My Tweeters and Midrange keeps burning up and its expensive

If he's not actually playing at 120db but that is an incorrect measurement, it may be that his gain setting/matching on his amps are based on incorrect measurements as well. Without a lot more detail from the OP this is all just speculation.


There are multiple things going on here that need addressing.

As a person who likes to listen loud most of the time (mainly to minimally compressed music while having the entire dynamic range at my disposal), I consider 110 - 115 dB C weighted music peaks to be VERY loud. This SPL range can be considered average live concert volume levels with rather heavily compressed rock/pop music. The issue is how much compression there is and where the main concentration of energy is relative to the entire frequency range. Rock, pop, hip-hop, edm, metal etc all have different concentrations of energy in various frequency ranges, which can weigh the power distribution differently to the individual drivers as dictated by the crossover.

Based on this, you can have a typical 10 - 15W rms tweeter live happily playing along in a 2 way system with a 6-8" woofer, able to play most types of music for several hours at around 100 - 103 dB levels without harm (excluding your hearing). A tweeter crossed at 2500 Hz or so with a 2nd order HP will only see about 15 % of the total music power bandwidth when being fed most styles of rock, pop, jazz and classical music. This whole situation changes with heavily compressed bass heavy edm and guitar driven, treble laden metal/hardcore/punk. The tweeter is usually the first to suffer a thermal VC meltdown with this type of music and its heavy concentration of treble energy (sometimes 2x or more the percentage power distribution).

The other issue is overloading a driver when its being driven hard around its resonant frequency. The diaphragm on a dome or compressiom driver can go into an unstable rocking mode allowing the VC to rub on the upper pole plate. Most cone drivers can suffer a similar fait when driven hard around its resonance and/or if the air load placed on the cone is uneven ie. by unsymmetrical port or LF driver placement. This can make the VC rub and possibly fail as well. At a minimum it can cause excessive audible distortion.

Power ratings are heavily exaggerated by some manufacturers and can be based either on a driver's actual failure point rather than surviving for several hours of repetitive abuse (more realistic and practical). I generally dont consider manufacturers published power handling specs unless its a high SPL system overbuilt to survive constant use and not fail, even with a bit of extra headroom factored in for reliability sake.

Always consider VC diameter and former materials when judging power handling. VCs with aluminum formers handle more power than kapton/polyimide/nomex thanks to its better thermal conductivity. Fiberglass formers are also slightly better then kapton but not as good as aluminum. Copper VC windings are more durable than aluminum or copper clad and less prone to power compression as well as thermal fatigue. IMO, realistic continuous thermally limited power levels for most LF/MF drivers with varying diameter VCs are:

25mm/1" VC - 35 to 75w
38mm/1.5" VC - 75 to 125w
50mm/2.0" VC - 100 to 175w
65mm/2.5" VC - 150 to 250w+
75mm/3.0" VC - 250 to 350w+
100mm/4.0" VC - 300 to 500w+

Continuous power ratings for HF and compression drivers are about 30-40 percent less.
 
If he's not actually playing at 120db but that is an incorrect measurement, it may be that his gain setting/matching on his amps are based on incorrect measurements as well. Without a lot more detail from the OP this is all just speculation.
Hello, understand this is not easy , knowing as little about the system. What is OP short for? (or what is it) I will read up on how to make accurate max dB measurements, as I have only used my equipment for measuring the difference in level (when playing loud they just display OVER anyhow:))
 
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.
Amazing, thanks, Was not aware of such product, this one looks incredible!!! and when compared to my Seas: alu voice coil on titanium diaphragm vs kapton copper coil on coated silk diaphragm, 3 x rated power handling, FS is only 750 vs my 1350 Hz... Agree that it was expensive, but luckily they provide the voicecoil rep kit, so they will last long. But the next one was more afforable yes..
 
Thanks for taking the time to write this useful information. Was not aware of the impact voice coil and diaphragm material had, so never paid much attention to them, (never had to remove so much heat either hehe). Short question, by resonance frequency you mean for the system (driver box and port) or the Fs given in spec? I have used Fs from S/T data as a baseline for choosing x-over points, but for the subs I have done the work and measured real impedance for each halv frequency in design goal, which was 28-80 Hz, hence also giving me the system resonance frequency in same plot. thanks brg Simen
 
To measure how loud something is, you need a calibrated sound pressure meter.
I make crude calibrations using my old Radio-Shack meter @ 1K to set the levels on my Focusrite form my Behringer calibrated mic. Then I don't touch anything until all my relative measurements are done. I never sprung for a capsule calibrator.

Have you read Measuring Loudspeakers by D'Apolitto? Have you read any of the Murphy, Dickason, Alden books on loudspeaker design? I think some background reading would help your efforts. For instance to understand the difference between Fs Fb and F3. There is so much where intuition turns out not to be correct, but we have the valid engineering understood.

No one ever said the audio hobby is cheap. Many miss-understand that DIY is often not cheap either. I can't build an amp as cheap as I can buy an equal one, not could I dream of building a DAC as good as one you can get for a couple of Starbucks. But I can design speakers for MY living room and no OEM can do that.
 
