Did i just fry my amplifier?

[talnlnky]

Originally Posted by bzinn 1

Also these steps are also a bit limited to the quality of equipment,for instance not all decks clip at 80%,have seen some that can go to like 95% of the volume before they clip.

Seen subs clip at differant levels as well,mostly seen subs under powered and over powered.....I try to run them in the RMS the manufacture recomends......so say you have a 1000w sub and the RMS is 600,I try them powered at 600w and see how they sound and then try a bit more power,you can push it a bit but will hear when it starts to clip.

Subs don't clip.... only equipment that can modify/amplify signal clip. So... deck, amps, signal processors or anything with a line driver in it.

What you are hearing from that sub is most likely just normal distortion caused by loss of motor force as the voice coil gets too far away from the magnetic flux. That is actually the cause of about 60% of distortion in most speakers. The only fix is to use a linear motor design... and I must say, Linear motors are awesome.

The closest thing clipping that a sub could have would be it "bottoming out" which is when the voice coil/cone moves so much, that when it moves backwards, the voice coil former slams against the steel backplate. The instant you hear this done you will know what it is, because it sounds like metal hitting. It's unfortunately a fairly quick way to kill a sub. By the time you've gotten to this point, the voice coil has long been out of the magnetic flux as described in the previous paragraph. Usually you only get bottoming out when using a sub with a very loose suspension, or playing tones below tuning on a ported box.

I had a friend kill a sub in about 3 seconds during a SPL comp because he didn't listen to me when I said to keep the volume below 33clicks and the frequency between 33hz & 40hz. He tried playing 45hz with two more clicks and BAM... sub bottomed out, and he got third instead of possibly getting a chance at quadrupling power and playing at tuning frequency on the next run, which might have gotten him first or second place. It would've been a lot of fun to choke those two lil 8's with 1600rms like I was planing on doing. I think they would've taken it long enough for the SPL meter to register... and At port tuning subs move the least amount, so we might have been fine from bottoming out too.

[talnlnky]

Originally Posted by sqcomp

...and some can go full tilt without clipping...I'm smiling nice and wide on that one.

The issue I have with not looking at a wave is that you can actually see the plateau start to happen on the scope BEFORE the Voltage peaks. I'll have to double check the Taln method while looking at a scope. I'll report any variances, oddities, or whatever might come up that is notable.

I'll do this when I dial in the last 2.9.

O-Scope is better, DMM isn't as exact, but DMM will get you close, that's why you dial back a few clicks when you find the clipping point. Problem is, most people have access to a DMM, but not a scope. You can buy cheap DMM's for like $10.