AudioCircle

Industry Circles => Bryston Limited => Topic started by: turnovertherecord on 29 Mar 2019, 04:52 pm

Title: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: turnovertherecord on 29 Mar 2019, 04:52 pm
I was clipping my 4B3 amp into a FS-788
So i got the 7B3
All is good

Looking at a second speaker mini dancer 2 rated at 120 watts

Will my 7B3 amps kill it

Room is 30 x 28 ft

Preamp is a C2300
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: marvda1 on 29 Mar 2019, 07:28 pm
speakers are "killed" by not having enough power and pushing the amp too hard.
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: Ola_S on 31 Mar 2019, 07:38 pm
marvda1> That is a very common misconception, in reality it is much easier to "kill" speakers with big amplifiers.
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: marvda1 on 1 Apr 2019, 12:38 pm
marvda1> That is a very common misconception, in reality it is much easier to "kill" speakers with big amplifiers.

if what you say is true, lets take a 50 watt amp whose max output is 80 watts and make it push 85 watts and a 1000 watt amp and play it at 85 watts and see which one destroys the speaker.
plus find  one speaker or amplifier manufacturer who will agree with you.
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: Ola_S on 1 Apr 2019, 12:58 pm
if what you say is true, lets take a 50 watt amp whose max output is 80 watts and make it push 85 watts and a 1000 watt amp and play it at 85 watts and see which one destroys the speaker.
plus find  one speaker or amplifier manufacturer who will agree with you.
If you drive an amplifier into clipping it will generate more higher order spectral components that could indeed damage the tweeters so you are not completely wrong. However a lot of modern music already contains a lot of this energy due to poor mastering. You could clip a signal like that almost as much as you want and it won't be significantly worse for the speakers than the same signal without clipping, i.e. played by a bigger amplifier.

So a smaller amp could actually be some protection, especially if you play well recorded material where could hear when the amp starts to come to its limits.

This is more or less the exact words from a very knowledgeable speakers and driver designer I know.
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: CanadianMaestro on 2 Apr 2019, 06:22 pm
+1 with marvda above.  Not enough power from an amp while trying to drive a speaker hard will damage the speaker.
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: Ola_S on 2 Apr 2019, 09:48 pm
+1 with marvda above.  Not enough power from an amp while trying to drive a speaker hard will damage the speaker.
Ok, so let’s take a 1w RMS amp, it will more or less kill any speaker in other words? I must have  slept during my physics classes  8)
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: Ron D on 2 Apr 2019, 10:41 pm
Not wading into the underpowered versus overpowered issue my 2 cents are...

If the cubed 7Bs solved your problem with clipping a speaker that Soundstage measured at 84.5 dB sensitivity I think they will do just fine with the mini dancers which I read were rated at 90dBs. Say you were to listen at 99dBs which is pretty damn loud. You'd need 24 watts to get the 788s that loud and only 8 watts with the mini dancers to achieve that sound level. One would assume that the amps will be working with less strain on them with the mini dancers.

You have more than enough power to blow up either if you chose to but likely you won't abuse them to that level.
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: turnovertherecord on 10 Apr 2019, 12:50 am
Working well,will need some hours for break in  180 hours appox as per dealer
(https://www.audiocircle.com/image.php?id=193094)






Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: turnovertherecord on 10 Apr 2019, 03:47 pm
If i blow the usher i will post so
I could not blow up the Focus Audio to date
Title: Re: Can i used a 7B3 to drive a USHER Mini Dancer 2 speaker at 120 watts max
Post by: HsvHeelFan on 10 Apr 2019, 08:55 pm
I had a 1984 vintage Yamaha integrated amp driving my KEF Q70's.   

The Yamaha was rated at 75 or 80 watts per channel.  The KEF's was rated for 10 - 150 watts.

In 2001, I was listening to Cleveland playing the end of Pictures at an Exhibition on Telarc and the Yamaha had a clipping event that nuked my KEF tweeters (back then, they were $125 each).  After ordering new tweeters and carefully replacing them,  a couple of months later, the same thing happened again.  So, now I'm out 500 bucks in tweeters and an evening for each replace session.

My solution was to purchase a 4B-ST.   My particular 4B-ST is rated at 288 watts for one channel and 289 watts for the other.   The KEF's are 6 ohm, so best guess is I'm putting 430 watts on the KEF's.  I can listen at volume levels that are insane and I've never had an issue.

So,  I'm in the camp that more power is better.

As always, trust your ears and your mileage may vary...

HsvHeelFan