Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Stereo amp too powerful for my M3s?

After nearly 2 years of owning the M3s, I finally gathered the courage to drive the volume up on my amp to see how loud they could go. At about 40%, they were really loud. And at near 60%, the color of the sound suddenly changed. It felt as if the tweeters were getting strangled. The sound became very thin and constricted. I didn't dare go beyond this as the speakers were shrieking now.

I thought the M3s can handle about 175W. Assuming a negative threshold of 20%, that still means 140W. My amp is a 50Wx2. Is there something I'm missing here?

aqua,

It seems your amp started to show clipping at that volume level. And clipping can be very damaging to the tweeter -- you were wise not to go beyond.

Of course, clipping means that the power amp is hitting its limits of the output voltage swing; in other words, your amp is not powerful enough. I suggest you consider upgrading the power amp if you want to listen at high volumes. The most common cause of driver damage is NOT an over-powered amp; it is an under-powered amp.

I have the M3Ti hooked up to my Rotel 100x5. Playing in stereo I get 120W x 2. At 70% of my volume it is very very loud but the music is crisp and clear. The 2 goldfish in my fishtank were running around like crazy due to the ripples in the water. The headroom (level of distortion of your amp where distortion increases too much past a certain db range) on amp is possibly being hit and distortion is coming out. Also you could have your positive and negative wire switched by accident. Those are some of my guesses. Since you mentioned that you have been playing your M3 for 2 years and have been enjoying its sound I was led to believe maybe there is a porblem with the amp or wire connection.

Saturn

ps: No animals were hurt during this test and they actually got extra fish food for helping in participating in the test.

Sushi and Saturn,

I'll take both of your words as being true. However, just a couple of clarifications. I've auditioned my amp with a pair of towers with a sensitivity of 85 SPL and it had no problems at all in driving them clean.

Secondly, my volume was also very loud for my ears but I really didn't face any glass vibrations or water rippling as Saturn did. The thing is, my CD player has a pretty high output; so high that my M3s are loud at 10% volume on my amp. Maybe the gain is too high in the preamp input. So by about 60% volume itself the peak is reached and beyond this the distortion starts. My amp auditioned at near 90% volume with a Pioneer CD player was clearly louder than a 90W Yamaha amp with the same Pioneer.

Any inputs would be most welcome. Oh, as a note, maybe I didn't face any vibrations at high volume because my speaker stands are very flimsy, made of light wood and don't firmly hold their ground (they sway a bit).

In reply to:

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The thing is, my CD player has a pretty high output; so high that my M3s are loud at 10% volume on my amp. Maybe the gain is too high in the preamp input. So by about 60% volume itself the peak is reached and beyond this the distortion starts.

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Yes, that is exactly the symptom of power amp clipping. On the other hand, with M3's rated maximum power input of 175W (Axiom actually tests the speaker with continuous rated input), I do not think the M3 start to show stress with a clean (non-clipping) 50W input. Your bottleneck is with the amp, I believe.

Thanks Sushi,

I always believe that I have the best speakers that money can buy. Good to see that its still true. I think I'll just be careful not to listen at ear-splitting volumes.

Hey aquashankar;

Do you have any friends with some higher rated amps in the 80+ Watts. Let them power your M3's if there is still distortion there could be a problem with you speakers. If you still get distortion then you possibly have an issu with the speakers. If not then either your wiring or your amp has the issue. Thats my guess.