Good explanation, this is good reason for getting an attenuated RCA lead especially when connecting a CD player to an old amp or receiver. I have had CD players with a 3 volt peek to peek output. A lot of new amps have a CD Input and in theory should cope with the high CD player output. I also bought speakers where the tweeter coil has melted as a result of being overloaded
Yes. a pair of Rothwell RCA attenuators is probably one of the best gadgets in my setup. A lot of amps have 150-200 mV input sensitivity and a lot of modern (digital) source have way to strong signal or, in other words, there is a signal strength mismatch.
Hi, Phil. good to see you again. Just did your push check on my speakers, including the hard driven Kef 200c, and they are all ok, and no rubbing, which is good. Paul.
I used to work in a specialist hifi dealers (I told this story in another RUclips hifi channel's comments section) & for a laugh my colleague and I wired up a pair of enormous used Wharfdale E70's into his Mini Metro's puny car radio-cassette player (about 5wpc?) and it blew the Wharfdale's. Current delivery and speaker efficiency are far more relevant than watts per channel. It makes me smile when I hear/see proud owners of their pimped-up car brag about their new 1,200WPC sound system, the amp being driven by a 12 volt car battery. They probably wouldn't be impressed by my measly 40WPC Naim NAP140.
As touched on elsewhere in the comments and the video , all we are dealing with is voltage current and resistance , an amp has a max voltage and current delivery , the lower the resistance figure for a given frequency the greater the current demanded of the amp . The safest route I have found is to choose speakers that give resistance real world max and min resistance and use an amp that can give 50% more power than the speaker will ever need . Good speakers will slap the end stops at max excursion, letting you know they are being over driven. Some speakers which claim 8 ohms are actually 2 ohms at bass frequencies . If dealers have access to this vital info they can offer better system matching from the off . I run my ls35a with 80 watt plus amp , but it is an amp that has great voltage delivery and is quite weak at current delivery , this is a great match for the ls35a which is 15 ohm with a min impedance of 8.3 ohms so strong current isn't needed but fast clean voltage delivery is .
Interesting. I'm still using my Denon TU260 tuner and Mission 760iSE (single wired, not bi) bought in the early 90s. And you're right, Radio 3 FM sounds fantastic even with a wire T aerial.
Also hard to explain is the difference between volume and gain which is fairly crucial to distortion. There's also the issue of square wave clipping when the amp runs out of puff. Also a friend of mine had may issues with a pair of Missions, esp. when he got a CD player !
Re: different gain required for different sources. My Creek 3040 FM tuner purchased in the 1980s definitely needs the most gain from the amp, less so if I use the DIN output it has for a Naim amp. Still regularly used on Saturday mornings if I’m home to listen to Radio 3 ‘building a library’. Next up is phono stage. CD and streamer about are the same. ( heresy, yes Phil, sorry, streamer is mainly used for trying new to me music and new releases )
If it isn't loud enough for you when you're using half the amps rated wattage you either need more efficient speakers or a higher wattage amp. Besides after a certain decibel level the amount of wattage necessary to make noticeable volume changes can become an expensive endeavor lol
Wow, i use that speed analogy all the time, example, why do you need such big speakers/such a powerful amp, answer is that you buy that Audi that does 170mph not to do 170mph but so that when doing 30mph there is no stress on the system and you can cruise effortlessly. Lol, some of my old car head units used to run 4v or even 5v rca outputs. Strangely enough I always found the best source output in the car was from FM radio, especially radio one(pete tong friday night), not even CD's could match it for volume, ie you could turn the CD up to 30 before it would distort and with FM radio it was 25, so much cleaner or higher volt signal.
In a KEF FB group steady stream of reports of failed LS50 etc drivers. Normally cone edge breakup / disintegration or clear over-excursion. The culprits claim to not be driving them hard and within the power amp rating, blaming manufacturing / design fault. They miss the point of the quality of that power and the signal into the amp. It often emerges that they’ve also used room tuning software or volume controls and boosted the bass beyond what the speaker can be reasonably expected to handle.
