Furthermore, I recommend everyone here go read that thread and see how ridiculous dnewma04 is sounding. He has put himself up against every sub and amp manufacture's recommendation, plus the recommendations of every audio shop I ever been in. That alone says a lot.

 

Hi

 

Well, Hello there, got something you'd like to say?

 

Just here to answer your questions.

 

I see questions here, but I don't see many answers belonging to you.
What's the hold up?

 

Well, let me ask you a question to begin with. When you turn down your volume control, do your speakers blow?

 

Of course not, what kind of a question is that? Besides, you said you were here to answer my questions. So what is the hold up?

Furthermore, you are wasting space by posting in this silly manner. State your ground or concede.

 

[updated:LAST EDITED ON 08-Jan-03 AT 03:37 PM (EST)]>Of course not, what kind of a question is that? Besides,
>you said you were here to answer my questions. So what is
>the hold up?

Perfect. So we have established that underpowering a driver will not hurt it.


>
>Furthermore, you are wasting space by posting in this silly
>manner. State your ground or concede.

Patience RanDawg. You seem like a pretty bright guy, but I don't like to rush into things and cause unwarranted and unnecessary flame wars.

 

>Perfect. So we have established that underpowering a driver
>will not hurt it.
>
No, you're jumping the gun here. You have neither defined the term "underpowering" or stated any parameters that define "driver".

 

No, I don't believe I am jumping the gun. Name a speaker that will blow because you underpower (provide fewer watts than it is rated to handle).

The other thing I have sort of an issue with is you almost correllating damping factor with the power level like they are somehow related. I'm sure that you realize that the end result of any amplifier with a DF above 60-80 is virtually the same. Its an important but VERY overrated amplifier spec.

 

BTW, you are the one questioning what I wrote. I came here to answer your questions. So when you tell me why what I wrote was wrong, I will be willing to try to explain it in a different way so you can follow.

 

Very well, the JL 12w6. I blew one because I provided fewer watts than it could handle. I watched it blow with my own eyes. It seized tight and would not move at all. This sub is rated at 300 rms and was wired in trio with a 600 rms amp. (IE each sub could only possibly receive 200 watts rms, well below its max capabilities). Explain this to me then.

Just to bring clarity, underpowering is a condition in which an amp cannot sufficiently control a driver with a said dampening factor, say, Df. The simple act of turning the volume down does not define an underpowered condition.

Like I said before, I'm not getting in any pissing contests. So, no need to worry about my flaming you. However, I do find it ridiculous that you decide to take on the entire audio engineering establishment with these assumptions of yours.

 

My definition of underpowering is sending a driver fewer watts than its rated power handling. i.e. sending 200w to a 300w driver.

I'm not sure how you are correlating DF with power output? Are you insinuating that a lower power amplifier will have a lower DF than a higher powered amp? Any modern, not tube amp, that I have ever seen has a DF of AT LEAST 100. With that high of a DF, the effects of DF are minimized to the point of being virtually irrelevant.

How did you blow your W6?? Was your amp clipping and, therefore, sending double its rated power to the subs? Were the subs in a large enclosure that allowed you do exceed mechanical limits without exceeding thermal? Did it physically tear itself apart (parts disconnected) or did the VC warp from the heat? Did the amp have an issue that could have caused the issue? Too many variables, but none of them are because you sent too little power to them.

I'm not taking on the establishment as they agree with my explanation. The car audio community still persists with the invalid argument that using a smaller amp will somehow damage a driver.

 

>My definition of underpowering is sending a driver fewer
>watts than its rated power handling. i.e. sending 200w to a
>300w driver.

My definition is as stated before.

>I'm not sure how you are correlating DF with power output?
>Are you insinuating that a lower power amplifier will have a
>lower DF than a higher powered amp? Any modern, not tube
>amp, that I have ever seen has a DF of AT LEAST 100. With
>that high of a DF, the effects of DF are minimized to the
>point of being virtually irrelevant.

The dampening factor relates how well an amp can keep control over a sub. This implies it needs power, but more importantly, it needs power coupled with reaction time. There is a difference between 'weak' watts and 'strong' watts. The Df on the sub relelates how much 'power' the sub needs to stay in control at a given frequency. Every sub differs on this, but more importantly, the higher the power handling, the more power the sub typically will need to stay in control.

>How did you blow your W6?? Was your amp clipping and,
>therefore, sending double its rated power to the subs? Were
>the subs in a large enclosure that allowed you do exceed
>mechanical limits without exceeding thermal? Did it
>physically tear itself apart (parts disconnected) or did the
>VC warp from the heat? Did the amp have an issue that could
>have caused the issue? Too many variables, but none of them
>are because you sent too little power to them.

First off, you cannot send double rated power to the subs. The transistors will not allow this. This is the whole reason we have the term clipping.

No, I seriously doubt the amp was clipping. I measured everything with an osciloscope before. The amp is fine. The box was a 29Hz vented 2.1cuft. I was playing Metallica's "bleeding me" tune at the time. What happened was just what I explained earlier in my posts. The amp pushed the cone out, and failed to bring it back before the next signal came to tell it to push out again. And the JL really doesn't need all that much 'power' to keep it in control. It is a pretty sensitive sub, by sub standards.

I cannot testify to the mechanics of the seizure exactly; however, I did witness the cone coming out and not fully oscillating back. This was an obvious event. This continued until until it stopped altogether. I removed it and found I could not move the cone anymore.

>I'm not taking on the establishment as they agree with my
>explanation. The car audio community still persists with
>the invalid argument that using a smaller amp will somehow
>damage a driver.

I beg to differ, every manufacture I have spoken with over the years and every audio shop representative have all agreed on my stance. You are the first one to propagate this notion with more than just general inquisitiveness.

 

Let me illustrate another example for you. The year was 1998, around summer I believe. I was at the caraudio shop when the new MTX 5000 7000 or whatever was delivered (I'm not a big MTX fan, so I don't keep track of product #'s). We slapped one in a small sealed enclosure and carried out to a buddy's car who had some kind of MTX amp that put out 1000wrms (like I said, I don't keep track of #'s, but if necessary, I can retrieve them) that he powered his JL 12w6 trio with. We disconnected those and hooked up the MTX sub. He threw in a test cd and started to crank it up. He started with a sinewave around 80Hz, all the car alarms immediately started going off in the parking lot. He stepped down the frequency one by one to about 60Hz, at that point, we all smelled smoke. He shut everything down immediately as he thought the amp was burning or some wires of his. Nope, the poor MTX took one heck of a beating and would emit smoke everytime I would press down on the cone. We turned it back on and the dumb thing still played fine. Now, that sub was no more than a 500 watter. I forget whether it was 500max or rms, but it don't matter for the picture I'm painting. The fact remains that I was able to blow a 300rms sub with 200rms, and could not blow a 500? sub with 1000rms. Since then I have run a couple of vegas with my MMATs D class that is capable of 1400rms or more. I hear them pop on occassion but never blew them. These are only a few examples. I could list more crappier examples, but whats the point? To sum up, I know what I know, I know what I seen and it will take a VERY sound arguement for me to change my mine on the subject.