Car Audio Car audio related questions and helpful hints for building the best sound system for your car or getting the most out of what you have.

subwoofers

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old Oct 4, 2006 | 08:57 PM
  #1  
zz327's Avatar
Thread Starter
Junior Member
 
Joined: Oct 2006
Posts: 5
Likes: 0
Car: 89 Camaro Z28
Engine: 327
Transmission: 4 speed m22
subwoofers

will it hurt the subwoofers if music plays through them and not just bass

Last edited by zz327; Oct 4, 2006 at 09:25 PM.
Reply
Old Oct 4, 2006 | 09:12 PM
  #2  
CG_1985_Z28's Avatar
Member
 
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 109
Likes: 0
From: Cleveland, OH
Car: 1985 Z28 camaro
Engine: lq4
Transmission: th350
hahahahahahahaha......ur a noob
Reply
Old Oct 4, 2006 | 09:45 PM
  #3  
jak2908's Avatar
Member
 
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 363
Likes: 0
Car: 89 RS,89 iroc
Engine: 5.0,5.0tpi
Transmission: 700R4,700R4
Axle/Gears: LSD,LSD
it sure will....subwoofers are for low frequencies...
Reply
Old Oct 4, 2006 | 11:33 PM
  #4  
Gummie's Avatar
Supreme Member
 
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 1,232
Likes: 0
From: Readington, NJ
Car: 88 GTA
Engine: 350 TPI
Transmission: T-56
Axle/Gears: 9 bolt w/ 3.73
Originally Posted by CG_1985_Z28
hahahahahahahaha......ur a noob
That was completely uncalled for. Everyone asks questions that might seem stupid to someone else from time to time. That's how we all have learned in the past. You don't just wake up one day and understand the entire known universe.

This message board isn’t for arguing, picking fights, or flaming. The mods are quick to act - posts get deleted, threads locked, and users banned on repeat offenses. We’re all here for a common cause – to make the cars we love better. Let’s not start calling each other juvenile names.

Originally Posted by jak2908
it sure will....subwoofers are for low frequencies...
It won’t hurt the sub at all. Period. There’s no way it will do any damage. There are a number of reasons for this.

Reason #1 - Think of the speaker spectrum - woofers, midranges, tweeters, etc as a one way road. Drivers that are low on the spectrum can produce frequencies higher on the spectrum but drivers that are high on the spectrum can’t produce frequencies that are lower on the spectrum. For example, we’ve all seen an instance of an 8” or even 12” woofer playing well above 5KHz or even 10KHz (if anyone here plays electric guitar they’ve probably seen this done with a 15”). On the other hand you will never see a tweeter playing a 100 Hz tone, let alone a 20 Hz rumble. This leads into the next reason.

Reason #2 - The lower the frequency the more power it requires to reproduce. This is why subwoofers require gobs of power while tweeters will generally make your ears bleed with 25 watts. This means two things. First, high frequency sounds don’t require a lot of power. The second is that low frequency sound can require a lot of power.

Conclusion - There are three primary killers of speakers. First and foremost is sending a speaker too much power and blowing the voice coil, literally melting the wire(s) wound around the former. The second is caused by excessive clipping and results in the same death for the speaker (blown voice coil). The third is over-excursion and occurs when the cone literally moves too far and either bottoms out or the cone tries to go too far out and the voice coil pops out of the coil gap.

There’s no difference with subwoofers. You can send it as much high frequency information as you want and it won’t hurt it at all. It's not going to give the woofer too much power. It's not going to make the voice coil over heat. It's not going to bottom out the woofer. It will just sound like crap when it tries to reproduce higher frequency sound.

... All this said, why would you want to play high frequency sound through your sub?

Last edited by Gummie; Oct 4, 2006 at 11:37 PM.
Reply
Old Oct 4, 2006 | 11:43 PM
  #5  
AmorgetRS's Avatar
Moderator
25 Year Member
Liked
Loved
iTrader: (6)
 
Joined: Jul 1999
Posts: 5,646
Likes: 1
From: Near Seattle, WA
Originally Posted by CG_1985_Z28
hahahahahahahaha......ur a noob
Be nice or

Gummie, thank you for a good answer for zz327.
Reply
Old Oct 5, 2006 | 07:35 AM
  #6  
jak2908's Avatar
Member
 
Joined: Jul 2006
Posts: 363
Likes: 0
Car: 89 RS,89 iroc
Engine: 5.0,5.0tpi
Transmission: 700R4,700R4
Axle/Gears: LSD,LSD
well its not recommended....sorry for the false info
Reply
Old Oct 5, 2006 | 08:30 AM
  #7  
Jim85IROC's Avatar
TGO Supporter
iTrader: (2)
 
Joined: Jul 1999
Posts: 13,579
Likes: 9
From: Readsboro, VT
Car: 85 IROC-Z / 88 GTA
Engine: 403 LSx (Pending) / 355 Tuned Port
Transmission: T56 Magnum (Pending) / T5
Axle/Gears: 3.42 / ?
It won't hurt a thing, but it will sound like ***.

Subwoofers are big, heavy beasts that are designed to pump a lot of air. Such monsters are not at all optimized for higher frequency reproduction, and in most cases with the new breed of high mass, high excursion subs, they are completely incapable of reproducing anything above 80-200hz depending on their design. If they can play those frequencies at all, they sure won't sound good doing it. But... there will be no damage of any kind if you still feed them a full-range signal.

However, the opposite isn't true. If you feed a full range signal to tweeters or even smaller mids, you can easily damage them. Small drivers are not capable of moving enough to produce bass, and they'll destroy themselves trying.

Fortunately, your car already has other speakers in it, so there is absolutely no need for you to run the subs full-range.
Reply
Related Topics
Thread
Thread Starter
Forum
Replies
Last Post
Cam-aro
Camaros Wanted
2
Nov 12, 2015 03:35 PM
84 TA NV
Firebirds for Sale
1
Sep 6, 2015 08:02 PM
tc7761
Interior Parts for Sale
0
Aug 30, 2015 09:45 AM
Chuck84TA
Interior Parts for Sale
0
Aug 27, 2015 11:14 AM
Jim 86 Bird
Car Audio
6
Nov 22, 2000 08:43 PM




All times are GMT -5. The time now is 06:06 PM.