problem with new driver

[bob123]

i recently purchased a 12" full range pa driver and i have been breaking it in, but if i put a sine wave below 100hz through the speaker at a good amound of power the speaker clicks with every hertz. The power rating of the speaker is 100w rms and the power i was putting through is no where near this.

what i want to know is will this clicking stop as the speaker breaks in or is it due to it not being in a cab.
when i put it in a cab will it stop?

[BillFitzmaurice]

Full range PA drivers are for the most part not inteneded for use much below 100 Hz and you're undoubtably pushing it beyond its XMax. The power rating means nothing. Xmax means everything.
To paraphrase the eminent Mr. Youngman, if it hurts when you do that don't do that. Also: what frequency sine are you using? It should not be lower than Fs by much or again you'll be pushing the driver past Xmax, with potentially destructive result.

[Paradise_Ice]

I have to agree with Bill on this one.
PA drivers are not for low bass signals and 100Hz is rather low but not for all PA drivers i will say.
If your breaking it in free air that does not help, it should be in a box to help the suspension,
If it is clicking and am sure you mean the voice coil is making contact with the yoke plate, you will deform the former and the coil could start to touch the yoke and break somewhere down the line!
breaking drivers in is a little subjective, Some people say it can be done in a few hours and others say it can take years! ok hundreds of hours at the least!
I would advise you to stop the break in with the sine wave and just get it into a box and use it.

[bob123]

thanks.
i have decided to build a sub 15" to allow the pa's to work at higher frequencys, using an active filter on my amp i can pass only frequencys over 200HZ.

so it is not a big deal as long as they have big sound.

oh and the drivers are full rage but do you think it would be worth getting tweaters as well?

[BillFitzmaurice]

Even if the driver is full range, and for a 12" that may mean it works up to 5kHz perhaps, your dispersion from a twelve is going to get very narrow above 1 wavelength of cone diameter- which for a twelve means around 900 Hz. If you want truly full range operation and wide dispersion you'll need a tweeter and perhaps a mid as well. If the 12 has a whizzer cone it will be OK up to the frequency that is one wavelength at the whizzer diameter.