No sorry.. that offers no protection at all. Yes with recorded sources that you are plenty familiar with you can set what your maximum power level will be with very good confidence but that assumes no open mics, nobody else at the controls, and no accidents or bad luck. I too did this for many years back in the '80's and '90's before DSP existed and never(rarely) lost any drivers but it was really just dumb luck and the fact that my system was overbuilt that it survived the occasional burst of mic feedback. We were literally rolling the dice every time we setup a system back then but there is no good reason not to have some real protection in a mobile sound system these days given how little it costs.
He did mention that he had a Behringer XR18 which is a rack style live sound digital mixer, I hate to make assumptions but it's hard to believe someone would buy that for strictly DJ use.
More wrong than right.
Unless your sound source is a bench type oscillator or an organ with keys held down with a brick, even from the same *source* (CD player, MP3 player , Cassette, Vinyl, Open Reel Tape, FM Tuner, live sound, microphone, electric guitar, you-name-it) level will vary wildly because **Program** itself varies ...... A LOT I might add.
Even with say, MP3 which "should" be even, there is need to "normalize" them using some software or they are all over the place.
Setting a volume control on, say, "5" and stick it there, thinking it protects speakers, is no guarantee at all.
See it from another point: a 3dB loudness variation is the minimum detectable by the average listener, yet a 3 dB variation in power delivered to speaker is (in very simplified form) same difference as voice coil reaching, say, 120C vs reaching 60C.
All the difference in the World if adhesive melts or softens at 100C .
Exactly! And it gets even worse, the spectral distribution can differ vastly on different types of music, even if the VU-meter tells it's the same loudness, the tweeters or the bass can get a lot different power levels on a bunch of frequencies. Some are easily swallowed by the speakers and others can be highly critical. If you can't imagine think about the extremes like feedback or clipping. And with music you don't realize how much power really goes to the tweeters, mids, bass or subs.
Definitely! And then don't forget that after the setup etc. then comes someone who wants more bass or treble and yanks at the EQ - remember, just 3dB is double the power! No, the volume control does not limit the power at all! It cannot ever provide a limit on maximum or average power, that can only be done by a limiter and even that has to be set up correctly and is still not bulletproof.
It offers plenty of protection if you don't change the source. The source could be the mixer or crossover or limiter. A limiter in the signal path just before the amp is a good way to go, because you know nothing upstream of it will drive the amp output farther than you want it to go. But of course people get in an open up limiters all the time, so it's not foolproof. Nothing is, so you have to be careful.
Point is, if you know the max level output of your source - such as your mixer - you can set the amps to never clip or to never go past a certain output level. It's protection unless you change it. And even if I had a limiter in front of the amps, I'd never run the amps wide open. That's just inviting trouble.
Nope. I am correct, I've done it for 4 decades - and I don't blow up drivers. Yes, there are better ways to do it, such as a limiter in the amp rack that is locked so that no one can change it. But if you know your gear, and you can lock the levels, turning down the amps works. If you don't know your gear and/or you let other people change your setup, then you blow up speakers.
All you have to do is understand gain, which I know you do, and it's not that difficult. You also have to understand the use of security screws on the control covers.
You can do it that way because you know your stuff and you can most likely exactly gauge where's the limit. But it is most definitely not a protection and that definitely does not help someone who has to ask such questions. Unless you want him to learn it the hard (expensive) way.
It's protection if you know what you're doing, and you should know what you are doing if you want to make it your livelihood. Despite what one should know - I have worked with scores of audio techs who have only the vaguest idea of the actual levels are coming out of the gear. I find that strange, but that's how the industry works. There are horses, and there is water - you know the saying.
If you believe that by just slapping on a limiter you have protected your speakers, well... I'm sorry for your loss. You better know where your amps are set, what your clipping levels are and what your speakers can survive. At least the OP has looked at his clip lights and turned down the amp, which is a step in the right direction. 
If you believe that by just slapping on a limiter you have protected your speakers, well... I'm sorry for your loss.
You better know where your amps are set, what your clipping levels are and what your speakers can survive. At least the OP has looked at his clip lights and turned down the amp, which is a step in the right direction. - Status
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