newbie question:do i damage the speakers if this is the case?

[digitaldiy]

I want to use LM3886 at 50watts RMS into 8 ohms to drive an
100watt RMS 12" woofer with 155 mm magnet and with a sensitivity 94db!!!!!!!

any way do the amplifier or the speaker face any problems?

what I have heard is that if we drive the speakers with underrated power amplifiers then does it mean that we are destroying the speakers?

so in this case as im using 50 RMS into 8 ohms to drive an 100 RMS 8 ohm 12 inch woofer?

any way how does this woofer sound ? nice or good or what?

[teemuk]

If the amplifier distorts the clipped peaks may cause DC current to flow through speaker coil. This could damage your speakers by heating the voice coil causing it to deform. Especially the high frequency speaker´s coils are easy to destroy with even a minimal amount of DC.

In practice, i think this shouldn´t be a big problem unless you use your amplifier on full power all the time. I like to use speakers with higher wattage range because they can handle all the power the unclipping amp produces. Anyway, the best practice is to use speakers that have a wattage rating that is a bit more than your amplifier.

Teemu K

[runebivrin]

When the amplifier clips it produces substabtial harmonics, and that's usually what kills the tweeters, although it could be argued that if that happens the tweeter was probably insufficiently power capable anyway.

Unless, of course, the amplifier has a severe case of bad clipping behaviour, which happens.

Rune

[runebivrin]

In addition, when an amplifier clips the original harmonics in the signal will be a relatively larger proprtion of the output signal, so will be harder on the tweeters.

See Rod Elliot: Why do tweeters blow for a detailed explanation.

Rune

[digitaldiy]

Thank you alot friends.