Newbie question: Amplifiers, Volume, Clipping?

No eye-rolling here, Stan, just a good chuckle at your comment :-)

The reason that speakers are commonly damaged by clipping of underpowered amplifiers is essentially as follows: Clipping occurs when the amp is asked to deliver a larger voltage swing at any instant of time than it is capable of delivering. That will usually occur at bass or mid-bass frequencies, where music typically contains its highest energy levels. Clipping means that the positive and negative peaks of what would normally be a smooth sinusoidal waveform will abruptly transition to a flat, essentially constant output level corresponding to the maximum positive and negative voltages that the amp is capable of delivering.

The ABRUPTNESS of those transition points corresponds to high frequency spectral components being present in the output signal that are not present in the original waveform. In other words, the clipped waveform contains excess high frequency energy, which the speaker's crossover will duly route to the tweeter. That can occur even if there is no high frequency energy at all in the original signal, as a result of the clipping of bass frequencies. Tweeters are ordinarily able to handle much less energy than lower frequency drivers, and can therefore be damaged by that excess energy.

Solid state amplifiers will typically clip more abruptly than tube amplifiers, therefore making them more likely to cause that kind of damage. Although if a tube amp is clipped severely enough, the same damage can result.

Severe clipping will be immediately obvious, because the sound will be horribly distorted. The onset of clipping may be characterized by mild distortion or slight popping sounds on musical peaks. I doubt that occasional mild clipping would cause any damage.

The volume control position at which the onset of clipping may occur is, IMO, unpredictable as a practical matter, and will vary very widely depending on the gains and sensitivities of all of the components that are involved, on the output level of the source component, on the power capability of the amplifier, and on the recording.

Best regards,
-- Al

One thing that may be a problem is the age of your speakers. If the voice coils have been warm in the past from loud volume, they may fail quicker than a new pair. The glue in them could be getting weak just from age also.

On the tube amp clipping issue, tube amps do seem to give a better warning with audible distortion more noticeable quicker than SS amps in my past experience. I have never blown a speaker with a tube amp yet. I use a fuse when running low powered SS amps, because they do catch you off guard quicker than tubes do with distortion in my past experience. Yes I have blown speakers with low powered SS amps, that's the reason for the fuse with them. I don't use a fuse with tube amps. If it would blow(with tube amp), it could cause the output transformers to blow, for not having a speaker load.

In the end, anything you hear that sounds wrong, back the volume down to be safe, and save your equipment. And I also agree with the volume position not meaning much, since it can vary so much in some types of gear, and/or matching of gear.

Hi Al and Hifihvn: I had a question about tube amp clipping. In the case where the tube amp uses output trannies, if the signal fed to the primary coils in the output trannies clips, what type of output is induced into the secondaries?

Let me elaborate. Al explained that "[c]lipping means that the positive and negative peaks of what would normally be a smooth sinusoidal waveform will abruptly transition to a flat, essentially constant output level corresponding to the maximum positive and negative voltages that the amp is capable of delivering."

So, if the input to the primary coils transitions to a flat non-alternating voltage, is it possible to induce a voltage in the secondaries?? If the answer is no, I would think that the clipping would be expressed as a distorted output wave form, but not necessarily of a type that would damage speakers. I imagine the distortion would sound terrible though.

Alternatively, if the signal fed into the primary coils wildly oscillates as bursts of positive and negative voltage, wouldn't the output voltage still be limited to some extent by the output trannies? I suppose in this case, while the output trannies wouldn't be passing pure DC to the speakers, the widely oscillating signal fed into the primaries could induce bursts of oscillating DC voltage which perhaps in extreme cases might damage speakers.

I ask because I own a 130 wpc tube amp that drives speakers having a sensitivity 89 db and a nominal impedance of 8 ohms. As you might imagine, my rig can get quite loud without having to push the amp. Hence I am somewhat dubious that I clip the amp because my wife would start screaming bloody murder to turn the da** stereo down way before a clip. She's better than any speaker fuse on the market today. I would say she a hyper fast fuse -- a real live wire.

Thanks for the clarification.

Hopefully Almarg will answer these questions. If I would, my answers might be in error, and confusing.

Hi Bruce,

My statement about the output waveform abruptly transitioning to an essentially constant level was not worded as completely as it should have been. The "constant level" will persist only until a tiny fraction of a second later, when the input voltage to the amplifier is alternating in the opposite direction and is no longer demanding that the amplifier put out a voltage that is larger than it is capable of. At that point there will be an abrupt transition FROM that constant level back to the normal sine wave or sum of sine waves that constitute the musical note.

That pair of transitions will occur near both the positive-going and negative-going peaks of the waveform. Hence the tops and bottoms of the waveform will be "clipped off," which is why it is called clipping. In between those extremes, the waveform will be as it should. DC is not involved in any of this.

The output transformer will pass whatever spectral components (frequency components) of that clipped waveform are within its bandwidth, its bandwidth in most cases being much wider than the nominally audible range of 20Hz to 20kHz, and encompassing most or all of the extraneous (and potentially damage-causing) treble energy that I referred to.

Best regards,
-- Al