Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions Paranoid about blown speakers

I read a diturbing review of the onkyo sr600 today,(on audioreview.com look at the reviews for the sr600) it stated that, although rated at 80X6, only delivers about 30 watts per channel in 5 or 6 speaker mode, (but do deliver 80X2 in stereo mode) i also ready that speakers can blow if they do not get a minimum amount of power to the speakers. my question is this: first, do you know anything about this onkyo thing, and second, would this make any of your speakers blow due to clipping.

Thank You
Kore

I really love my 5 watt per channel Antique Sound Labs amp, and my M3s certainly sounded great when I first hooked them together. I don't know whether it's my ears, my paranoia, or something worse, but they don't sound as good anymore. I'm thinking maybe I'm frying my favorite speakers with my favorite amp. Are 5 tube watts per channel safe to drive M3s, or have I damaged them? Is there a way to check whether or not the speakers are OK?

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried another set of Tubes?I do not think there is a way of blowing the speaker Drivers with a 5 watt tube amp.
Maybe Ian or Alan are better at addressing the problem,but I would change out the tubes to see if that is the problem.
How long is the rated life of the tubes and how much have you been driving the little guy's?

Another thing might be is if you had made any changes to your setup before this started to happen.Often you can trace changes to sound to changes made in the setup itself.Ex. changing the Cables & Interconnects.

Good Luck!

Hi 2x6spds and Stereohead,

Tube amps tend to clip (go into distortion) fairly gracefully and gradually, generating a big wash of harmonic distortion--3,4,5, maybe 10% or more--which to the ear, doesn't sound unmusical until it becomes really gross (above 10%).

Transistor amps, when they reach output limits, clip suddenly, with unpleasant IM distortion and spurious garbage that can fry a tweeter or woofer voice coil in an instant.
If you pushed a little tube amp too far, it too could damage a speaker through clipping, but audible distortion would typically signal the onset of clipping before damage occurred.

Put your M3ti's close together and use a pink noise signal from a test CD if you have one, or the noise from an FM tuner when the muting is turned off. Set the volume to a moderate level and listen to the nature of the hiss. The two speakers should sound essentially identical. You can put your ear near each tweeter to check that each one is working; do the same for each woofer.

Regards,