I worked on large systems for a living for years and generally when customers were frying mid range and high frequency drivers they were clipping the amps. My experience over the years taught me to disregard the wattage ratings and concentrate on how clean the signal was. I personally ran 3) Klipsch Heresy speakers with 3) Mono bridged amplifiers at 800 watts each for years in my theater system without any damage to the Klipsch speakers. Prior to that I used the Heresy speakers with subs in my audio system in conjunction with custom designed subwoofers and beat the snot out of things without the loss of a single driver. When my addiction to high level was at its peak I built 4) custom Klipsch clone Cornwall speakers. Since I had access to the shops equipment I tested these speakers and plotted the results of which showed a smoother response than the Klipsch Cornwall speaker at an even better efficiency.
My experience has taught me that the wattage rating is meaningless more or less and that I can do far more damage to drivers by using smaller amplifiers that clip easier than what I can do with say an amplifier 4 or 5X or more power than what the driver is rated for.
Even a "Pro" driver is easily damaged by the use of an under powered amplifier that clips easily. Been there and done that.
Good drivers powered by very large well designed amplifiers, crossovers setup correctly, limiters used and adjusted correctly, and believe it or not light bulbs in series with high frequency drivers that acted as limiters. For years I kept the night clubs that I worked on running extremely loud and trouble free with no lost drivers or amplifiers. I didn't use the "DJ" class of drivers, amplifiers, and other assorted gear.
My experience has taught me that the wattage rating is meaningless more or less and that I can do far more damage to drivers by using smaller amplifiers that clip easier than what I can do with say an amplifier 4 or 5X or more power than what the driver is rated for.
Even a "Pro" driver is easily damaged by the use of an under powered amplifier that clips easily. Been there and done that.
Good drivers powered by very large well designed amplifiers, crossovers setup correctly, limiters used and adjusted correctly, and believe it or not light bulbs in series with high frequency drivers that acted as limiters. For years I kept the night clubs that I worked on running extremely loud and trouble free with no lost drivers or amplifiers. I didn't use the "DJ" class of drivers, amplifiers, and other assorted gear.
If I remember correctly, a rocket launch (space one) produced something like 135db at 1m...You should go check your hearing before to repair the speakers.
An on topic, have you checked source/amp for DC offset? For example, a laptop USB output can deliver enough DC to be amplified by your amp if AC-coupled and destroying the mids and tweeters since their voice coils are much thinner and less cooled.
An on topic, have you checked source/amp for DC offset? For example, a laptop USB output can deliver enough DC to be amplified by your amp if AC-coupled and destroying the mids and tweeters since their voice coils are much thinner and less cooled.
Way too loud, but you have probably lost half your hearing so whatever.
Do you have blocking caps on the mids and tweeters? Even without a passive crossover, ALWAYS run a blocking cap.
FWIW, my main stereo that play way louder than I could ever tolerate, passive crossover, runs 60W. I run 200 to the sub.
Do you have blocking caps on the mids and tweeters? Even without a passive crossover, ALWAYS run a blocking cap.
FWIW, my main stereo that play way louder than I could ever tolerate, passive crossover, runs 60W. I run 200 to the sub.
Two things can break a driver: electrical/heat overload melting the damn thing (watt) or mechanical destruction (xmax), basically it ruptures in the process of transduce electromagnetic energy to mechanical/acoustic. The biggest problem with todays “high end” hifi drivers today is low efficiency. A lot is lost at heat in favor of flat response.
Let’s look at power first.
A 87dB 200 watt midrange will be able to play theoretically 110dB peaks max; +23dB = 10+10+3dB= 10x10x2 watt. This is normal for Hifi. 200watt/110dB. Still that require quite an amp… But not enough for some of us. So here is your first problem already, you have a completely undersized system for the application. It’s not possible to make a low sensitive seas mid play at 125dB that would require it to handle more than 4000 watt…… some math 125-87 = 38 dB! That’s approaching 10^4 gain (10000 watt….) Forget it. To play 125 dB you need horns. Period. Remember it’s logarithmic scale. You need sensitivity.
Secondly is the mechanical aspect.
I don’t know the active crossover you have but this sound level require 4th order HPF all over. Perhaps use 2nd order passive to further limit xmax. Another good idea is to stuff the walls with wool to dampen mechanical movement further on the kids. Last thing I don’t know if the crossover points chosen are good. You need to avoid the drivers operating in its resonance frequency as your amp may be confused by this load and distort quite a bit at load levels. 1% is quite high I think. Find drivers with high sensitivity and power, limit excursion by cutting steep higher than resonance.
All in all, forget about hifi, use PA for loud music. You will never look back once you have tried high sensitivity systems. Effortless sound and dynamics at loud levels is something magic but watch your ears.
Let’s look at power first.
A 87dB 200 watt midrange will be able to play theoretically 110dB peaks max; +23dB = 10+10+3dB= 10x10x2 watt. This is normal for Hifi. 200watt/110dB. Still that require quite an amp… But not enough for some of us. So here is your first problem already, you have a completely undersized system for the application. It’s not possible to make a low sensitive seas mid play at 125dB that would require it to handle more than 4000 watt…… some math 125-87 = 38 dB! That’s approaching 10^4 gain (10000 watt….) Forget it. To play 125 dB you need horns. Period. Remember it’s logarithmic scale. You need sensitivity.
Secondly is the mechanical aspect.
I don’t know the active crossover you have but this sound level require 4th order HPF all over. Perhaps use 2nd order passive to further limit xmax. Another good idea is to stuff the walls with wool to dampen mechanical movement further on the kids. Last thing I don’t know if the crossover points chosen are good. You need to avoid the drivers operating in its resonance frequency as your amp may be confused by this load and distort quite a bit at load levels. 1% is quite high I think. Find drivers with high sensitivity and power, limit excursion by cutting steep higher than resonance.
