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Any risks running large speakers with a relatively small receiver?

mcgannahan

mcgannahan

New Member
Hey everyone,

I have a Marantz 2220b receiver (20 wpc) combined with a big ol' pair of Fisher XP-9Cs (power handling 60w). Am I running any risks here of overworking my Marantz? Volume rarely ever goes past 11 o'clock and sounds fine to my ears. Just want to make sure I'm not putting undue stress on anything.
 
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no risk due to the nominal power rating difference

Any receiver should have unobstructed air space on all six sides for convection cooling to work as intended. Don't set it on carpet or a towel. Best to have nothing on top, but if you must, make sure there is always air space above the top vents of the receiver.
 
roger2 said:
no risk due to the nominal power rating difference

Any receiver should have unobstructed air space on all six sides for convection cooling to work as intended. Don't set it on carpet or a towel. Best to have nothing on top, but if you must, make sure there is always air space above the top vents of the receiver.
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Cool, thanks for the response. And yes, I always make sure there's plenty of space around the receiver.
 
mcgannahan said:
Hey everyone,

I have a Marantz 2220b receiver (20 wpc) combined with a big ol' pair of Fisher XP-9Cs (power handling 60w). Am I running any risks here of overworking my Marantz? Volume rarely ever goes past 11 o'clock and sounds fine to my ears. Just want to make sure I'm not putting undue stress on anything.
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:rflmao:No worries about your receiver.. the speakers are being tickled by it :dunno:
 
whoaru99 said:
Never turn the volume knob past the point something doesn't sound quite right. That is the best way to avoid a problem, not by any specific point of the knob.
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^^ this^^ Pushing a low lower watt amp into clipping, that distorted sound when it's turned up to high, can damage the speakers, even if they are rated for more than the amp is rated for. Speakers don't like DC current. ;)
 
As stated above, AVOID CLIPPING.

The risks of damaging a speaker by pushing a low powered amplifier past it's limits into "clipping" are far greater than overpowering a speaker with "too large" of an amplifier.

You can more likely to damage a pair of speakers rated at 100 watts with a 10 watt amplifier driven to clipping than you will damage a 10 watt speaker with a 100 watt amplifier.

Clipping is when the amplifier reaches the point where the signal waveform has the top an bottom portion of the wave cut off or "clipped". Imagine looking at a signal on an oscilloscope, where the waveform rises, crests then falls away in a nice, smooth arc. Clipping is where the top and bottom of that are are flattened because the amplifier can not deliver the energy required to keep the arc smooth.
 
Indeed. Clipping produces high frequency energy that can damage your tweeters. Been there...
 
PE9ZZ said:
Indeed. Clipping produces high frequency energy that can damage your tweeters. Been there...
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Clipping IS NOT high frequency energy.

The clipped portion at the top and bottom of the sine wave represent DC voltage, that's what kills speakers.

If you have ever used a battery to test for polarity on a speaker you will notice the cone moves either in or out depending on the orientation of the battery relative to the speaker terminals. You will also notice that the speaker cone does not fluctuate, it stays locked in or out and starts to build up heat. It's this heat that can cause the micro thin wire of a voice coil to open ruining a speaker. Tweeters are more easily damaged as their voice coils are much smaller than that of a midrange or woofer and they can't dissipate the heat as effectively.

Too little power is not good for speakers, too much power.......is there such a thing ?

The OP should be okay as long as he maintains control of the volume knob. Turn it down when turning it up doesn't make things any louder.
 
wmgwizard said:
Clipping IS NOT high frequency energy.
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A perfectly square waveform contains all frequencies from DC to daylight. One quick way to test the bandwidth of a device is to feed it a square wave and see what you get out. Rolled-off high frequencies are revealed by the corners of the square wave being rounded. Rolled-off low frequencies are revealed by the top and bottom of the square wave being slanted rather than horizontal.
Anyway, the point is that a 1kHz square wave actually contains much higher frequencies than 1kHz. A clipped waveform (which is square) therefore contains high frequencies generated by the distortion which weren't there before. That's why distorted electric guitars sound the way they do - they have extra high frequency harmonics generated by distortion.
So, yes, clipping is high frequency energy, or at least contains high frequency energy that wouldn't be there otherwise.
 
wmgwizard said:
Clipping IS NOT high frequency energy
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Tell that to my tweeters. DC energy won't get into them because of the high-pass nature of the filter inside the speaker. But they spat fire when they blew up while my amp was clipping. Granted, it was an 80 W amp and my tweeters only could handle 5 W but still. Even a 20 W amp like the one from TS can produce enough energy while clipping to destroy a tweeter like that.

I now have a subwoofer and new tweeters with an incandescent bulb in series with them. Problem solved.
 
LOL. The OP's question was already answered in the very first response but now we have to go into a discussion about clipping. LOL. Isn't it enought to just say "don't push things too far" and be done with it?
 
That Marantz will fall apart on top before it does the bottom. You will know when it does. Very annoying.
If it were the bottom first it would just sound soft and bassy while going unnoticed as it burns up.
It will sound bad before it does any damage. Turn it down when it sounds bad.
 
mcgannahan said:
Hey everyone,

I have a Marantz 2220b receiver (20 wpc) combined with a big ol' pair of Fisher XP-9Cs (power handling 60w). Am I running any risks here of overworking my Marantz? Volume rarely ever goes past 11 o'clock and sounds fine to my ears. Just want to make sure I'm not putting undue stress on anything.
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the receiver puts out 'x' watts. thats all it can do. as long as the impedance is not too low...it will work. BUT, if the efficiency is low then you might tend to give more volume to get the dbs you want....so just understand that and live happily ever after
 
PE9ZZ said:
Tell that to my tweeters. DC energy won't get into them because of the high-pass nature of the filter inside the speaker. But they spat fire when they blew up while my amp was clipping. Granted, it was an 80 W amp and my tweeters only could handle 5 W but still. Even a 20 W amp like the one from TS can produce enough energy while clipping to destroy a tweeter like that.

I now have a subwoofer and new tweeters with an incandescent bulb in series with them. Problem solved.
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welllllllllllllllll....the crossover attenuates ac frequencies, dc is not an ac frequency, but the dc is presented at ac frequency intervals...the dc will get thru. you can measure this easily. but its sort of a 'test to destruction' endeavour....
 
Electronics 101. DC gets blocked by a high pass filter. Pulsing DC (the kind produced by clipping) is AC. BTW- there is no such thing as an "AC frequency". AC has by its very definition a frequency. Always. The frequency with which it alternates. If your amp rails due to a blown output transistor (and failing protection) your woofer is the one burning out, not the tweeter.
 
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