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How are Speakers Blown?
Every speaker has its limit and whether it is a relatively cheap speaker or a thousand dollar speaker built with the best materials, it can still easily blow. There are a couple of reasons why speakers blow, but for the most part it usually is a result of faulty or poor quality components. They could also have reached the limit of their rated power. In order to explain how speakers are blown, first let's look at the most common parts of a speaker.
Components of a Common Speaker
Most speakers that are used in the home or car have a few specific components.
Speaker Box – The box which encases the speaker, usually made from real or fake wood, plastic or some other hard substance. The speaker box is not only practical, but also aesthetically pleasing.
Woofers – Woofers are usually large cones that handle the lower part of the sound spectrum. For instance, the sound of drums is reproduced by woofers.
Midrange – The midrange are cones that reproduce the middle part of the spectrum such as the human voice.
Tweeters – The tweeters are usually much smaller cones that reproduce highs in sound such as a cymbal or a high note on a flute.
Voice coil – This is a coil of wires that converts electric signals from the amplifier to the speaker. Most voice coils are made from heat resistant materials.
3-Way Speakers and 2-Way Speakers
It should be noted that a woofer, midrange and tweeter are each separate speakers, so in a 3-way loudspeaker, it will include these 3 specific speakers. In a 2-way speaker, it will usually include only the woofer and tweeter.
Blown Speakers Due to Faulty Components or Inferior Quality
One of the ways that speakers are blown is due to faulty components or inferior quality. For instance, many low-end speakers (examples include loud speakers, car speakers, etc) are made with paper woofers. These speakers can reproduce sound within their sound and power ranges usually with competent results; however if you pump too much energy or request the speaker to produce extreme lows or highs you might blow your speakers. This will cause the air to blow a hole through the paper woofer, or for the voice coil to heat up and clip.
In some situations, when too much power is sent through the speaker, the entire woofer can warp its shape- producing inferior sound. Since the speaker at very high levels of power is being thrusted back and forth to produce sound, an immense use of force can easily blow speakers that are not built with high quality components or engineered correctly to reproduce sound.
Blown Speakers Due to Reaching the Power Limit
High quality speakers are not usually made with paper woofers, instead they are made with high quality materials. While these materials generally last for many years and can handle enormous power and sound ranges, many amplifiers which high quality speakers are attached to can power speakers beyond their means. The reason most high quality speakers blow is due to the fact that they reach their power limits. These limits usually come well before the amplifier reaches its power limits.
Plain and simple, your speakers can be blown when the power on your amplifier reaches 10, 8 or even 4 on the volume control. In many cases, too much power is sent to the speaker, overloading the voice coil and causing it to either heat up or clip. When a speaker is clipping, the sound usually becomes extremely harsh, distorted and in some cases completely stops.
How Clipping Occurs
Clipping occurs due to the fact that speakers reproduce many ranges of sound, from very low sounds to extreme highs. A high-end sound can increase in power many times over from a lower end frequency – in many cases, your speakers can handle this "dynamic range". For instance, even at half the power of your amp, a speaker is reproducing several different frequencies of sound – some well within its limits and others at the peak of its limits.
As you raise the volume and in effect, the power being sent from the amplifier to the speakers, the speakers reach their limit. Since the speakers reach their limit, they can no longer produce the sound accurately, causing cuts in the sound signals at specific levels (flattening the sound waves) resulting in clipping. It should be noted that the energy that is being pumped into the speaker but not being turned into sound is raw direct current (DC) electricity, which literally melts the voice coil and other components, eventually causing the speaker to blow.
In order to combat the probability that your speaker will clip, it is extremely important to buy speakers that are fully compatible with an amp. Believe it or not, a lower watt amp is more likely to clip a loudspeaker than a higher watt amp. For instance, you are safer with a 100 watt amp coupled with a 150 watt speaker than a 40 watt amp coupled with the same 200 watt speaker.
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