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Protecting speakers in home theatre application?

I have an Adcom preamp and amp (GFP-565, GFA-535 II) driving a set of B&W Nautilus 804s. I am considering using this with a new TV via a (yet to be purchased) DAC, but I am wondering whether driving the speakers with TV / movie audio with non-music, non-voice special effects audio audio risks damage to the speakers. This includes signal drop-outs / and static-bursts since the HDTV tuner will be over the air broadcast rather than cable.

I looked for prior discussions but did not find them. Any thoughts or pointers to other discussions?

One final comment- I care most about music, not TV and movies, which I just need to hear. I’m not trying to build a theatre. So, I’m hoping to get a rather cheap DAC and maybe a cheap line-level pre-amp with a remote volume control. These components could also be a worry. To be clear, the setup would be to take the digital TV signal via toslink to a DAC; take the line level from the DAC by RCA to the in-line volume control and from there to an AUX in of the Adcom preamp. For music, my CD player goes into another input of the Adcom pre-amp and is free of all this new nonsense...just CD, Adcom pre-amp, amp, and speakers.
efrank
swampwalker's avatar
swampwalker
5,138 posts
 
I mean, a less right-minded audiophile would protect against finger-squished tweeters like this
https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTc1L2qtLyq6wkLFCZncE-BlUmzA1Pp_UCxReHcBRTIyX7P...
efrank OP
6 posts
 
Excellent- I'm quite reassured! Probably the biggest risk, then, is the cheap DAC I was going to use (Orei DA34). If I could be absolutely certain the TV put only 2-channels over the optical, I'd switch to the Schiit Modi Uber.

Willand- What DAC were you using?  (The 804s were about 3k rather than 7k back when I got them.)

Wolf- I have to take exception with your list of dangers. You forgot cats. 


dhl93449
455 posts
 
I have a pair of B&W 804S connected to my TV/Ht system, driven by a Cambridge Audio 840 pre-amp and a Parasound HCA1500 DC coupled poweramp.

My DVD Blu-Ray is an Oppo 95.

I generally do not have problems with most materials, except for a recent playing of the movie Interstellar. The subsonic energy is so high in level for some scenes I thought my bass drivers were being damaged. The ports were puffing out air like you would not believe. In some of the loudest passages, the bass drivers were rattling.

This could obviously be damaging to the bass drivers.

How to protect them?

a) Use a subsonic filter. Not easy to find these days and they do impact the SQ in the audio range.
b) Use a foam ball in the ports. This will raise the lower frequency response point (unfortunately) but will prevent violent excursions in the bass drivers.
c) lower the volume levels (what I did). Not the best solution either.
willland's avatar
willland
846 posts
 
" Willand- What DAC were you using?  (The 804s were about 3k rather than 7k back when I got them.)"

I am using a Cambridge Audio 840C player/Dac.  When streaming Pandora from my TV I let the 840C upsample to 384kHz/24-bit but with Netflix I let the Dolby Digital 5.1 signal pass through unaltered to my NAD pre/pro.

Bill


wolf_garcia
6,708 posts
 
My Silverline Prelude tweeters have little screens on them to supposedly help acoustically with treble dispersion or something, and are thusly protected. I was talking about this with a sales dude at Goodwin's once…the groovy  Magicos have a beryllium or non-obtainium or mondo expensivium tweeter sitting there just daring people to touch them, and he said, "uh" or "murmph" or something…amazingly, many other extreme high end speakers have exposed tweeters which is fine I suppose if you never let other humans near them.
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