I've been an audio engineer for about 18 years now. I think about the physics of sound everyday. Recently got back into car audio and see a bunch of RU-vid channels talking about clipping amplifiers. Something always felt off with how people describe it. This is the first guy to actually explain it the way it should happen that I've seen. Thank you for cutting through the bullshit!
Okay.. You cuss frequently, talk shit about people going to school and repeating what they've read but don't understand, you explain shit like a normal ass person and I fucking love it. Then you said you're about 3 days over and I about choked on my drink 😂 you're my fucking spirit animal sir ✊️
Dude this is the funniest fucking video ever while at the same time being super informative and answering every single question I had...props to you man, please keep these kinds of videos going with all sorts of audio topics!!! The world needs more of this!!! Props brother 👏
Bro thank you for this video. I needed more questions answered after this but learned more than I ever thought I knew. And your lesson on square waves and resolving them is exceptional
This is great! I really like the explanation of the square wave and the joules that is being absorbed/generated. This really clears up some misconceptions! I did already know that a clipped signal can create more heat on a coil, and NOW I know why. Now I am gonna have to check out some more of your videos!
Another old-school trick is someone can use a tweeter in circuit, with the subwoofer and the amplifier to the detect clipping. The tweeter will start chirping as soon as the clipping starts !
@@kevinlechner7722 they usually use a piezo that has a high pass inherent in its design. But for a regular tweeter you need a high pass crossover or a low value capacitor, otherwise the bass signal will burn it up quickly.
Well said and hertz makes a huge difference for the time it spends in any position under high load. Stop a coil inside the motor under high load and it will be torched as well. Don't hesitate to correct me if I'm wrong.
I just watched your video again because you are a straight forward person and you don't sugar coat anything when you said leaving the gap pretty much not setting your subsonic filter properly that causes too much excursion which means it leaves the gap and like you said when you turn the volume up to much the head unit is clipping your amplifier so everything plays a big role i keep my head unit at a low volume and my subwoofers are lukewarm even when it is over 100 degrees
You can set the subsonic in certain applications. Remember that the subsonic / infrasonic filter was created for only two applications. 1st the rumble of vinyl records being slightly warped and playing on the turn-table. 2nd as a high pass filter to prevent the amplifier from going into DC-offset when playing really low frequencies. Many amps already add this to an amplifier, especially in Class D amps. Otherwise though, you don't need it, just turn it down or off and use the amp / system normally.
A speaker motor is a permanent magnet motor. The relationship between current flow in the coil and excursion is a complicated one. Exceeding the VC thermal ability for long is going to cook it. Just as if you lock the rotor on an electric motor causing the current to increase way over running amps and causing smoke if no overcurrent protection and/or thermal protection is present, the same can happen to a speaker. In a ported box at the tuned frequency the excursion is very low and this causes impedance to drop and power from the amp to increase. Increasing the amplitude higher exacerbates this characteristic until the coil burns out. Feeding a ported system frequencies well below the tuning frequency causes the drivers to unload and excursion to increase to xmax and eventually xmech if you're unlucky and that familiar clacking noise of the former colliding with the back plate if the design allows it. Some are just overbuilt to prevent (bottoming) but if really pushed can actually remove the former from the cone and spider altogether. Shorting rings are another way to keep it from leaving the gap too far. But an experienced operator and gain level engineer should never let this happen. Or be prepared to pay high re cone bills!
I am completely new to this so I know very very very little, you sir made it so easy and enjoyable to get this. Please don’t change. Only question I have is, if it has been smelling like it’s burning for about 10 days after installing it (second hand and a decently strong smell), how fucked is it? Alpine s series 12” powered by 500w alpine monoblock if that helps at all
He teaches and makes me laugh at the the same time. I have a old lanzar opti 1233d has a cracked basket on top (rim) and definitely needs to be reconed. So if reconed will it play the same way or have the same fs
Have you heard of those Peerless by Tymphany subwoofers with the large voice coils that can go in a really small enclosure? If so what do you think about them.
If i understand you correctly you are asking what would the pros and cons would be. Pro is the small enclosure and con would be the point robot underground made is cost. You could probably do the same kind of salad for less
EMF Audio Shawn didn't explain this half as good as you did now I understand when the coil is out of the gap it doesn't disperse heat as good as if it where in the gap causing the coil too heat up rapidly,much faster than it can cool itself.
