Question about power handling...

[louped garouv]

How do you determine how much power a given set of homebrew speakers can handle? Without blowing them up........;)


for background purposes....
building large bass horns going to load with TAD 1601a
HF is going to be 511B horns, 802-8G or 902-8A (maybe Iconic 102s) HF
passive crossovers

[Mr. Widget]

I generally don't worry about power handling. If it sounds bad turn it down...

[louped garouv]

I can do that! Thanks

[Robh3606]

Go buy the old JBL copy. In most instances the sound levels will become uncomfortable before the speakers can be damaged. Especially with the larger drivers, you quit before they do.

Rob:)

[louped garouv]

I can only turn my preamp master out up to like 3/4 for normal listening (maybe 5/6 for loud listening) with the line input on 7 and EV 7300a amp only half way up...

[duaneage]

Woofers are at the mercy of the amp, power handling depends on the cabinet type, tuning, damping, and overall the maximum thermal load and physical load. At 200 watts many speakers will suffer glue failure because of the high temperatures inside the voice coil. remember that voltage is being applied here and that power has to go somewhere. Cooled magnets (like the jbl speakers) with large vents allow 200 + watt power handling. Large magnets also heatsink the coil, aluminum frames help cool as well.

Midranges and tweeters can be assisted by crossing over at higher frequencies. It a midrange has a resonant frequency of 500 hz and you cross it at 1500 initially, crossing over at 2500 will increase power handling significantly. Tweeters benefit as well from higher xover freqs.
Increasing the slope from 6 to 12 db/octave will increase power handling as well without necessarily having to go higher in the crossover. A 1500 hz cross aat 12 db/octave will be safer than a 2500 Hz corss at 6db an octave because at 750 hz the first network is down 24 db where the second is down only about 18db or so.

Speakers are damaged far easier by low power amps than high power because of the clipping or flattening of the peaks.