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Questions and answers
Tips on protecting your speaker system
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Easy does it with the power
Q. Why do I keep blowing my speakers?
A. We presume you mean you keep blowing the small driver or tweeter in your speakers, since this is the one most susceptible to damage. Well, it can happen for several reasons, the main cause being over-driving the amplifier (turning the volume up too far).
Generally, when you adjust the volume control to the halfway point, the amplifier is putting out its rated RMS power. If you go past this point it can't reproduce the input signal cleanly and it goes into 'clipping' producing distortion as it does.
Treble and midrange drivers cannot handle clipping for very long and while woofers (bass drivers) are not affected as easily they too can fail. Clipping can burn a driver out and no manufacturer guarantees against this type of abusive damage so it's an expensive exercise
A speaker can also fail when its rated input power in exceeded. Usually there are two ways of measuring and rating speaker input capabilities. They are continuous RMS input power and maximum or 'peak' input. RMS input power is the power the speaker can handle over a long period of time without suffering damage.
The rated power of your amplifier should not generally exceed the speaker's rated input. Peak music input is used as a measurement for the amount of power the speaker can handle for brief periods without damage. Even during this brief period of peak power the amplifier must not be driven into clipping.
Failure of your speakers can also be caused by excessive boost of the tone controls on your home entertainment system, particularly when reproducing movie soundtracks. So, be responsible when using the treble and to a lesser extent the bass controls and leave the loudness control alone. If several different people use your system you can install fuses or circuit breakers in line between the amplifier and speaker - a 100 watt RMS amplifier can use a 5-amp fuse.
Simply insert the fuse (in its holder) in the positive line between the amplifier and the speaker. This reduces sound quality to a certain degree, but at least your speaker will remain intact. Exercise care and you shouldn't have trouble in the future.
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