Then a subwoofer can handle more power at higher frequencies? Above 50hz (80-100) because at that range the Xmax is very low. Can i add a couple of db at that range using eq? Without burning my sub
So if all coils are good up to 500 degrees Fahrenheit, how hot can I let my coils get (checking with a laser thermometer) before having to stop playing them? My coils get pretty stinky around the 300° mark. I was trying to keep them under 200° when demoing at the Ruckus show but it was the first day I was playing with the digital laser thermometer. 4" flat wound 8 layer dual .7 coils on a clamped 3050 watts with extremely minimal clipping according to the clip light. Good vid! 😁👍
@@RobotUnderground Cool I appreciate it. They were stinky for about 7 hours each day two days in a row lol. If I turned it down I wouldn't have been able to demo at all. Gave out over 30 hard 160+ db demos that weekend. If I blow one I'll recone. 😁👍
Quick question I have a kicker solobaric 4ohm wired to 2ohm. Don't have a car amp yet so I brought it in hooked it to a vintage marantz home system the sub is making a popping cracking sound while playing like could be blown. I ohmed the coils 3.4 for each side so that's good when I push on the sub no rubbing feel. Can this be because my home stereo is not same ohm rating? Unsure if I should junk it.
yes! Try it yourself. You can clip the input of the amp, the output of the amp and as long as it's a low level, you can do it all day long. NIN sometimes has clipped signals in their music and it's fine as an example.
Idk man i push 3k rms all day to a hcca 154 and i only dump lows 16hz-31hz all day long so that coil jumps out that gap all day long and never gets hot
Excellent explanation. I appreciate your honesty. Would love to do business with you. Thank you for your time and effort. Kevin from Jersey. Keep it up.
I enjoyed the vid and you help clear some distortion from mixed information, what you just demonstrated made complete cents to me, i played my woofers hard and just when i reached the desired vol i smell them coils, i thought my amplifiers were faulty, cause i had two Solar 1500d mono blocks on two 12" XTC Audio flavours 6000w d4s, noticed the one woofer started pulling in at full volume, now i no what was happening, i was pushing them beyond mechanical limits over heating the coils with a slot port box prob out of it's parameters, now i no y 4th orders are so popular thank you!
No, just get welding wire which is about the same price. You have to ask yourself though, do you have that much alternator power to justify copper? Right now CCA is on sale everywhere for super cheap and is good to 300A for a 25' run. Here's a DS18 "copper" 50' roll I found for under $100 - amzn.to/3nwV9br Typically if you look at industrial wires, they'll be slightly more expensive but VERY good quality and real copper by law. I found this wire that's tinned copper which is the best. However it may be stiff to work with. Here's 50' in red for $160 and it's real copper. amzn.to/3kT4etu If you think CCA is fine. I've seen a leak of Metra 0ga Vice series for like $45 per 20 or 25' roll. I found this by AVLeaderz which I buy those Ignite amps from. www.avleaderz.com/products/cw0-25r
Hey Cecil. My name is Patrick Chandler. The organization is named Robot Underground. Some designs know that their subs are going to be abused and constrict the air flow within the gap. Scott / Fi did this first with the RE Audio MT back in the 2000's. By not venting the motor, you do gain some thermal mass. You also force the air in and out of the gap in a violent / turbulent way. It's not a quiet process. But if you're getting loud like in an SPL vehicle, mechanical noise of the subwoofer isn't an issue. It's just another way to do things. Is it better?? Scott seems to think so.
It doesn't matter. Always use common sense. When you smell them, turn them down. You can get an idea of ampacity by how strong or big the magnet and coil are but you won't know the truth until you use it. Ambient temp, enclosure type and size relative to the Vas are all important factors. Here's a few white papers published by Dan Wiggins, founder of Adire Audio. web.archive.org/web/20041212012348/www.adireaudio.com/TextPages/TechReportsPageFrameText.htm
Does high damping factor on a amp help with this problem ? How accurate to manufacturers rate damping ? I have a old PPI PC2350 claims it's 500 factor. I really need to get this amp fixed and going again. When I had 2 of these and wasn't in the dbdragracing lanes. I would run one to my door speakers at 1/4 gain no problems. NOT THE MOST POWERFUL AMP COMPARED TO TODAY AMPS. But it made 4 cheap efficient 15s hit 155db all day long in my daily driver never a problem. ( most people don't believe me when I tell them I was running 90 watts door speakers) I USED EARS TO SET EVERYTHING) I sat in a lot of manufacturers demo vehicles tuned with computers back in the day and didn't like how any of them sounded while the factor rep would be bragging about how flat its tuned and all the computer shit they used. LOL
Ears are all ive ever used to tune with.Buying a distortion detector to me doesnt make sense either doesnt the system voltage change all that when your powering subs? But honestly i beat the shit out of my w7 12s only problem this time was breaking my first attempted sewn in tensil leads but im gonna rebuild harvest the coils that are in great shape maybe 4 months of play tine and try using 2 sets of skyhigh 14 gauge ofc with heat shrink around those and give them that oem form fit connection i am gonna sell tho but like your vids bro!
