Amp/Speaker question.

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nodiak

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Amp/Speaker question.
« on: 13 Dec 2009, 05:32 pm »
If source is putting out 20hz signal.
And amp can fully reproduce it.
But speakers roll off at 80hz (lets say down 40db at 20hz).
Is the amp using the same energy as it would hooked up to speakers that could fully reproduce 20hz?

It could be stated better, but point is...is amp taxed of power if speakers can't reproduce the signal?

Good morning... :D   

JCS

Re: Amp/Speaker question.
« Reply #1 on: 13 Dec 2009, 05:44 pm »
I believe the answer is yes.  The power is expended, either ending up as heat in the woofer or (depending on phase issues) in the output devices of the amp.  This is the reason for the so-called 'rumble filters' on amps from the 50s and 60s. When playing vinyl, record warps would produce low freq signals which most speakers couldn't reproduce; and the low power (generally speaking) amps of the day couldn't afford to waste watts to no good purpose.

Cheers,  Jim

Mr Peabody

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Re: Amp/Speaker question.
« Reply #2 on: 31 Dec 2009, 08:32 pm »
Wouldn't the speaker have to put the demand on the amp in order for the power to be used?  It would seem if a speaker rolled off at 80Hz it would be the same as crossing it over at that point and would use less power than if driving speakers capable of reproducing down to 20Hz.  Here's an article on biamping that may help but read closely 1.3 where he explains the difference between "average power" and "peak power".

http://sound.westhost.com/bi-amp.htm#power_dist

mgalusha

Re: Amp/Speaker question.
« Reply #3 on: 1 Jan 2010, 01:48 am »
Wouldn't the speaker have to put the demand on the amp in order for the power to be used?

It is putting a demand on the amp electrically even if the driver won't reproduce those signals, so power will still be consumed. Even small drivers will physically move at 20hZ but they will be inaudible, just not enough air being displaced. How much power is consumed is unknown unless one has an impedance/phase plot for the speaker.

timind

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Re: Amp/Speaker question.
« Reply #4 on: 1 Jan 2010, 02:19 am »
Wouldn't the speaker have to put the demand on the amp in order for the power to be used?

It is putting a demand on the amp electrically even if the driver won't reproduce those signals, so power will still be consumed. Even small drivers will physically move at 20hZ but they will be inaudible, just not enough air being displaced. How much power is consumed is unknown unless one has an impedance/phase plot for the speaker.
That sounds correct to me. What's the point of this question, if I may ask?

awe-d-o-file

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Re: Amp/Speaker question.
« Reply #5 on: 2 Jan 2010, 06:33 pm »
The short answer is no, different speakers, cabinets, driver and crossovers combos will offer a different load and thus present a different "challenge" if you will for a given amp.

For instance you could take a sealed box two-way 10" speaker lets say and simply put in a 1 ,2 and 3 cubic foot box and you'd have different frequency response and the amps would see a different load of sorts if only by a little in each box size.

In a ported design there would be no back pressure in the cabinet to slow down the driver movement and this would probably be an easier load to drive but harder to control. Most ported designs are tuned between 30-50hz and frequencies below the port tuning become barely audible even less than 10hz below the tuned frequency.

Also we need to take into account the QTS and FS of the driver being used. All driver/box combinations provide a usually large impedance peak somewhere in the LF region. This is to say an 8 ohm (woofer) driver is not 8 ohms from say 20-400hz, there will be a peak or more than one and it may go quite high. Take a look at the link below and scroll to the bottom of page 4 and see the frequency vs impedance graph. The LF peaks for this 8 ohm category speaker go to near 30 ohms. The amp isn't going to do much when the load is 30 ohms but also won't get "hurt" or have a propensity to  overheat if you will like it might if the load went down to 1 or even less than 1 ohm.


Also I use a passive horizontal bi-amp in my system. This means one amp drives the left and right HF sections of my speakers. There is no crossover before the amplifiers, just the ones in the speakers. The amplifier receives the full audio spectrum from the line stage (20Hz to 20KHz) but only frequencies above and near the 2.5KHz speaker crossover are "loaded" thus the amp runs very cool and the peak lights when they rarely light are lit by midrange events like a snare drum, guitar twang or loud piano/keyboard note but NEVER from a bass note or kick drum etc.


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http://www.madisound.com/catalog/PDF/RM6K-v2.pdf