Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
Driving speakers to clip??
#412997 06/23/15 11:02 PM
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,170
Likes: 6
M
MMM Offline OP
connoisseur
OP Offline
connoisseur
M
Joined: May 2014
Posts: 1,170
Likes: 6
I have been following the thread by TroyD about his receiver and amp with the M80v3 speakers and clipping/distortion.

I don't design amps or receivers or pre-amps, so I don't know the in's and out's of their workings. But I have managed to gain a few glimpses of knowledge over the past few years.

From what I can gather our amps are mainly analog, and so are out speakers. So they use a varying amount of voltage and current to drive the speaker coils in and out. In TroyD's case, the output from his pre-amp or pre-out from the receiver he is using is small, so you connect it to an amplifier to effectively step up the output to a large enough voltage/current to drive your speakers.

An Amp, if you look at the specs, have voltage gain in dB. I gather that is how much louder the output would be from the input. This is helpful if you have two different amps so you can adjust them to sound the same. But would that not also have an effect on the total available loudness that the amp can produce? If your amp has a lower voltage gain, it will take more power from the source to get it drive your speakers to a specific dB level than an amp with a much higher voltage gain.

Your amp can only give a clean amplified output, if it is getting a clean input. So you might have a 350w amplifier to drive your speakers, but if your voltage gain is low, then your source (pre-amp/receiver) could run out of juice well before the amplifier does to get the desired volume from the speakers you are looking for.

This would make the speakers sound like they are clipping when in reality it is the source pre-amp or receiver that is the problem.


Anthem: AVM60, Fosi DAC-Q5
Axiom: ADA1500, LFR1100 Actiive, QS8, EP500, M3, M3comp, M5
Re: Driving speakers to clip??
MMM #412999 06/24/15 12:05 AM
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,593
Likes: 1
A
connoisseur
Offline
connoisseur
A
Joined: Mar 2014
Posts: 1,593
Likes: 1
I went through this scenario trying to plan an amp integration in the future HT. Socketman helped me out with some good links. Here was my takeaway:

If the preamp is unable to drive the input sensitivity of the amplifier to max, the amp will not be able to use all of its power to drive the load.

From my understanding, if the preamp and amp are not closely matched noise issues can occur. If the amp has very high gain the output noise floor may be increased at listening volumes. I'm not sure if the preamp output is too low the amp may clip to drive the speakers to desired volumes. I just think it wont reach desired loudness.


Moderated by  alan, Amie, Andrew, axiomadmin, Brent, Debbie, Ian, Jc 

Link Copied to Clipboard

Need Help Graphic

Forum Statistics
Forums16
Topics24,940
Posts442,457
Members15,616
Most Online2,082
Jan 22nd, 2020
Top Posters
Ken.C 18,044
pmbuko 16,441
SirQuack 13,840
CV 12,077
MarkSJohnson 11,458
Who's Online Now
0 members (), 565 guests, and 1 robot.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newsletter Signup
Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.4