WARNING: Breaking These Rules Could Destroy Your Amplifier & Speakers!

Follow these three rules to avoid damaging your equipment! You'll learn about amplifier power, speaker power capacity, and how to match speakers and amplifiers.

0:00 - Introduction
0:07 - Rule #1
1:28 - Rule #2
3:40 - Rule #3

Book a one to one call:

#AudioUniversity

[StevePilgrim]

Solid advice. Now, if we could only get speaker and amp companies to give us data sheets along with marketing hype!

[AAAA-lthq]

5:20 Kyle made sure the volume knob goes to 11. The man knows his stuff. ❤

[AT-wlyq]

There's one point I think should have been mentioned in the video, and its fairly important. In pro audio, its very common to bridge stereo amps and use them as 1 channel. You need to be careful when you do this for a couple of reasons. Bridging a stereo amp doesn't make it a mono block. Its a bridged stereo amp, and there's a big difference between the 2. Any time you bridge a stereo amp, the amount of resistance the amp sees from the speaker is halved. So, if you have a speaker that's rated for 8 ohms and drops down to 4 ohms, the amp sees the exact same speaker as a 4ohm load that drops down to 2 ohms. This runs the amp much harder, and you're far more likely to damage the speaker from underpowering it.

Also, you really can't put too much trust in power amp ratings. There's no standard that manufacturers go by to rate an amps power. This leaves it up to each company to rate them however they see fit.

[OffshoreAudio]

Excellent video man. Your calm demeanour is exactly what I need when thinking about this stuff.

[joejoetherockdancer]

I will listen to this video several times, take notes 📝 and follow the instructions.. Additionally I have Subscribed to the Channel and will make ample time to continue with understanding your Audio University Message… I have Dasey chained a few high powered Cerwin Vega Speakers with lower Powered Amplifiers, example 3-4 speakers on one channel and the same on its second line. Now I have a total of 3 Crown Amplifiers that no longer give out any kind of wattage, although they turn out, I don’t even hear crickets 🦗… local audio stores are being honest and saying they will cost more money to fix then they are worth. I now have 100lbs of Amps that I bought brand new and only used in my Garage converted Studio.. I have no choice but to try and fix them on my own… Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us. If anyone that reads this message has one or two trouble shooting ideas I will welcome them. Best regards from NYC… Cheers 🥂

[nicoras]

You have an excellent teaching capability of relative complex things to audiophiles. Life would be great if everybody spoke the same language.

[Alumaks]

Very impressed with the depth of knowledge and ability to transfer that knowledge in a short time.

[dinorockwell]

Great forum! Clear, concise and professional. I would subscribe twice if I could.

[finscreenname]

QSC CX254 / 250 watts @ 4 OHMS for Infinity 200 watts (4ohm) speakers. You always want a little head room so you dont get into clipping with classic Infinity's. Just got to show a little restraint on the volume knob.

[kevinl]

I have a pair of B&W 804 3D3. They recommend a 50-200 watt amp and they mention nothing of continuous power. I used an Anthem STR 200 watt integrated amp and it sounded great. I switched to separates: Anthem STR preamp + 400 watt power amp. The difference is phenomenal. Definitely got extra headroom for the speakers and the dynamics are improved. At first I thought it was overkill but such is not the case. B&Ws are power pigs. The more watts you throw into them the happier they are, so long as you don’t crank it up to the level that they can’t handle.

[sangamowatt]

Finally someone that understands the power concept. keep in mind that match that goes into this- Peak, peak to peak, RMS powers-

[revstar]

Nice Video...but you could also run a amplifier with an equal power rating but put a limiter to ensure the signal doesnt go into clipping

[theberndog]

Also don't use skinny cables that can't handle the power or distance needed to run your PA. This is something many forget.

[danielesbordone]

I agree with double the RMS speaker power, but 4 times as much seems a bit excessive.

