I am designing my second speaker and I am not sure how much watt my tweeter can handle before it melts? I got my FRD and ZMA files from parts express because I don't want to buy a measurement microphone, yet. So I am wondering if I need to worry about my tweeter melting when I play at high volume?
This chart shows what will happen if the amp gives each frequency alone at full output. You won't see that much in reality.
The thermal limit of a dome tweeter is usually only a watt or two. But don't worry - music doesn't contain much energy at high frequencies.
Buy a microphone you should. Those FRD files are only valid in near-field, or if you place the driver on an infinite baffle. In a real-world typically sized speaker box with a 25-30 cm wide baffle, it's not going to look anything like that because of the baffle-step.
You can if you want try to simulate the baffle step response using EDGE, link below.
http://www.tolvan.com/edge/help.htm
Typical baffle and its response:
Tweeters with ferrofluid suspension are thermally more robust than those without, and these are commonly available - your ND25FW-4 is an example and claims 20W rms handling.
Your hearing may be damaged before the tweeters in a domestic setting - there's only so much high frequencies you can take, unlike bass where most music power resides. 20W of tweeter is a lot, assuming its not marketing watts, which are pervasive alas.
If your amp fails with ultrasonic oscillation, that can burn up a tweeter - unlikely scenario though.
Systems without a capacitor in the tweeter signal path can easily blow the tweeter if the amp fails with overly large DC offset, but that's not a problem with a passive crossover like this, you have 2 caps to protect the tweeter in fact.
Your hearing may be damaged before the tweeters in a domestic setting - there's only so much high frequencies you can take, unlike bass where most music power resides. 20W of tweeter is a lot, assuming its not marketing watts, which are pervasive alas.
If your amp fails with ultrasonic oscillation, that can burn up a tweeter - unlikely scenario though.
Systems without a capacitor in the tweeter signal path can easily blow the tweeter if the amp fails with overly large DC offset, but that's not a problem with a passive crossover like this, you have 2 caps to protect the tweeter in fact.
Short term it it the heat capacity of copper (0.4 J/g K)that sets the limit. Say 0.1 g Copper and 10 W that will increas the 40 degrees every second and 100W will increase it 400 C or K every second.
So short pulses of 100 W (less than 1/10 of second or so) will not melt it however a 50W amp that is clipping and sending sqare waves to the tweeter will kill it faster than really short pulses of 300 W.
Long term it depends how efficent the tweeter is at wicking away the heat from the voice coil to the surrounding structures.
So short pulses of 100 W (less than 1/10 of second or so) will not melt it however a 50W amp that is clipping and sending sqare waves to the tweeter will kill it faster than really short pulses of 300 W.
Long term it depends how efficent the tweeter is at wicking away the heat from the voice coil to the surrounding structures.