That is FALSE NEWS as FB says. I've discussed this several times. You can put a stiffer suspension on it and technically, YES, you get more power handling... but at what cost? The cost is that the sub cannot play as low as it did before.
Word up!! Shoot man I love learning. Ya I haven’t blown or fried a sub since I got my Koves that were used but all subs I got new I still have or traded in. I’ve always set my stuff by ear cause 1 I’m cheap 2 it makes sense to me. A refrigerated enclosure??
Have you seen people that are heating water by rotating neodymium magnets along a section of copper pipe, so what this told me is that if the coil was not energized just the movement itself would heat up the coil so in a speaker you could be dealing with two sources of heat? Of course the heat from the applied voltage as well as this heat that is created as a result of the coil reciprocating through the field. This kind of hit me as I was watching your video..... Just finished the last 2 minutes of your video and believe what you were explaining is the same thing I'm talking about by the coil being out of the gap or they are at least related anyway. Great video now come to the conclusion that there are two main causes of heat in the voice coil and more math then I would ever want to do figure it out, but like you said visualizing is key become one with the coil!!!
Awesome video but there’s a misconception when “ turning your gain to clipping then turning your volume down “. If your volume is down, your amp input voltage/signal drops enabling you to turn your gain up without clipping. So you’re most likely not clipping if you have your volume down and gain up. The reason why people kill their voice coils is when they’re gain AND volume is up
The time out of the gap is directly related to how clipped the signal is. Music is NEVER A SINE WAVE. But even the worst clipped signal isnt a square wave.
How can I get u to repair my sub it’s not burned out or anything still plays but I’ve smelled a few times now and sounds like you’re the man for the job
@@tyronedixon7404 I understand your thinking but you want that coating, (enamel), as thin as possible to transfer the heat. The epoxy would hold it together more but it'd collect more heat, sooner.
6:05 Copper Definitely Conducts Heat Alot Better. If You Ever Tried Drilling Copper Buss Bars Or Copper Lug Holes To Widen Your Hole For A Larger Stud... The The Whole Thing Gets Hot Instantly / Evenly. Aluminum Doesn't Seem To Wick Heat / Transfer It As Fast. That's Why High End Heat Sinks Are Copper And Cheaper Ones Are Aluminum. I Believe Silver Is The Most Electrically And Thermally Conductive Metal, Impractical Due To Cost. Gold Is Below Copper And Above Aluminum I Think. I Did Some Searching And Aluminum Is Technically The Most Current Carrying Material For It's Weight. BUT The Volume Of Aluminum Cable Is Silly. Say You Got 2 Cables Both 10Ft Long And Need To Carry 200 Amps. The Aluminum Cable Will Be Lighter But Will Be Physically Larger And Substantially Larger Then The Copper Cable.
@@RobotUnderground thanks man, it seems like it might be worth something but I don't know that much, I'm just trying to learn more. If you do happen to experiment with one and find out something good or bad, I would really appreciate your opinion. Thanks once again Curtis Stratton
@@RobotUnderground I just got a blown job and want to experiment with it and wanted a little bit of a professional opinion on if it would be worth the time and effort to mess with it. I do watch ur videos, I'm just a hard learner and I learn most of the stuff I know the hard way and don't want to waste money if it is just junk lol. Thanks again.
