Brand new subs, clipping?

It gets to a certain volume and then shuts off then it comes back on with a big bump then shuts off. this only happens on medium volume.. when its low it doesnt clip.

even if there brand new? why would they both shut off if only 1 sub is defective? why when i hook only one up it goes to higher volumes. The defective sub cut out at a much higher volume then it usually does..

sorry for so many questions but im just picking your brain now =)

Clipping = the amp has run out of gas and is producing a distorted signal that we hear as crack, snap, pop in the subs. If the amp is shutting off under load, then this is a protection circuit. Indicicated usually by an led on the amp changing color or lighting a separate led. I too would take a serious look at the one sub, it with no doubt is going to be the root cause of the problem. On a mono amp, you can have 10 subs hooked up to it and if one is bad, the rest will suffer.

If the sub is bad out of thebox that is one thing. If the amp was infact clipping and damaged the sub to the point that it is now interfering with the amp, that is another. This second side of the coin reverts back to how you use the system, how it was matched together and how it was installed.

Ok, here we go, more info. If the volume is at 46 out of 50 and the gear is shutting down, my guess is that the amp is clipping all over the map. This is more than likely coming from the cd player itself as very very few cd players have non clipping preouts. Once a signal is clipped at the source, an amp will amplify this clipped signal and pass it on to the subs. The sub will look at the signal and say wtf, you want me to play this, well OK dude, but I'm not going to like it. Then one day Mr. Sub is blown or is on the way to blowing. If it is on the way to blowing the coil can infact be making an intermittent contact or grounding out, thus shutting down the amp and sending it into protection. Once a sub is damaged it is all down hill from there. If you are on your second or 3rd set of these subs, then you have a serious design flaw in the system, it's installation and how YOU are using the system.

To understand clipping is simple. Your engine has a tachometer. You know that your engine has a redline on the tachometer. If  you go above redline you know that bad things will happen to the engine, so you saty below redline. The point of clipping on an amp or cd player is the redline, in this case it is invisible and if crossed will always end in blown speakers. Learn how to use your system, get it set up properly and or modified for the performance that you expect to see from it.

lolzitsmtss wrote:

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i've had the system for about 6 months never had a problem then i installed a 4channel amp and all of a sudden one sub blew..

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Find the root of the problem in what you did when you put in that second amp.

AS to what forbidden said. this is my second pair.. first pair the one sub blew then a week later the other sub blew..they played fine for about 6 months never had a problem now all of a sudden i get two brand new ones put them in and now its cutting off. Same subs same amp as before but before they never cut out they played and played and played and then they blew out. I haven't change MY perference since i first got them.. the only thing that changed was the subs. And I told the guy that the amp is going into protection mode and thats when we did each sub individually and found that one sub cut out at that volume.. Was never that high before so In other words the subs work fine (for me) when they are seperated.. Does that make sense? the sub that cut out was at volume 46 of 50 and i will never have it that high and when its that high im sure something bad will happen so even 40 is good for me and it wasnt cutting there  . but once we put both subs on thats when it started to cut again.

Dam man you guys know a whoooole lot. Im not trying to play no it all cause trust me i kno sh*t  thanx again for everyone's help so fair.....GREATLY Apprecaited...now back to business.

Forbiden has a great way to explain clipping, but I have to stick my arrogant head in here and correct one thing.

Clipping, or the 'red-line' of audio is not invisible. With an Oscilloscope (Like a DMM, but a little more advanced) a clipped waveform becomes fairly obvious to the eye. Say your amplifier output is cabable of a 24 volt Peak to Peak signal (highest positive voltage to lowest negative voltage) and the signal fed to the amp or reproduced by the amp ends up being 25 volts at the output, this will start to sound like crap, 30 volts...and this is really getting muddy, 50 volts......horrible, consider this a DC duty cycle or anything but audio...because it sure won't sound much like music.

Without the luxury of an Oscilloscope, it is pretty much invisible, but still very audible.

If you would like to see an audio wave from similar to what I'm talking about, go to Windows Media player, "now playing options", Visualizations, Bars and waves, Scope.....this is an Oscilloscope as far as I'm concerned. You can clearly see clipped signals, you can also adjust the equalizers to prevent the clipping. If it's a clipped recording, delete it or don't play it on your good stereo.