Perhaps you misunderstood what I meant by "under powering." I'm speaking of
under powering a music reproduction system; none of us listen to speakers,
we listen to sound systems comprised of, among other components, amps and
speakers. I'm surprised that anyone thinks that too little power would kill
a speaker. I will explain why an under powered system can result in dead
drivers.

Then do not imply that underpowering blows a speaker. Because it does not. But
when you say that underpowering is the most common way of blowing your wrong.
Argue what you mean all you want but its still wrong.



An underpowered system is one that doesn't have enough power for it's
intended application. An ignorant user will attempt to compensate by
overdriving the amplifier and sending it into clipping. IF the amp's power
supply has enough balls, and IF the transducer's operating parameters are
thus exceeded, the clipped signal will kill the speaker.

But it wouldnt be underpowering that blows it will it? And you sure do use alot
of IFs.
And I said that clipping, severe and extended could potentially do some damage.


Tweeters are the
most common victims of this condition resulting from the
distortion -clipping-stemming from the underpowered system being over
driven.

Tweeters typically handle signifigantly less power than woofers. Those 100watt
tweeters are not. More like 15 or 20 watts. It is not uncommon to blow tweeters
this way and people will blame it on amp clipping. But it can happen, during
clipping the amp does deliver some undesiriable power, but hook it up to a
passive network and the tweeter probably will not see those peaks anyway.

In this case the clipping is the manifestation of the amplifier's
distortion of the original (music) signal.

I think you have that backwards. Clipping is the problem, distortion is the
noise that we hear. But if I clip an amp without hearing it I do not know
anyway who refers to that as distortion but rather clipping.

Regarding your assertion that distortion doesn't kill speakers or else all
speakers would blow: See the second sentence in this post. Then read the
next paragraph.

Distortion Does Not kill speakers. Even in the rare case clipping blows a
speaker it is the clipping that does it NOT the distortion. Distortion is a
symptom not a problem.



Distortion is a condition that can be caused by many things (and manifest
many ways). If the distortion you are talking about is in the recording,
then, for the purposes of this discussion, it is irrelevant because in the
case of competently produced recordings, the whole track has been compressed
to keep the peaks under an appropriate limit - rendering the distortion
harmless. This, I'm guessing, is the basis for your assertion.

Distortion is something we hear. If It was damaging then speakers would blow
all the time. Do you know how distortion pedals work? Drive an op-amp into
severe clipping and you get distortion. Does that blow the speakers? It is the
same thing. A clipped signal sent to the speaker. In some lower end guitar amps
you clip the hell out of the amp to produce distortion. Been doing it for 10
years on a practice and and it Still has the original speaker.

It's also
why the bass and guitar sounds we all love so much don't kill our speakers
every day. Or weekly :^)

The distortion we (maybe only I) are discussing is clipping.

Clipping is the problem distortion is a sypmtom, Distortion does not create
clipping.

If the amp
plays the music signal that contains the distortion accurately, then the amp
is not distorting (the original signal). If the amp clips, then, by
definition, it is distorting (the original signal).

By whos definition. We hear distortion, but the way I look at it is distortion
is NOT the problem but something that is a result of clipping. You seem the
imply that distorting and clipping are the same thing but they are not. And you
seem to imply that distortion causes clipping and it does not. If I am
misunderstanding you then please correct me.

Obviously, the
manifestation of the clipping is a prolonged current peak (over powering -
or if you prefer my analogy, the plateau) - brought on by an underpowered
system being overdriven.

Again with an underpowered system. Underpowering will NEVER NEVER NEVER blow a
speaker.

The "full power plateau" kills the speaker by sending more current than the
speaker can convert to sound.

Can. And I gave specific circumstances where that might, in rare cases, happen.
And it wasnt distortion or underpowering that would do it. What would do it?
More power than the speaker can handle.

Why? Because the original music signal was
distorted (clipped).

I know I have said this before but Distortion is not the same as clipping. And
distortion does not Kill speakers.
I can see what you saying but it does not make sense. Thermal failure, likely
the result of overpowering. Or going past the drivers limits mechanically, less
likely to happen though I have done it to a Bose speaker system (intentionally)
But distortion will NOT do it.


Les