I have a sundown zv6 15 on a skar Rp 4500.1 wired to 1 ohm and I play it full tilt every where I go and I would smell it well I would turn it down then get back to it well here recently I’ve just been playing it through the smell just to see if it’s still gonna play and last and it has but it’s a awful smell to me it smells like strong cow manure but then I go look at the coil to check it Bc I have it inverted and the coil looks new still so I’m super confused if I’m fucking it up or it just does that lol I’ve got my gain set all the way down so I know I’m not burning it up that way and I also have big 3 and a xs power 40ah lithium yinlong battery it’s a 8layer black coated flat wound coil on the zv6 so any advise or thought from any one would be appreciated
If you smell it, you're clipping / running it too hard. I'd recommend something like the TEAM 18" as an upgrade. We make something like that called the GONZO 7k for only $950 shipped. The 18" will fit in the box that you have now. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-s1BV5Ov15Zk.html
@@justinturner1840 Similar products used to be offered direct from the brand at a reasonable price until dumb JP & Sky High stepped in. www.resilientsounds.com/product-page/resilient-sounds-team-18-d1
Hey guys, i just bought a DD 712f (1500 rms) and powering with T1500bdcp. I tuned amp to clipping at volume 30. But my dumbass installed the sub (in spec box) and immediately turned it to volume 32 with a bass heavy song for about 5 seconds. Coil started smelling (but not really bad like a blown sub, just enough for me to notice it’s getting hot), so I turn the volume down slowly and let it cool. So basically I over powered sub (because Rockfords are underrated) with dirty clipped power. But I’ve been playing it below volume 30 for a few days now and it seems perfectly fine. Should I worry that i lessened the subwoofers life? Or was it the glue on coil “breaking in”? Thanks you guys
Awesome video but there’s a misconception when “ turning your gain to clipping then turning your volume down “. If your volume is down l, your amp input voltage/signal drops enabling you to turn your gain up without clipping. So you’re most likely not clipping if you have your volume down and gain up
Think of the gain and volume knob as a relationship like a seesaw. It doesn't matter how much the other person weighs, you always want it balanced. Depending on where each person sits can determine whether it's balanced or not.
Ive heard copper coils lean to "SQ". They are literally heavier because copper is heavier, but more electricaly efficient. But they dont dissipate heat as well. Aluminum windings are less efficient but lighter and dissipate heat better. Leans to "SPl" or competing.
The electrical properties don't matter in this application. The weight is what really comes into play. Yes, heavier = SQ, meaning it plays lower. The lighter and stiffer the suspension yields better numbers in power and efficiency but at the cost of being able to play low = SPL applications that give you higher scores but SOUND LIKE SHIT.
@@RobotUnderground SPL one note wonders are not my cup of tea either. But the physics involved in it i can get down with. Getting a good spl score on music is neet, but, just not that critical in my world as well.
@@RobotUnderground wow after reading how simple that was for dude when he had a damaged subwoofer, I'm subscribing. Might as well prepare for when my subs die right now, make friends and figure out how we gonna fix em when they go 😅 Edit: not to mention the clear thorough and applicable information available on your channel
@@brick2077 SoundQubed changed their frame styles over the years. I want to make sure I have the same frame here. So send me a nice side pic of the frame on the motor. 6023126504
That means in a small enclosure, the rms increase by how much? What about the drivers that work in a very smal enclosure too, that means that a 1k sub will work as a 2k? Because will never reach max xmax at rated power
Really liked this video I always wondered why my skar heated up I did just build a 10 inch subwoofer sub it's rated 220 watt but I put 100w to it and it takes excursion all day: also a question can I use a 220w mini amp on my skar sdr 12 600w if I wire it right or should I not do it I also don't use my gain for volume love it keep up the great info vids
I'm a high level network engineer for the worlds largest IT solutions provider with no college and when I am hiring for my teams, I take experience over education, and if ever asked why, I have one simple statement. If everything worked like it says in the books then I wouldn't have a fucking job. When contacted for a contract and asked about education my response is none, if they can't work out how I have nearly 2 decades Sr. Level experience and am now consulting their CTO, which makes all that shit irrelevant, then I don't want to do any business with them. It's like hiring the best plane designer then asking how he did in high school math. It's a level of stupidity that I personally opt out of, and I wish everyone else was in a position to do the same.
ill be honest, i have a jensen amp that is rated for 1200 watts and I doubt it ever hits that, but I've also got 2 12 inch jensen subs and I'm 90% sure that I've almost cooked them a couple times but they keep taking all I can throw at them so I just abuse the shit out of them and its great, I plan on upgrading one day so for now its loud as hell and fun.
