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Still confused about clipping after reading all the articles.

From what I read, I understand what’s happening when the amp is clipping and the subsequent square wave form that could cause heat issues for voice coils. What I don’t understand is why would an amp allow itself to consume more power than it could handle in the first place.

1. More specifically, in the integrated amp scenario (amp with a volume control), let’s say you’re using a max power 80w integrated amp to drive a 87db@1w@1m speaker, if you turn up the volume on that amp, would it just max out at roughly the speaker playing 105db and it would not go louder - how could clipping happen then? Meaning the integrated amp should not throw a signal at itself stronger than it could handle?

2. For stand alone amp, I get that the input signal is not really under control of the amp and is more or less fed by the preamp so clipping could happen when the pre-amp is throwing big signals, but why wouldn’t the amp try to reject the signal the moment it senses clipping to protect the speaker?

3. Another related confusion is, how is it possible that sometimes I see powered active speakers blown because it’s trying to play too loud? Would it be true that the amp in those active speaker should always be designed to operate within the limit of its power handling? Could active speakers (say your Macbook speaker or iPhone speaker) enter clipping? I’ve never seen blown MacBook speakers even though people play at max volume all the time.

4. Could the source material itself be encoded to cause clipping? Let’s say a malicious sound mixer create a song with super quite music to force listener to turn the volume all the way up, but then there is a sudden loud noise encoded, would this push the amp into clipping?

5. Lastly, let’s say a speaker can handle 150w of power, and the speaker amp can output a maximum of 150w of power, even if the amp clips, does it mean it won’t damage the speaker? Could amp that’s rated at 150w per channel deliver much more than 150w in transient?

I might completely misunderstand some concepts here. But want to get some clarity.

bwang29

Showing 1 response by kijanki

kijanki's avatar
kijanki
4,394 posts
 
Even if amplifier can deliver to speaker peak voltage equivalent to rated peak power only (no headroom) overdriving amplifier still delivers more power to speaker. It is because signal that resembled sinewave (Pavg = 0.5Ppeak) is changing to square wave (Pavg=Ppeak). Heat dissipated in speaker coil is equal to this average power (Pavg). In addition tweeters are not designed to handle huge power (small size), because there is no need for that, since high frequencies carry very little energy. Square wave of overdriven output has big high frequency energy (harmonic content) and is likely to overheat tweeter. Tweeter is the one that usually fails first. Many amps provide "Soft clipping". NAD was the one that I remember. Also some, if not all Icepower class D amps do that.
Yes, it is possible to created malicious recording, but you should be watching your gain settings (volume knob position) - otherwise you can play unknown music that appears to be very quiet, but then you get full symphony orchestra blast over the limit. It is also technically possible to create recording containing very high levels of 20kHz that might overheat any tweeter silently, but I wouldn’t expect the worst everywhere.
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