Quote Originally Posted by EarmarkMarine View Post
It depends on how you define distortion.
A woofer cannot recognize high levels of various types of distortion and distortion does not necessarily create more heat. Over-driving a guitar tube amplifier input for example is a common technique to create a specific effect. The woofer may not recognize this as distortion although we can clearly hear the signal distortion.
Hard compression and clipping directly translate to more continuous power and that is precisely what creates the heat that damages speakers. Power KILLS woofers. Period. If you drive a smaller amplifier into hard clipping you have created more continuous power and the result is more heat.

David
I guess we have to agree to disagree here. I personally have yet to ever see a single user apply harmonic distortion as an effect in the marine environment. I think your kinda arguing semantics. Thats totally different than the distortion I'm speaking about. In the every day world about 80% of the woofer failures we warranty a given year as a speaker manufacturer are from sustained heat build up in the gap (the area where the voice coil resides). Approximately 20% of the claims are due to mechanical (torn spiders or rubber surrounds or glue delimitation). This is fairly typical in my experience within the industry.

I think the take away here is that good clean power is what I recommend. Clipping from the head unit or the amplifier will lead to ugliness. I could get super technical and explain how that all happens but it really doesn't matter. The result is the same - sustained heat build up and warped coils.

Back to the OP: under powering a woofer can create heat build up and result in failure IF your operating the amplifier beyond its limits. You cant just keep turning up up up and away the music. At some point your woofer will get into trouble and Poof. Lets keep it that simple.

Hope that helps.