I am so guilty off playing my record's too loud and I've destroyed numerous speakers kef videoton linn warfdale bw but not anymore as money is now an issue with new quality speakers took a while to learn that lesson
My wife destroyed a pair of my Mission speakers pulling the headphones out whilst having the volume turned up full on the amplifier, admitted it after much interrogation 😂
There's lots of factors that can blow a speaker. so it's best to use professional poweramps X2, they have limiters and peak meters a real quality hi-fi one is the Professional Wharfedale Pro CPD 1600 300£ you can drive it up to 9 .5 volts, and find a low impedance highly musical preamp preferably valve high output you're be in heaven, and can easily compete with any 50 thousand dollar amplifier. Yeah if you have got a high powered amplifier integrated and your driving a lot of volume then you could be exceeding the wattage of the drivers plus you enter into square wave when you're driving hard and DC offset goes up. There should be no issue using a record through a phono stage, not high enough output you'll be lucky to get 75 DB output gain and that would be on a moving coil more than likely something is wrong with the equipment to cause that issue. Most commercial hi-fi drivers are 100 Watts peak so RMS about 12 Watts before it will blow. Property most people who blow a speaker at moderate volume is because of DC offset in the amplifier is not correct, you can get yourself a cheap multimeter stick it in the speaker terminals put it on 100 volts DC if you're getting under 80 mV DC you shouldn't have a problem ideally this wants to be close to zero as possible
Radio 3 live broadcast, recently serviced Linn Pekin FM tuner and a professionally aligned Galaxy 17 element aerial. Why would anyone want DAB against that?
Because DAB has a greater number of stations to listen to. The sound quality of DAB is of course poorer, but most people don’t listen on a hifi and don’t care. Then there was was the suggestion a little while ago that BBC FM was being turned off soon. Turned out not to be true (not yet anyway), but it caused me some anxiety for a while.
Good explanation, this is good reason for getting an attenuated RCA lead especially when connecting a CD player to an old amp or receiver. I have had CD players with a 3 volt peek to peek output.
A lot of new amps have a CD Input and in theory should cope with the high CD player output. I also bought speakers where the tweeter coil has melted as a result of being overloaded
Yes. a pair of Rothwell RCA attenuators is probably one of the best gadgets in my setup. A lot of amps have 150-200 mV input sensitivity and a lot of modern (digital) source have way to strong signal or, in other words, there is a signal strength mismatch.
Hi, Phil. good to see you again.
Just did your push check on my speakers, including the hard driven Kef 200c, and they are all ok, and no rubbing, which is good.
Paul.
I really enjoy these videos, thanks.
Really like your channel, keep going!
Great video, I'm just buying used speakers, trying them out and listening to for differences
Good information as allways! Thank you 👍
I used to work in a specialist hifi dealers (I told this story in another RUclips hifi channel's comments section) & for a laugh my colleague and I wired up a pair of enormous used Wharfdale E70's into his Mini Metro's puny car radio-cassette player (about 5wpc?) and it blew the Wharfdale's. Current delivery and speaker efficiency are far more relevant than watts per channel. It makes me smile when I hear/see proud owners of their pimped-up car brag about their new 1,200WPC sound system, the amp being driven by a 12 volt car battery. They probably wouldn't be impressed by my measly 40WPC Naim NAP140.
You did that to a pair of E70's? Disgraceful😒
Obviously the volume diagrams should have gone to 11
Beat me to it 😄
Hi Phil. Another interesting video and put across well.
As touched on elsewhere in the comments and the video , all we are dealing with is voltage current and resistance , an amp has a max voltage and current delivery , the lower the resistance figure for a given frequency the greater the current demanded of the amp . The safest route I have found is to choose speakers that give resistance real world max and min resistance and use an amp that can give 50% more power than the speaker will ever need . Good speakers will slap the end stops at max excursion, letting you know they are being over driven. Some speakers which claim 8 ohms are actually 2 ohms at bass frequencies . If dealers have access to this vital info they can offer better system matching from the off . I run my ls35a with 80 watt plus amp , but it is an amp that has great voltage delivery and is quite weak at current delivery , this is a great match for the ls35a which is 15 ohm with a min impedance of 8.3 ohms so strong current isn't needed but fast clean voltage delivery is .
Interesting. I'm still using my Denon TU260 tuner and Mission 760iSE (single wired, not bi) bought in the early 90s. And you're right, Radio 3 FM sounds fantastic even with a wire T aerial.
Also be careful with digital streaming as most tracks vary in volume as when they were produced.
Also hard to explain is the difference between volume and gain which is fairly crucial to distortion. There's also the issue of square wave clipping when the amp runs out of puff.
Also a friend of mine had may issues with a pair of Missions, esp. when he got a CD player !
Re: different gain required for different sources.
