Hello all,
I have little experience with other than hifi products and drivers, so I was hoping somebody had some experience or advice for me. I have installed a rather large sound system, build into walls and closet, so it does not take up any space and has little effect on the interior since you only see the speaker grill in the walls. Its not a hifi "sweet spot" system, but something that fills the hole house with decent good soundqualtiy and plays loud (around 125 db between 30-15000 Hz). For high and midrange I am using high quality drivers from Seas or DynAudio or B&W, most 5.25" or 6" midrange and a 1" dome. But they all keep on burning up (voicecoils are falling apart and at 2 occasions destroying the amp in the process.) The amplifiers are not clipping, and there is no passive crossovers anywhere, I use a 10 channel dac/active crossovers and one amp/channel pr driver. My signal input is not clipping either.
Where should I look for something that can play loud and handle decent power? No experience with PA drivers or Horns or compression drivers, is that the way to go?
Any help much appreciated, I have replaced 10 midranges and 6 tweeters in the last year or so.
(info: The 6 wall speakers are set up like this: tweeters (3000-18000Hz with 50w or 100w amplifiers, for midrange (250-3000 Hz) 300W and for midbass (80-250hz) 500W and finally a single "house sub" with 2x15" woofers with a 2000W amp bridged in 8 ohm playing 30-80Hz. I have measured all amps and the rating is fine, continuous output with a sinewave and max 1% distortion, and they all had some dB headroom left. ). All crossover slopes are mostly 96 but tweeters are 24 dB pr octave.
thanks
Best regards Simon
I have little experience with other than hifi products and drivers, so I was hoping somebody had some experience or advice for me. I have installed a rather large sound system, build into walls and closet, so it does not take up any space and has little effect on the interior since you only see the speaker grill in the walls. Its not a hifi "sweet spot" system, but something that fills the hole house with decent good soundqualtiy and plays loud (around 125 db between 30-15000 Hz). For high and midrange I am using high quality drivers from Seas or DynAudio or B&W, most 5.25" or 6" midrange and a 1" dome. But they all keep on burning up (voicecoils are falling apart and at 2 occasions destroying the amp in the process.) The amplifiers are not clipping, and there is no passive crossovers anywhere, I use a 10 channel dac/active crossovers and one amp/channel pr driver. My signal input is not clipping either.
Where should I look for something that can play loud and handle decent power? No experience with PA drivers or Horns or compression drivers, is that the way to go?
Any help much appreciated, I have replaced 10 midranges and 6 tweeters in the last year or so.
(info: The 6 wall speakers are set up like this: tweeters (3000-18000Hz with 50w or 100w amplifiers, for midrange (250-3000 Hz) 300W and for midbass (80-250hz) 500W and finally a single "house sub" with 2x15" woofers with a 2000W amp bridged in 8 ohm playing 30-80Hz. I have measured all amps and the rating is fine, continuous output with a sinewave and max 1% distortion, and they all had some dB headroom left. ). All crossover slopes are mostly 96 but tweeters are 24 dB pr octave.
thanks
Best regards Simon
hey, thanks for your reply. You are right, it is maybe a tad overrated, but i am not changing the amps. For sure there must be a good/decent midrange and tweeter out there who can handle this?
(by the way 2 of the amps are actually QSC DCA cinema amps from the local cinema, i got a very good price on them. But 2000W is not enough to even cover the -9 dB sensitivity loss at 30 Hz vs the midrange at 1kHz + your ear has low sensitivity in that range, (30hz) so you need some serious compensation.)
(by the way 2 of the amps are actually QSC DCA cinema amps from the local cinema, i got a very good price on them. But 2000W is not enough to even cover the -9 dB sensitivity loss at 30 Hz vs the midrange at 1kHz + your ear has low sensitivity in that range, (30hz) so you need some serious compensation.)
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You need to make sure that the drivers you choose are properly matched as far as sensitivity and continuous RMS rating. Then you need to gain match your amps so they are all acting in concert to maintain the house curve or flat. Then you and any teenagers you may have keep every thing with in the range of the systems capabilities. Other then that check your wiring (as I'm assuming it is in wall) for possible intermittent shorts that could be causing your amps to clip and even burn up without protection. Another thing you can do is fuse your tweeters and mids with the proper size fuses so they blow before your speakers do. As for the amps being to big that's not your problem. Big is good but you need to use the volume control with a little discretion.
I'm not surprised you are blowing drivers, you're probably powering these things to their peak rating and feeding them highly compressed material... which as you are discovering just doesn't work.
What are the specifics here, exactly what drivers are you using and what is the speaker configuration? Just a straight up 3-way with 1 driver per band?
What are the music genres and playback medium?
If you really like it loud you're going to need a more robust setup, that could involve pro audio components but it's also possible to do with some more home audio friendly designs that use multiple mids and tweets per speaker, that means everything will be bigger but the same is true if you go the pro audio route.
I don't think your system is that radical either.. people have systems like that in their cars now, but I seriously doubt it hits 125dB. Whatever the number is it doesn't matter, the point is you like it louder than most so you need speakers than can comfortably operate at that level, and the less power it takes to do that the better.
What are the specifics here, exactly what drivers are you using and what is the speaker configuration? Just a straight up 3-way with 1 driver per band?
What are the music genres and playback medium?
If you really like it loud you're going to need a more robust setup, that could involve pro audio components but it's also possible to do with some more home audio friendly designs that use multiple mids and tweets per speaker, that means everything will be bigger but the same is true if you go the pro audio route.
