Thermal Distortion your loudspeaker most likely suffers from it. But do you care?
Thermal Distortion is much more serious than just a maximum power handling limitation or side effect.TD is overlooked by most manufacturers as there is no easy (low cost) solution and TD is audible and measurable most of the time at most power levels. TD is caused by the conductive metal (aluminum, copper, or silver) voice coil getting hotter when you pass electrical energy through it. The more power you pass through it the hotter the metal gets. The hotter the metal gets the more the electrical resistance increase. The efficiency goes down and you need to ram in more and more power for smaller and smaller increases in SPL. It can be the reason you get fatigued while listening. If you are running massive power you are creating more TD in your transducers. But do you care? And is it a reason some prefer horn-loaded designs or SET-powered systems since they have the least problems with TD?
Speaker testing often shows thermal compression at 86, 96 and 102 dB. Hence it is something that, IMO, is worth considering as much as FR. |
| Post removed |
@johnk Does thermal distortion affect only coil powered cone type drivers? If so, here's another good reason to go to panels. Does any cone speaker manufacturer include cooling to reduce thermal distortion?
@tubebuffer Can anyone understand what you are talking about? I guess your system must affect your pubic hairs. Is the answer to shave them all off? |
Just to be clear. there is never enough current in an interconnect to heat it up and change its electrical properties. Same with speaker wires unless they are drastically undersized. Thermal changes with power are much more likely to occur in your amp. The article above is specific to voice coils which can heat up with high power (near rated power). So I'm driving a pair of speakers with 800 wpc power handling with a 10 wpc amp. I think I'll be ok. Jerry |
| Post removed |
