Home Speaker Asylum

General speaker questions for audio and home theater.

RE: Am I understanding speaker power ratings correctly?

Clipping damaging loudspeaker drivers is NOT a myth.

When an amplifier is clipping, the driver 'sees' a DC current which freezes the driver leading it to overheat the voice coil which usually deforms it into an out of round formation.
The voice coil now will rub inside the gap causing loss of output, distortions and a buzzing sound.
This phenomena is most common with woofers and mid drivers. Tweeters on the other hand usually severe in the coil itself, usually near the beginning of the windings when over-driven or fed too much dirty musical information.

Generally speaking a loudspeaker can withstand peaks of twice their RMS rating or more as long as the power is clean and the amplifiers are not clipping.
The short answer for your question is I believe you are safe with your amp/loudspeaker match as long as you exhibit common sense.
Loudspeakers usually warn you before they fail with gross distortions in sound reproduction.

Cheers.


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