I don't think your system is that radical either.. people have systems like that in their cars now, but I seriously doubt it hits 125dB. Whatever the number is it doesn't matter, the point is you like it louder than most so you need speakers than can comfortably operate at that level, and the less power it takes to do that the better.
Thanks iamjacklope, that's what I am trying to do, find a driver who matches the continuous average output from the amp.
And yes, thanks, I will try some fuses as a intermediate solution - good call.
One problem with turning the gains down is that music is recorded in different levels, so if i choose a low and safe setting, it does not reach any decent output level when playing music recorded at low levels, and might even clip when playing music with a high recording level. I have tried -6 db limiter, but you can hear it pump up and down.
And i agree with you, the problem is not the amps, any good quality speaker can handle at least 3x rated power for short durations, and music is not sine wave, so they get some rest. My Seas 8" midbass are rated at 90W, but had them for 10 years, feeding them close to 1000W in short term "musicpower", and they are fine.
And yes, thanks, I will try some fuses as a intermediate solution - good call.
One problem with turning the gains down is that music is recorded in different levels, so if i choose a low and safe setting, it does not reach any decent output level when playing music recorded at low levels, and might even clip when playing music with a high recording level. I have tried -6 db limiter, but you can hear it pump up and down.
And i agree with you, the problem is not the amps, any good quality speaker can handle at least 3x rated power for short durations, and music is not sine wave, so they get some rest. My Seas 8" midbass are rated at 90W, but had them for 10 years, feeding them close to 1000W in short term "musicpower", and they are fine.
You might want to take a look at Morel if it is just a higher power rating you need. For instance here is a tweeter with a 200 watt continuous power rating but be prepared to pay out the cash because they aren't cheep. They are good drivers though.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...morel-titanium-supreme-tsct1104-tweeter-each/
Other options are in the car audio market.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...morel-titanium-supreme-tsct1104-tweeter-each/
Other options are in the car audio market.
Here is another one that is a lot cheaper with a 200 watt rating.
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...-morel/morel-cat328-110-1-textile-dome-8-ohm/
https://www.madisoundspeakerstore.c...-morel/morel-cat328-110-1-textile-dome-8-ohm/
Those poor drivers. How hot do they get driven hard and in a wall cavity?
The problem listening loud is hearing damage. Hearing loss and wanting it loud needs even more watts.
I think you misunderstand what gain matching is. When you are using dedicated amps/channels per speaker all amps have to be gain matched and it's the speakers sensitivity relative to the rms rating that will determine what that is. Say you have a multichannel amp and you are using three channels to drive a three way. Tweeter, mid, and mid woofer. So your amp is rated at 150 watts per channel all channels driven. Your tweeter is rated at 60 watts rms with a 92 db sensitivity rating and the mid is rated at 90 watts RMS at 89 db and the woofer is 120 watts at 89 db. Without gain matching you are going to overdrive the tweeter and likely the midrange before the rest of the system comes up to the high volume that you want. So you need to gain match the gain on the tweeter and midrange channels so that they receive less voltage on the input so it takes the same amount of volume to bring the system as a whole up to 89db, the sensitivity of the bigger drivers. Then you need to exercise some control on the volume nob. This example uses drivers that are not very well matched and could be very hard to gain match. The sensitivity ratings are far from ideal and better driver selection would be warranted in real life.
I think he is getting confused, or has a large house.
The dB description above was complicated.
Possibly audiofool or pseudo engineer stuff.
Safer to say 6" drivers are good to about 20W/8 ohms for full range, and so on, let him work out the ratings actually needed.
130dB is the noise level from an old style jet engine at take off power, 125 dB is not far from that.
Best to swap out the amps by sale or exchange...first time I came across a house with a cinema sound system.
He has 2 kW only for the sub, add the others, it is hugely powerful, and I have no idea about the sound quality from those
The dB description above was complicated.
Possibly audiofool or pseudo engineer stuff.
Safer to say 6" drivers are good to about 20W/8 ohms for full range, and so on, let him work out the ratings actually needed.
130dB is the noise level from an old style jet engine at take off power, 125 dB is not far from that.
Best to swap out the amps by sale or exchange...first time I came across a house with a cinema sound system.
He has 2 kW only for the sub, add the others, it is hugely powerful, and I have no idea about the sound quality from those
One on/off thump, or hot-plugging a phone into a headphone jack and bye-bye tweeters.
DC offsets could also be keeping the coils pre-warmed.
Damn... that's a persistent way of killing drivers
Sorry... but I never heard someone do this before... you must really play ear-bleading loud or like others have already written, on/off bump's, driver type mismatch and so on.A typical dome tweeter can't handle this amount of abuse, you need a horn with a compression driver and a pro midrange - maybe also in a horn. It's not the average power but more likely the peaks that kill them - and because you play seriously LOUD for longer periods of time.
Build a horn loaded speaker, with a bigger midrange, compression tweeter and good directivity with pro drivers that can take this type of violent beating - a copy of some cinema pro speaker like this:
If this Celestion 10" only plays from 100hz and up, and you add your subs - then it should be fine. Or else build two more speakers or chose a driver that can handle even more - others have to chime in here... because I would not at the moment know of a proper upgrade. Possibly even the compression driver could be different, and take even more power.
Pro drivers can simply take tons more abuse before they burn, since they are mostly designed to play all night at high levels - which most hifi drivers are not - especially not your levels