've got the above right.
Hope that helps. |
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| djimmersion |
a little more on turning off and on your system
fist plug everything in with the power switches turned off!
make sure everything that controls volume on all your equipment is set to zero first!
turn on any phono devices first then line devices, then your mixer, then the amp or powerd speakers, when you are done do the reverse of these steps with all the volume controls set to zero, if you are not religious about this you can really mess up your expensive equipment
note: I have a numark DXM09 and CM200 mixer and I have found that when i power up correctly with the headphones plugged in, I can hear a pop in the headphones even when the cue volume is compleatly set to zero, so i plug those in last after everything is turned on, but do not take my word for it, it might be a bad idea in the long run, im not sure, but any pop coming from any audio source is a bad sign |
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| T-Soma |
I could be wrong, but most people say that a small amp with big speakers (power wise) is a bad idea because if you push that amp to its limits it will distort and send a clipped signal to the speaker thus damaging it even though you are not exceeding the power ratings.
Also, make sure you match up the resistance properly with your amp and speakers. You may think you are running 200 watts into a speaker when you really are running 300 into it because you had initially checked the rating at higher resistance (ohms). |
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| Darkarbiter |
| But a small amp and big speakers don't matter so long as you don't turn the amp up past 3/4 right? |
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| inconspicuous |
| quote: | Originally posted by Darkarbiter
But a small amp and big speakers don't matter so long as you don't turn the amp up past 3/4 right? |
not necessarily true. all speakers still have minimum power handling. |
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| richg101 |
| quote: | Originally posted by T-Soma
So your saying if I ran my 1200 watt amp through my 200 watt speakers I wont blow them unless I send a clipped signal from my amp? ::wtf: |
your speaker will probably reach x-max before any voice coil burnup occurs so you will know to turn it down because you will get a clicking.
i regularly run 1100wrms into a 600watt bass bin and i know that ill smell the glue on the voice coil warming up before any burnup or damage takes place:D |
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