#881712 - 01/06/01 03:38 AM
Speaker Warm Up Time & Playing Mp3's a threat?
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skippy@eznet.net
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Registered: 01/01/01
Posts: 9
Loc: Rochester,NY,UNITED STATES
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2 questions for those who do a lot of equipment transportation and those who download MP3's.
1) What's the preferred method to "warm" up speakers before running them at full capacity? 5 minutes? 15 minutes at a low volume? what kind of music is suggested?
2) For those who download MP3's and convert/burn them onto CD's, although the sound quality isn't as exceptional as the actual CD you can buy at the store, will this cause any speaker damage of any sort?
reason for asking: of 2 of the last 4 gig's I've DJ'ed at, 2 separate speakers were blown. First one was a EV Eliminator running off a Crown Ce2000 amp. The low end driver blew out. (I THINK it was due to a electrical "pop" - sharing a circuit with other electronic items) and the high end of a dual 15" Peavy Cabinet burned out. (Again, I think it was the amp.. this was a Crown CE1000).
Could it be possible that MP3 music converted to wav files and put on CD have this sort of effect?
-Brian
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#881713 - 01/24/01 10:10 PM
Re: Speaker Warm Up Time & Playing Mp3's a threat?
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InsightPro
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Registered: 12/10/00
Posts: 101
Loc: Houma,LA,UNITED STATES
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Interesting question. I'm not sure if speakers are supposed to be warmed up or not, but normally before a show, I will play some music through my system at a low volume just to give everyone something to listen to. It shouldn't matter where the music is coming from, be it CD, CD-R, tape, or any other music source. Audio is audio, no matter where it is coming from. It's just that some of it sounds better than others.
If you think that you heard an electrical pop, that could be what caused your speakers to blow. Avoid turning off anything in your signal path with your amps turned on. If you need to turn something off or unplug something, turn the gain on your amps all the way down first. This could help stop the electrical pops from occuring. Hope this helps.
--Matt
_________________________
"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he'll spend all day in a boat drinking beer."
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#881714 - 02/01/01 04:50 PM
Re: Speaker Warm Up Time & Playing Mp3's a threat?
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MidiMagic
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Registered: 02/01/01
Posts: 17
Loc: Bloomington,IN,UNITED STATES
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There shouldn't be anything about a CD that can blow a speaker. But there are some other things that can:
1. A sudden transient on a signal line, like power line noise or a switching transient.
2. Clipping distortion in the amp.
3. Too much continuous power for the speaker to take - heat destroys the voice coil or loosens a winding.
4. Subsonics or DC passing through the coil can overheat it.
5. Improper crossover sends frequencies to a speaker that can't handle them.
6. A defective amplifier.
7. The wrong enclosure for the speaker can cause excessive cone excursion.
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#881715 - 02/13/01 07:02 PM
Re: Speaker Warm Up Time & Playing Mp3's a threat?
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brianrost
Senior Member
Registered: 02/01/01
Posts: 93
Loc: ,MA,UNITED STATES
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To protect low end drivers, use a steep high pass filter set near to the manufacturer's specified low frequency limit. Some amps have these built in (not Crown CE, though).
To protect high end drivers, don't let the amp clip. Use a peak limiter (again, some amps have these built in) and know the limits of your rig. You can safely use a power amp of double the rated wattage of the speakers IF you are careful. Otherwise, the amp should be equal to or slightly below the rating of the speakers.
If you use subsonic enhancement or compression to "pump up" the mix you need to be more conservative with how you drive the speakers than if you are playing the CDs as is.
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#881716 - 02/27/01 08:39 AM
Re: Speaker Warm Up Time & Playing Mp3's a threat?
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Hack
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Registered: 02/22/01
Posts: 41
Loc: Little Rock,AR,UNITED STATES
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Spekers are blown by square signals from distortion or clipping, same thing. The problem that people make is not having enough power. This causes you to run things to hot just to make the system loud. Red lights are bad...don't ignore them.
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