All in all, forget about hifi, use PA for loud music. You will never look back once you have tried high sensitivity systems. Effortless sound and dynamics at loud levels is something magic but watch your ears.
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DC won't damage the drivers if a blocking cap. Neither will turn on and off thump
We don't really know the basis of the high SPL claim. It might just be a guess, or peak levels at 1M. Or maybe it's the scream they let out as they die. 
Setting a typical loud playback level and measuring the amplifier output voltage of each section would tell us a lot. Something like in my Voltage Test thread.
I went back and looked at the crossover points in the first post and they seem reasonable, as long as they are 2nd order or higher. I does seem like the levels are very high for Hi-Fi drivers, and even for some pro drivers. Clipping may also be a problem, even tho he says it isn't. I think it's worth another look. Voltage measurements would help.
Setting a typical loud playback level and measuring the amplifier output voltage of each section would tell us a lot. Something like in my Voltage Test thread.
I went back and looked at the crossover points in the first post and they seem reasonable, as long as they are 2nd order or higher. I does seem like the levels are very high for Hi-Fi drivers, and even for some pro drivers. Clipping may also be a problem, even tho he says it isn't. I think it's worth another look. Voltage measurements would help.
Home drivers won’t be able to hold up thermally, need pro gear with heat sinks on the driver coils, or even figure out a way to allow the heat sink to extend outside the cabinets.
I remember my first diy speakers, actually burned up one of the coils in the crossovers. My new wife, who had worked at a known hi-fi store, was wondering what in the heck was I thinking…
Maybe to bi-amp, so the hard hitting bass notes won’t clip the amps and damage your smaller drivers?
Good luck with your ability to hear normally in the coming years.
I remember my first diy speakers, actually burned up one of the coils in the crossovers. My new wife, who had worked at a known hi-fi store, was wondering what in the heck was I thinking…
Maybe to bi-amp, so the hard hitting bass notes won’t clip the amps and damage your smaller drivers?
Good luck with your ability to hear normally in the coming years.
If you are tuning by ear, maybe you should make sure your hearing is OK.... esp if you have been a fan of loud music for a long time or any music for a real long time, eh.
https://hearingtest.online
BTW, folks used to quality recordings find a lot of pop music recordings quite disgusting with peculiar emphases and omissions in the tone compass. So "correcting" such recordings to sound normal to our ears may result in overloads.
B.
https://hearingtest.online
BTW, folks used to quality recordings find a lot of pop music recordings quite disgusting with peculiar emphases and omissions in the tone compass. So "correcting" such recordings to sound normal to our ears may result in overloads.
B.
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Ive had systems that would go very loud, but they were stereo.
Active quad amp, crossover points 100, 750, 5k, all 24db.
You may need theater speakers such as 4722n
Or jbl 3 way 3730, but needs equalizer, active crossover, and amplifiers to drive it.
Double 15's, compression driver on 2.5' wide horn, and compression driver on tweet horn.
https://www.gearclubdirect.com/jbl-cinema-hpd3730-screen-array-three-way-cinema-system/
You are talking serious volumes now
Active quad amp, crossover points 100, 750, 5k, all 24db.
You may need theater speakers such as 4722n
Or jbl 3 way 3730, but needs equalizer, active crossover, and amplifiers to drive it.
Double 15's, compression driver on 2.5' wide horn, and compression driver on tweet horn.
https://www.gearclubdirect.com/jbl-cinema-hpd3730-screen-array-three-way-cinema-system/
You are talking serious volumes now
Maybe add some AC coupling caps to the tweeters and mid ranges to prevent excessive low frequencies or DC offset. Reconfigure the DSP to account for the AC coupling caps.
HiFi mid ranges should not get more than 60w continuous and done tweeters maybe 25w. Think how much heat a 25w or 60w lightbulb puts out and imagine the poor voice coil heating up like that.
HiFi mid ranges should not get more than 60w continuous and done tweeters maybe 25w. Think how much heat a 25w or 60w lightbulb puts out and imagine the poor voice coil heating up like that.
My Technics system and even my RCA 1963 Victor console puts out enough volume to fill my whole house with music and never stresses the speakers.
Besides, I prefer to be reasonable with my listening.
There is reasonable, and there is abnormal.
If you have a 60w tweeter that is 92db/watt then 10 watts is 102db 100 watts is 112db, 1000 watts is 122db. That is not taking compression into account. You are pushing the thing as beyond its limits trying to get that loud! The only drivers that can get that loud without melting down are PA drivers. Even those are going to have trouble doing it for very long. Doubling up on drivers gets you 6db louder if your amp can handle a 4 ohm load. Remember that 110db is lucking foud!
There is nothing pseudo about gain matching your amps when you are using separate amps or channels to run active speakers. If you have drivers that are mismatched you can easily be over driving the tweeter by the time you bring the rest of the system to volume especially if you have a tendency to play things loud. This can be done at the amp if it has gain control or it can be done at the pre-amp or in the DAC/DSP software. This may not be the problem but that's a lot of drivers to blow through and he needs to figure out what is causing it. It could be that he is just playing things to loud for to long with drivers that aren't rated for that kind of abuse. In that case the morel drivers will fix the problem without having to totally overhaul his entire system with compression drivers or some over sized pro audio drivers that won't fit in to the existing in wall space. I'm sure he would like to minimize the amount of modifications needed to fix the problem.
Honestly I doubt that he is playing it that loud or has ever checked it with a DB meter. If it where actually playing that loud he wouldn't have any hearing left. That is like standing right next to the PA stack at a Deep Purple concert. They like hold the record for the loudest rock concert if memory serves and it was right around that level and it is just not likely.