Is it possible to reduce the Watt levels?

snagrat

snagrat

snagrat

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Joined
18 Jun 2003
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188
Location
Wellington, Somerset
Hi.

I have just found out that the speakers I have supplied to many customers are lower watt than the amp itself. The amp is 50w and the speakers are 37.5w. The box said 75w which is why I put them in but this obviously ment combined.

Now I am finding that many of the speakers are distorting when turned up loud and some even trip out.

Is there anyway to reduce the watt level between the amp and the speaker so I can reduce the watt level reaching the speaker to about 30w?

Thanks
 
You could increase the impedance (large power resistor) of the speaker making it harder to drive but its not an ideal way of doing it. Either tell them to keep levels down or get new drivers in.
 
Reducing the volume will have the effect of not delivering over a given amount of power to the speakers. Bear in mind different sources can have different output levels.

If the speakers are distorting it'll be due to them "bottoming out", where the cone has run out of travel. This will affect mainly bass frequencies. If your hearing a more typical all round distortion sound (like a poor quality recording at a concert where the mic has been overdriven) then there must be some fault with the amp or a serious mismatch of impedance (or it's been turned up beyon clipping levels, not likely unless the amp has quite dishonest power rating). What part is tripping out? Are these speakers fused (or a safety lamp)? Or is the amp overheating/cutting out for other reasons?
 
In terms of perceived volume the difference between 37.5 Watts and 50 Watts isn't that great. Unless the speakers were horribly inefficient then even a few watts in a normal sized room can be very loud.

If it's "tripping out" at high volumes but works again after a while I'd also suspect a thermal cut-out in the amp, which suggests it might be the amp that's running out of steam at high volumes. This could be because it's not really a 50W per channel amp or as above that the speakers are inefficient and don't make much noise per Watt.

Even if you had speakers with a higher rated power handling than the amplifier it is still possible to damage the speakers if the amp goes into clipping - it starts kicking out lots of energy at high frequencies which tweeters don't like.

p.s. we are talking real watts (RMS) here, and not "peak music power", aren't we?
 
Its quite likely that the distortion is from the amp rather than the speakers, do you have evidence that the speakers are actually a "75w pair", That would be exceedingly uncommon on good speakers home or club type speakers, even most cheap car speakers are rated "per speaker"

Are they complete speaker systems, or are you talking about drivers in some kinda home made cabinet, or car speakers etc. Many car speakers will distort at much lower power levels than they are rated at, if they are fitted in poorly designed speaker pods. Many speakers are designed so that there is resistance on the cone, from sealed/ported boxes, or well designed speaker pods (in a car). Infact the good car speakers have to be very robust to play loud, deep and distortion free, as many speaker pods are hopelessly designed.
 
Buy a limiter and multimeter. Something like a DCX2496 has the ability to stop sounds above certain levels, so your speakers wont melt the voicecoil no matter how far you crank the volume. :)

Some speakers have a 600W rms rating, but there is little point in putting more than 300W thru them due to thermal compression...
 
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