My Creek 3040 FM tuner purchased in the 1980s definitely needs the most gain from the amp, less so if I use the DIN output it has for a Naim amp. Still regularly used on Saturday mornings if I’m home to listen to Radio 3 ‘building a library’.
Next up is phono stage.
CD and streamer about are the same. ( heresy, yes Phil, sorry, streamer is mainly used for trying new to me music and new releases )
Get a NAD 3020A, it has the led’s that show what’s going on! Happy days.
If it isn't loud enough for you when you're using half the amps rated wattage you either need more efficient speakers or a higher wattage amp.
Besides after a certain decibel level the amount of wattage necessary to make noticeable volume changes can become an expensive endeavor lol
Wow, i use that speed analogy all the time, example, why do you need such big speakers/such a powerful amp, answer is that you buy that Audi that does 170mph not to do 170mph but so that when doing 30mph there is no stress on the system and you can cruise effortlessly.
Lol, some of my old car head units used to run 4v or even 5v rca outputs.
Strangely enough I always found the best source output in the car was from FM radio, especially radio one(pete tong friday night), not even CD's could match it for volume, ie you could turn the CD up to 30 before it would distort and with FM radio it was 25, so much cleaner or higher volt signal.
In a KEF FB group steady stream of reports of failed LS50 etc drivers. Normally cone edge breakup / disintegration or clear over-excursion. The culprits claim to not be driving them hard and within the power amp rating, blaming manufacturing / design fault. They miss the point of the quality of that power and the signal into the amp. It often emerges that they’ve also used room tuning software or volume controls and boosted the bass beyond what the speaker can be reasonably expected to handle.
Well I have a pair and with vinyl the drivers could overextend with warped record. Anyway they are safe in box what a garbage speaker.
May be because I live in a flat but I don’t think I’ve ever gone louder than ‘10 o’clock’ and spend most of my time between 8 and 9.
Me too old gentleman next door 10 o’clock is my max !
I am so guilty off playing my record's too loud and I've destroyed numerous speakers kef videoton linn warfdale bw but not anymore as money is now an issue with new quality speakers took a while to learn that lesson
Interesting vid but no real info on matching speakers to an amp.
Learnt something thanks
My wife destroyed a pair of my Mission speakers pulling the headphones out whilst having the volume turned up full on the amplifier, admitted it after much interrogation 😂
Simple 1000 watt amplifier and 30 watt speakers. Clipping won't be a problem. And as long as your hand doesn't have touretts, you will be fine.
So let me get this right.
CD player - town centre. Record player - derestricted b road.
Tuner - fast lane of the German Autobahn.
There's lots of factors that can blow a speaker. so it's best to use professional poweramps X2, they have limiters and peak meters a real quality hi-fi one is the Professional Wharfedale Pro CPD 1600 300£ you can drive it up to 9 .5 volts, and find a low impedance highly musical preamp preferably valve high output you're be in heaven, and can easily compete with any 50 thousand dollar amplifier.
Yeah if you have got a high powered amplifier integrated and your driving a lot of volume then you could be exceeding the wattage of the drivers plus you enter into square wave when you're driving hard and DC offset goes up. There should be no issue using a record through a phono stage, not high enough output you'll be lucky to get 75 DB output gain and that would be on a moving coil
more than likely something is wrong with the equipment to cause that issue. Most commercial hi-fi drivers are 100 Watts peak so RMS about 12 Watts before it will blow. Property most people who blow a speaker at moderate volume is because of DC offset in the amplifier is not correct, you can get yourself a cheap multimeter stick it in the speaker terminals put it on 100 volts DC if you're getting under 80 mV DC you shouldn't have a problem ideally this wants to be close to zero as possible
Radio 3 live broadcast, recently serviced Linn Pekin FM tuner and a professionally aligned Galaxy 17 element aerial. Why would anyone want DAB against that?
Because DAB has a greater number of stations to listen to. The sound quality of DAB is of course poorer, but most people don’t listen on a hifi and don’t care. Then there was was the suggestion a little while ago that BBC FM was being turned off soon. Turned out not to be true (not yet anyway), but it caused me some anxiety for a while.
FM tuners eeeh. I won't be parted with my Onix BWD 1. Nostalgia just ain't what it used to be.
Simple solution - buy a 'Spinal Tap' amplifier. They go to 11.
My first decent system was technics and cerwan Vagas blew the woofers 3 times before I understood all this lol I was 14 years old