Def Tech BP 2006s

[sdifox]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Originally posted by: sdifox

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat
According to Def Tech, I blew them because I play them too loud. I do crank them. Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin make me do it.
IIRC, the speakers are rated at 250 watts and my receiver puts out 120 watts at 8 ohms.
http://www.audioholics.com/rev...ceivers/denon-avr-3805

They made me promise not to crank it too much.
Last year, I purchased a CD (Robert Plant, Now and Zen) off of Ebay that's probably a cheap copy. I caused clipping which blew one or two mids, I don't remember exactly.

odd, 120 should be enough... exacrly how loud were you playing?

Well, my decibel meter is dead, it was as loud/far as the Denon would push them. Say 90% all the way up.

I am assuming you calibrated it before, so what was the denon showing as volume? 00db?

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: oldsmoboat

Well, my decibel meter is dead, it was as loud/far as the Denon would push them. Say 90% all the way up.

WAY too much! In the old days if the volume was at one o'clock you were in danger of speaker damage and that was before the loudness wars. What track on N&Z? I'm quite familiar with that as I got a chance of being back stage with Mr. Plant in '88. 😀

The problem with speaker wattage ratings is it's typical program material. Music is hardly constant like the wattage of a lightbulb or motor. It varies a lot. 250W program means with a wide dynamic range recording the average power could be 20W and peaks of 1000W. When music is compressed the drivers - particularly the more sensitive mid range and high frequency drivers' small voice coils get stressed. Ferrofluid does a great job at wicking the heat from the voice coil and prevents power compression for peaks but its practicality breaks down with recordings with crest factors less than 10dB which are becoming commonlplace today. Additionally if the music has distortion such as a sawtooth synth or fuzz it can over excite the HF section with excessive average energy levels that get converted to heat further exacerbating the problem!

The solution if you enjoy LOUD playback levels is to switch to a high efficiency horn loaded speaker system. For every 3dB of sensitivity increase it's the equivalent of DOUBLING your amp power! So if you speaker system is 89dB/1W/1M and you go to a 92dB/1W/1M system (quite modest actually) a 250WPC amp is theoretically like a 500WPC amp on the less efficient speaker. (providing it could handle the increase which is NOT likely)

 

[olds]

sdifox
I calibrated it with the meter over 3 years ago and then started using the mic that came with it after the meter stopped working. I don't recall what the db was.

Rubycon
Back stage with Mr Plant? As a tech or a groupie? :shocked:
The cut from the CD was "Heaven Knows".
I'll keep the horn info in mind if I upgrade my speakers.

 

[Rubycon]

Groupie and this stuff got me into the the tech of gigs. It really started back in "The Wall" days of Roger Waters. :Q

I've done backup vocals for "Clean White and Neat" covers probably my fav track from that album.

 

[olds]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Groupie and this stuff got me into the the tech of gigs. It really started back in "The Wall" days of Roger Waters. :Q

I've done backup vocals for "Clean White and Neat" covers probably my fav track from that album.

:heart:

 

[Tiamat]

Well, if you want to crank it, you are going to have to buy speakers that can handle the torture and an amplifier that doesn't clip at the necessary power. Also, save up for some hearing aids 🙁

How do you have your speakers setup? It is possible that room interactions are causing you to be missing information so that you raise the volume higher. With proper room placement and also proper acoustic treatment, you narrow the aberrations in the frequency response within your room which will allow you to hear your music better at all volume levels.

Bipolar speakers, in order for them to function optimally, should be at least 4' away from the wall behind them. This will allow sufficient delay between the time the rear-firing speakers sound wave hits the wall and the reflection reaches your ear. This delay will make the music sound like it is more reverberant/live. Without this important >4' separation, the rear-firing wave's reflection off of the front wall will interact with the original front firing wave in a way that is negative to overall sound quality (the FR will receive nulls and peaks where the nulls are the most damaging).

With bipolar speakers, you cannot compromise on this distance from the front wall. If you have to compromise on the distance between speaker and front wall, unfortunately, the bipolar design will not work. It is possible that a compromised setup of bipolar speakers would have caused you to have to listen at higher volumes to compensate for all of the cancellations caused by the bipolar design being constrained relatively close to the front wall. One way to partially deal with this compromise is to put 2-4" thick acoustic panels behind the speakers. A place like gikacoustics has solutions for about 60$ per panel. Before you commit to this, do try to listen to your speakers when they are >4' away from the front wall temporarily just to see if they solve the loudness problem.

In addition to this, the location of your seat has quite a bit to do with what you hear. Against the rear wall, at multiples of 1/4 the length dimension, these are all troublesome spots acoustically.