Has anyone ever built a box with a pvc pipe going in to it. Maybe seal it to the hole in the back of the magnet and blow cool air in to the core of the driver while under high power, max excursion bass. I wonder if the air would stop moving through the cooler at certain frequencies and power levels.
Im glad you didnt release this video a month or so ago Running in my DD AUDIO 818D (4"VC) and after 5 mins of half decent clean power the coil started to smell Thankfully it was just the shit and excess burning off the coil, now I can throw well over rated at it for 20mins and it's all good
The more load on the speaker, the lower the impedance goes. When it is free to move, the higher the impedance and also the better the cooling through the vented pole piece. So holding a speaker still while dumping a long sine wave into it near its limits its likely to burn it up. Whilst you wouldn't normally hold them still with your hand, tuning frequencies of boxes can do that. Leaving the coil gap reduces your mechanical reactance, so again more heat. (Not sure of cooling effect of proximity to steel magnet vs just air.)
@@RobotUnderground the leaving the gap thing is bad in 3 ways. 1: You start to need more power relative to SPL 2: You lose mechanical reactance (the back EMF when converting electricity to kinetic energy) thus lowering the impedance. This also happens with DC and stall mode. All the energy gets turned into heat! 3: You lose the proximity to cold steel to absorb voice coil heat (though perhaps having more air circulating can compensate for this). I watched many speaker blow videos and it did seem like it was easier to blow the speaker coil on the same settings once it had left the gap completely. About square waves: an electrical square wave will not cause the cone to move in a "square" pattern (unless it is a very low frequency like 1 Hz), though it will still contain more energy than a sine wave with the same peak. The current determines the acceleration of the cone, and to get the cone to move in a "square" pattern needs very high current spikes in opposite directions. You will get more of a "dirty" sine wave with a square electrical signal, and the cone will have more excursion than the same peak voltage sine wave, so you won't be left with inadequate pole piece cooling. Everything is program dependent. Some rap/dubstep bass tester will heat your subs more than a rock track driven to clipping, as it's still only kicks and bass guitar and a bit of tom and lower vocal going through the sub.
@@TimpBizkit As I talk about in the video, a square wave is harmless until the total voltage exceeds the force of the motor. You can play a really clipped wave all day long. In fact, in some music, there is distortion built into the music, (NIN for example). It's only when the output of the amp saturates the motor that you run into problems. Thank you for your response.
@@RyanBassForLife The glue is there to hold the whole damn thing together. There's no such thing as HEAT TREATMENT for coils. The glue and all the other adhesives simply get hot and then fail at 500F and above.
Fantastic explanation. I have had subs that smelled. But those Rockvilles were waaayyy overrated. My A.P. subs haven't smelled yet. I pound on em frequently too. Love watching your videos explaining how things work. Keep goin dude. Punch that baby!!
Well that's the thing, it really doesn't matter what a sub is rated for if you just use common sense. The subs will always let you know when they've had too much of a good time.
I would say that they have a loss of resonance. They are with a jitter.. Is super fine.. It's a jitter and hesitation... The power over and smashed in limits of performace in amp, sub or and more heat and bye bye combined with outside or inside. Distorted signal is a lost signal basically. It's missing sensitive information that keeps you on the road. Joke I speaker can't go sideways... Oh that definitely has resistance in the stroke. Pushing when should be pulling. Some people say no way because they don't realize how fast or small it is as it's a matter of time and space. Have a ramp up and ramp down square wave... That should be fun too. lol.
I had two wolfram old 12s which were 2500w rms each on a banda 15k and guess what i didnt smell them. Fuckers moved so much and were pushed so hard they just died after awhile but they never really smelled
Wheres "Shield" with those new vibranium coils. And thanks pat for that epic real life hands on knowledge. Im in RF and i allways tell people. Numbers a good way to start but trial and error is what gets shit working properly.
I would argue that if you could build a cone/suspension light and soft enough to reach x-mech on 200W that you could play that woofer with the coil traveling outside the gap all day long without failure either. The important bit here is that coils burn from putting heat into them faster than it can dissipate and if it stinks you're overpowering it and need to turn that shit down. Try to tell people this and they look at you like you have three balls.
At 9:25 you're saying: max the gain, but turn the volume (head unit) way down. Isn't that the just the opposite of turning the gain down and max head unit/sorce volume? If I max gain, but turn down the volum, the amp won't reach max/clip? (I know next to jack shitt about this, and are trying to understand)