[jacobkuvaja]

I've noticed the wattage/speaker calculations for guitar v power amps are completely different. Bass guitarist here, I was thinking about using a power amp with a preamp as an alternative to a guitar specific amp, and the recommendation for guitar amp wattage is less than the wattage of your guitar speakers, and you are expected to be able to max out the volume of your amp without clipping. I don't know why, but nobody ever talks about headroom for guitar amps, but for power amps you're recommended to get the rms wattage of at least double the rms wattage of your speaker, but isn't the peak power rating the "headroom?" If not, then a power amp with 400 watts is basically equivalent to a 200 watt guitar amp because you arent supposed to push a PA to max, but you are for a guitar amp. I'm not criticizing anyone I'm just confused and looking for an answer, if anybody knows I would really appreciate it.

[GMZEntertainment]

I'd like to add some technical points here.

Speakers are usually not driven to their full capacity even at the same continuous (RMS) power from the Amps running at their full capacity (unclipped). That's because music signal amplitude has lots of ups and downs, unless you are playing a continuous, say 1KHz signal. Subwoofer tends to get more average power than mid and highs. So getting same continuous power speaker as your amps are usually wastage of money. Frequency response of audio amplifier are also not flat. Most amps are rated with their power @ 1KHz frequency, higher or lower than that and you tend to get lower or higher power at output. I'd always pick a Subwoofer rated 60-75% of the Sub Amp's max RMS power. But I'd go for 35-50% for the Mid and high speakers. 25% (4 Times) would be too risky, I'd never go to that lane.

[TimpBizkit]

Clipping, speakers and power handling explained:

Clipping is the limit of the amplifier not necessarily the speaker. The limit of the speaker could be greater or less than the limit of the amplifier.
In multi way speakers with passive crossovers, power handling is frequency band (and also music band - e.g. Slipknot or Michael Jackson, but that's a related topic on the loudness war and frequency spectrum of different songs) dependent.
The woofer(s) usually handle more power than the midrange and tweeter(s) (at very low frequencies - especially in a ported or horn cabinet, the woofer can flap around without much power which may damage it mechanically).
When you clip an amplifier, it adds harmonics to the music.
Your speaker can't tell if the amp is slightly clipping on music with a wide dynamic range, and this is unlikely to cause damage if the speaker is rated to handle the amplifier. However, playing compressed music and turning up 10, even 20 dB beyond the clip point (this sounds really bad, especially through horn loaded compression drivers!) introduces significant extra harmonics. This adds more power to the midrange and tweeter.

An amplifier that's too large pushed hard is more likely to stress the woofer, though could also stress the midrange and tweeter.
An amplifier that's smaller but pushed into heavy clipping on compressed music can stress the midrange and tweeter but the woofer will probably be fine.

Compressed music that's not clipping can put more stress on drivers than wide dynamic range music that's slightly clipping - at the same peak level.

Choosing a larger amplifier than the speaker's rating allows you to extract the maximum performance from a speaker - ensuring it's only the speaker that's adding noise/colouration/distortion to the signal. You will have to lock the volume control away from your drunk friends.

Choosing a much smaller amplifier is more idiot proof - as long as you are not overloading it with too low an impedance, and you size the midrange and tweeter (or pad them with resistors) to handle crunch city if the amp is heavily clipped at a house party, and you filter out extremely low frequencies that cause the woofer to flap around.

[ProsesTeknolojiSistemleri]

çok iyi net anlatım yapıyorsunuz ve son derece kaliteli içerik üretiyorsunuz tebrikler. Sizlerden Stereo ve Mono arasındaki farkı anlatan uygulamalı bir içerik üremeniz olacak.

[texmuphy]

Biggest 'problem' is that most people don't know when to stop cranking up the system. So many (mostly starting) DJs for instance, have all their channel gain in the red, plus the total output in the red. And yes, while the mixer would have a clean headroom of say 20 dB, you are driving the amp with more than the maximum 775mV/1V/1.2V that provides the continuous, clean, undistorted sound.

[bekkerthesokuangeldragon]

instead of adding a higher wattage amp in a lower wattage subwoofer / tweeter, mind aswell have the amp matching wattage to the subwoofer/tweeter to prevent the distortion, clipping, overloading and coil burning and smelling