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This exact thing happened at the RMAF demo

Posted by andy_c on November 4, 2006 at 07:29:11

In Reply to: What low frequency amplifier clipping sounds like to me posted by Soundmind on November 4, 2006 at 04:44:24:

...clipping sounded exactly like the speaker bottoming out or hitting something.

Funny you should mention this. At the RMAF in the demo room there was a listening comparison between a 35W tube amp and a 240W solid state amp. Someone came up with the idea of deliberately inducing clipping in the tube amp and then comparing, to make it easy to tell between the two. Peter Smith, who built the DIY speakers used in the listening test, put on Bela Fleck's "Flight of the Cosmic Hippo". This disc contains at least one real "system buster" track with intense bass. Peter set it up so the tube amp was playing. The power meter indicated amp clipping. Sure enough, it sounded like the woofers were bottoming out. Peter was visibly distressed about this. He turned to Darren Kuzma and said "The woofers are bottoming out!". Darren said, "No, that's the amp clipping". I couldn't tell for sure either way. Peter rushed over to turn the music off, clearly worried about damaging his speakers. I don't blame him a bit. It sounded so much like the woofers being abused that I would have done the same thing. I'm still not convinced that the woofers weren't bottoming out myself.

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