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Originally posted by dnewma04:
Two things destroy speakers.
1. Exceeding thermal limits.
2. Exceeding mechanical limits.
Thermal limits are much easier to reach than mechanical. Overpowering speakers kills them. If you have a 1000w amp connected to a 300w sub and you haven't blown it yet, it's only because you are using music (rather than sine waves) therefore, not sending 1000w for long periods of time, or your gains are set to the point that the 1000w amp is only sending a fraction of the power.
Mechanical limits are what destroys speakers in ported boxes that are allowed to unload under the tuning freq, and sending too much power to a sealed sub. The excursion of a sealed sub is much greater than in a ported sub.
Clipping an amp doesn't harm speakers unless the speakers cannot handle the power provided by the clipped signal. A 250w amp fully clipped will produce about 500w. If powering a 1000w sub with the clipped 250w amp, it would pose no danger to the sub whatsoever.
It is ALWAYS easier to blow a sub with too much power than it is to blow it with too little. Thanks, professor Nerdstrom, but what about this little scenario? Overpowering vs. underpowering vs. Me with a baseball bat? Now what would destroy the speakers faster?  Do explain Dave, I would like your limitless knowledge to shed some light on this for me :p
1996 Contour "Mean Green" (99-02)
2002 Malibu Blue Focus ZX5 - something to hold the PB 15...
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You with a baseball bat: 10 minutes to destroy.
You making sweet sweet monkey love with the "pole piece": 1 minute to destroy.
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How am I supposed to last 1 minute? I'm not a machine! 
1996 Contour "Mean Green" (99-02)
2002 Malibu Blue Focus ZX5 - something to hold the PB 15...
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Originally posted by The Honkeytonk Monkey: How am I supposed to last 1 minute?
I'm not a machine! 10 seconds to finish...50 seconds to shortcircuit...
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talking about blowing a driver by Exceeding mechanical limits during a 4 channel amp install a CC did not disconnect my 6.5" rear deck mounted midbass driver being used as a subwoofer and caused a slight clip or popping sound to regularly occur because of their technique of turning the volume up while checking wiring connections to se what channel is being wired during the wiring of the amp to the HU.
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People, sorry to say but there is a difference between woofer and subwoofer.
A Woofer refures to 8" or 6" speakers that play low frequencies.
A Subwoofer refures to 10", 12", and 15" speakers that play low frequencies.
The actual frequency range has nothing to do with the name, a sub just plays lower because its bigger and heavier.
It was first used by Pioneer to give different names to their speaker sizes, back in the early 1980's.
1997 GL Sport MTX,
Soon to be the fastest proven Zetec around.
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The definition has everything to do with freq response and nothing to do with size. But, typically, bigger size equals lower bass at higher levels. There are most definitely 8" woofers and subwoofers, just as there are 15" midranges. Most car subs, when played in a anechoic environment would not be considered subwoofers, but with the effects of cabin gain, they can be.
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So tell me dnewma04 and Sleeper what Focal was thinking when it designed the Utopia 5WS 5.375" (136mm) Subwoofer w/ 5.2ohm voice coil $ 119.99 driver?
little cars can have mutiple little subwoofers too!! for if I remember correctly four 5" drivers make up a ten inch driver and two 6 inch drivers make up one 12 inch driver ( I am talking output here) and so on.
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Originally posted by contour_phoenix_when:
So tell me dnewma04 and Sleeper what Focal was thinking when it designed the Utopia 5WS 5.375" (136mm) Subwoofer w/ 5.2ohm voice coil $ 119.99 driver?
little cars can have mutiple little subwoofers too!! for if I remember correctly four 5" drivers make up a ten inch driver and two 6 inch drivers make up one 12 inch driver ( I am talking output here) and so on. I personally don't consider the 5WS a subwoofer. With Cabin gain, it can get down into the 20hz range in a car. When dealing with output, two things come into play, surface area (Sd) and stroke (honkey jokes coming up) (xmax). Here are some averages for Sd on different diameter speakers. 5.25"......80cm^2 6.5".......130cm^2 8".........220cm^2 10"........330cm^2 12"........500cm^2 15"........800cm^2 18"........1200cm^2 Based on this, if you had a Adire Tempest 15" sub with it's 16mm xmax, it would take close to 20 5WS' to move the same amount of air. $140.00 compared to 4,000.00 seems like there should be an obvious choice there.  BTW, C_P_W, your TC speaker is a better "sub" than the 5WS.
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Originally posted by dnewma04:
Two things destroy speakers.
1. Exceeding thermal limits.
2. Exceeding mechanical limits.
Thermal limits are much easier to reach than mechanical. Overpowering speakers kills them. If you have a 1000w amp connected to a 300w sub and you haven't blown it yet, it's only because you are using music (rather than sine waves) therefore, not sending 1000w for long periods of time, or your gains are set to the point that the 1000w amp is only sending a fraction of the power.
Mechanical limits are what destroys speakers in ported boxes that are allowed to unload under the tuning freq, and sending too much power to a sealed sub. The excursion of a sealed sub is much greater than in a ported sub.
Clipping an amp doesn't harm speakers unless the speakers cannot handle the power provided by the clipped signal. A 250w amp fully clipped will produce about 500w. If powering a 1000w sub with the clipped 250w amp, it would pose no danger to the sub whatsoever.
It is ALWAYS easier to blow a sub with too much power than it is to blow it with too little. What are you consider a "blown" speaker? staticly popping noise, popping during full excursion or physicaly ripped apart or something else?
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