Low power amps and speaker damage?

I’ve seen my share of fused voice coils on all manner of drivers, from el cheapo to Wilson Audio, and the culprit is almost always the same...inebriation, ignorance, and raging hormones.  Technically, it’s clipping that does it, as stated very clearly by many above.  But it’s not understanding the consequences of distortion and being dulled to the awareness of it occurring that is the human cause.  Hormones?  That’s when you want your HiFi to perform like a nightclub sound system to impress the dancing crowd.  In the AM...no tweets!

If you’re listening at levels that result in clipping, you should be worried about damaging your ears not your speakers.

J.Chip

J.Chip: well said!

Solid state amps, if underpowered, will generate large amounts of higher ordered harmonics when overloaded, which the crossover cannot keep out of the tweeter. So the tweeter fails as its only able to handle a few watts.

Tube amps generate less higher ordered harmonic content as they overload, so its much harder for them to damage a tweeter doing this since you get plenty of warning that the amp is being overdriven.

Watts are only a fraction of an amps power rating and the impact it will have on your speakers. I can show you a high current amp that puts out 2 watts and will destroy a lot of speakers. People get way to focused on watts in the power game. Like i have said many times before. It is like an engine with rating of horse power and torque. You can have a 500 horsepower car that could not pull a trailer, and then you could have an engine with 25 horsepower but 2000 feet pounds of torque that can pull a tree stump out of the ground. Point is there is way more to the formula and you have to look at the big picture. The world revolves around marketing and watts per channel is heavily marketed to the masses. Not meaningless but only small part of the big picture.