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Dumb Quest : Amp Clips Or Speakers Blow Up First?

I was reading in another thread somewhere here on Bryston amps that go into clipping when driven hard. How do we know if the speakers can take it when we crank up the volume to earth-shattering levels? In most cases, distortion will kill the drivers of the speakers when listening to insane levels but how do we know if the amp will clip first, or the speakers will blow up first? Do we need any measuring tools or device to measure on how loud can the system go before something burns?

And what does clipping mean? I am guessing the amp will shut down itself. Will the amp blow up into flames of fire? What is normally replaced inside the amp when it has clipped? My amp never clips before so maybe I'm not cranking up the volume loud enough. Most of the time my ears fail first before my equipment do, so it is unlikely I will experience any amps clipping or worse, the speakers blowing up. That's a real nightmare if my speakers would blow up.
ryder
fatparrot
1,314 posts
 
Shadorne, a slight correction regarding your statement
The "perceptive loudness" effect is what is often used on modern pop CD's, whereby the waveforms are deliberately clipped in the recording/mastering process in order to create a "loud" sounding CD
In fact, I believe that these CD's are compressed, so that the dynamic range may be as little as 6 dB's, so that it sounds "louder"...this is a common trick for TV commercials. Limiters would be used to actually "clip" a very dynamic waveform, but are used more for radio broadcasting than recording.
ryder OP
1,687 posts
 
Thanks for all responses. Shadorne, actually what I meant by the line 'when my ears fail first' is that my ears cannot take the sound pressure anymore although I can still crank up the volume. The music is already very loud and if I turn up the volume further it's not the equipment or speakers that would blow first but my ear drums would! This is due to the fact that my listening room is quite small, and if I were to place the system in a larger room I am sure I can still turn up the volume higher with/without going into clipping.

I would agree that nearfield monitors can't play too loud as they have their limitations in their design. However, I find the PMC's are able to go louder and deeper without showing any distortion whereas the N805's seem to lose it a bit. THe PMC's can really go loud and still stay clean at complex musical passages, and although I was tempted to test it to the limits, my ears tell me to stop due to room limitations. Got to be the transmission line thing. I highly doubt it's due to 'perceptive loudness' in my case.
lokie's avatar
lokie
528 posts
 
Let me pass on an experience I had regarding McIntosh amps. I hooked up a MAC 602, which is 600wpc, to a couple of little Cambridge bookshelf speakers and cranked it up just to see if their Power Guard and Sentry Monitor technology would work... and it worked perfectly.
shadorne's avatar
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shadorne
7,467 posts
 
Fatparrot,

Thanks - you were right to correct me. Indeed, it would be more accurate to say "deliberately compressed" than "deliberately clipped". Not so many are actually hard clipped. The majority of modern pop CD's are "soft limited", which clips the peaks in a rounded fashion (meaning that the peaks above a certain level are limited in a gentle manner in order to reduce the dynamic range).

However, excessive compression due to "soft limiting" or hard clipping will tend to sound the same anyway....harsh, loud and distorted at the end of the day excessive soft limiting becomes the shape of a squared of sine wave too.
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