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.
Cool, you just described "my" design philosophy when designing a high quality system. My current system is designed like this, thats way I could not figure out this problem... I agree and will stretch it to: you are correct on watt theory and amplifier power behaviors above, applicable to all brands. Wattage and distortion data, until we all agree on how to measure and relay the information data/metadata are yes, useless, and causes so many problem for regular customers. But its different with drivers, the data given from the serious brands are very good, I have replaced drivers in customers 10000 Euro speaker from B&W, JBL, Mission, Audio Vector with high quality, but way cheaper, drivers with success, just by matching the important s/t parameters and minor tweeks to the passive crossover.
 
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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.
AC decoupling caps are included in amp design, and I have no low frequencies coming due to a 28 Hz HF brickwall filter. Where i missed was here: "HiFi mid ranges should not get more than 60w continuous and done tweeters maybe 25w":) ,
 
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Next time you burn a driver out take it apart and see what condition the voice coil is in. If its long term thermal overload the coil should be blackened if its over excursion or a more extreme but short term overload the voice coil will not be black all over but only uncoiled due to adhesive failure (heating) or mechanical damage (over excursion). Assuming you are thermally damaging drivers you should install DSP limiting into your system and or increase the maximum acoustic output of your system through the use of compression drivers which are more efficient. In my opinion compression drivers and horns are overall a superior choice even for Hi-Fi, you will find many people here who also think that.
Here is some information on limiting you will find various types available in every pro loudspeaker management system:
https://www.powersoft.com/wp-conten..._AN_Limiters_Basic_Concept_and_Operations.pdfhttps://www.powersoft.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/powersoft_TN009_LimiterSetup_en_v1.0.pdf
 
There is a misconception that clipped or distorted signals on their own will burn up a driver faster than an undistorted signal at the same RMS power level. Its simply an excess amount of power that kills drivers. The only exception to this is the fact a clipped waveform contains a higher percentage of HF energy (because of the sharp edges in the waveform) and therefore overloads the HF driver sooner. If you look at an overdriven electric guitar amp speaker, these run under constant distorted or sometimes clipped conditions and dont go up in smoke as long as the speaker's power rating isn't exceeded. Most of these speakers are specifically oversized by 50 percent or more compared to the RMS input power to avoid failure. The distortion or clipping itself isn't an issue here and the argument that a clipped waveform damages speakers because it contains alot of DC voltage is also invalid. This is an impossible state of operation for a transformer or capacitive coupled (ie. tube) amplifier. A DC coupled solid state amp can only damage a speaker with DC voltage by having an internal fault, allowing DC to get through internally or by means of a faulty source component injecting DC itself (no coupling cap on the output).

That being said, most amplifiers don't behave nice when clipped and there are a host of other speaker damaging issues that can be aggravated by this mode of operation. The first one is parasitic oscillation which mostly shows up at the clipped edges of the waveform. Sometimes it can take over the entire waveform depending on how severe the capacitive or inductive load is based on how poorly the amp is designed. The other big one is DC offset which is an almost guaranteed killer of MF and HF drivers. It heats up the VC and makes it statically move out of the magnet gap. That's why DC blocking capacitors are a must for HF drivers and need to be sized accordingly to stay out of the active crosssover region and avoid causing additional phase errors.

So all this mentioned is why people think that a clipping amp on its own causes speakers to fail - its not the waveform, just the amp behaving badly under clipped conditions. There are plenty of clipped (square wave looking) waveforms in modern music we listen to that won't kill a speaker when played back at levels that don't exceed its long term power rating.

There are very few drivers that won't audibly show signs of strain way before you reach their max thermal input capacity. A few Morel, Dynaudio and ScanSpeak domes can be run hard down low and stay composed to the point of reaching their power limitations. Most other drivers will distort badly before reaching their thermal input limit. LF or MF drivers running in small sealed inclosures can suffer early failure due to lack airflow to cool the VC. This means you have to factor in a considerable reduction of power handling with LF and MF drivers running in front loaded horns. Vented, tapped and rear loaded cabs can take more power because the driver VC is exposed to open air. At a minimum, power compression takes over well before you reach critical VC temps, which can be significant in drivers with poorly cooled VCs or ones with paper VC formers ie. some older vintage drivers.
 
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As known clipping can cause square wave like output signal which is quite bad for voice coils. BTW 2 x 3W here and it still is too loud. No burnt speakers in decades. The ones I saw smoking were because of amplifier failure. If one needs 2 kW amplifiers for normal efficiency loudspeakers in a normal home then maybe one should have the ears examined :) Headphones may be a better choice then to fry the ears. For some reason I think we are getting fooled big time ;)
 
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I agree with Jean-Paul, this guy with 30 years experience does not know what he is doing.

Blowing speakers after being a professional for so long is effing incompetent, (I hope the moderators let this go)...and he should have known about protecting equipment. Speakers and amps both.

And some of his technical stuff...does not gel.
We have a saying here: better a mad fellow than a half - mad fellow, because we never know when the half mad fellow is sane and when he is not...

I still think that much power and so many amps is too complicated for a house, maybe a hotel, yatch or resort.

In any case it would be easier to have single systems in each room, easier for the people in the house to enjoy their choice of music, rather than this rat's nest of wiring.
 
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