clipping distortion, what do you think?

right, playing with a mel c track with infrasonic bass, I can cause something to distort badly, its not hi freq.

I think I may have an idea, but its not the amp certainly, I tried the 450 watt crest, and it has clip indicators which aren't lit when it happens, so that rules the amp out.

so its either the cd player output stage perhaps or....

I think the coil of the loudspeaker bass unit is excursing too much, jumping out of the magnetic gap causing massive distortion.

Strange as they are morel drive units, but only 5 inchers in a transmission line, so its not the drive units fault perhaps apart from being too small, more the loading methinks.

I can still get a lower power amp to clip anyway which complicates things.

What do peoples think?

I quite like the sonic maximiser btw, its arrived, and is a bit like a subtle loudness control in it works on the bass and top, it adds sparkle without harshness and doesn't degrade signal at all....has a bypass and doesn't gain detail and all that. its programme dependant, speaker dependent, too, different settings needed, but is useful, without it music is smoother and natural, but its not too processed.


Got to get a stereo image processor to play with soundstage now, too.

 

It could also be ferrite inductor saturation in the crossover. This causes the inductance to drop giving spikes of high freq through the bass driver. Mind you, 450 watts x 5" in a an open box [at those freqs] sounds a likely candidate..

Nice to hear you are trying things that others dimiss. You are welcome to try my Peavey Kosmos bass processor sometime [maybe thru different speakers - no offence!] It's not 100% transparent for fidelity, but I can bypass anytime. Sometime I mean to wire it for bass only freq feed, leaving the main audio 'clean' but I haven't the time to sort it at the mo. It gives a deeper bass than is present in a mix. Unfortunately, it can't add bass if there is naff all to start with, but its a nice sound/feel. I run mine at way below the suggested input level so it only starts processing on peaks. That way it expands rather than compressing.

 

I wouldn't think you would find much use for a stereo imager in the Hi-Fi. Most recordings have this done to it already to make it sound as large and powerful as possible but if you do it too much it just moves everything out to either speaker and has a huge sound but no placement on the stage. They also mess with the tonal balance a bit and can accentuate the high frequency.

 

Sounds like you're asking more than a 5" driver - even a top notch one - can give.

Try lowering the volume

Get a sub if you want low bass.

 

Yeah my PMC AML1's have a 6" driver and they can go very low, 28hz flat, but if I play it too loud and a track has serious low bass, like some D12 or something then I do get a slight odd sound. I think its the woofer hitting the end stop. That is at like 95db A weighted though.