What does clipping sound like?

That’s one of the limitations of vinyl records...lol... A digital recording might have sent your woofers’ cones flying across the room.

I bought a JBL C37 cabinet loaded with a 175DLH and 130A from a gentleman that actually built it in 1957 when he worked there. He advertised the system for sale on Craigslist. Prospective buyer showed up to test it with his McIntosh and turntable with The 1812 Overture with Cannons. Cannons went off...something didn’t sound right...Guy packed up his amp and turntable and split...because he split the cone on the 130A. "yeah...well...ok...thanks..." and he left.

on some amps the clipping seems benign, just a squashing of dynamics. i've heard some tube amps that did that. on most transistorized amps i've heard, it is harsh hash, or loud crackling.

If it's the old classic power amp type clipping, a tube amp will go into clipping before you know it's there perhaps, since tubes soft-clip. They're not 'fast enough' to saw off a waveform like it had been cut with scissors. The edges round off. It may not be offensive enough to notice until you really overdrive it.

This explanation is incorrect. Tube amps can be just as fast as solid state- the risetime in the output section of our OTLs is about 600V/uS- there are very few solid state amps that fast. The correct explanation is tube amps make less odd ordered harmonics as they clip; this results in smoother sound as the amps overload.

That’s one of the limitations of vinyl records...lol... A digital recording might have sent your woofers’ cones flying across the room.

This is nonsense. If the LP is properly mastered it may well be uncompressed while quite often the digital release is (since there is no expectation that the LP will be played in a car).


The reason the stylus jumped out of the groove is that its mismatched with the tonearm. If you want to talk about limitations in LP playback, this is one of them- you can set up an excellent cartridge with an excellent tonearm and it won't play properly if they are mismatched. The compliance of the cartridge in tandem with the mass of the cartridge in the arm must produce a mechanical resonance between 7-12Hz. If not in that window you can get mistracking and actually have the stylus jump out of the groove. 

Thanks Ralph-good to get the confirmation that my cartridge is a mismatch with the Tri-planar arm. And this must be the reason for the distortion I get on full tones of a vocal.
Currently waiting for a Lyra Atlas SL to replace my Miyajima Shalabi.
Tri assures me that it is a great match.