Gonna blow my speakers!!

[Xonetacular]

Sony speakers? Come on dude, you can't use home audio speakers for parties.

The only speakers that will be up to par for DJing are professional PA speakers. Anything else is asking for trouble, car speakers, home theater, computer speakers, audiophile speakers, none of it will be good enough for live playing. If you do parties there is no excuse not to have real PA speakers.

I think everyone is missing the main problem here... Use the right speakers for the application. Even the best studio monitors aren't up to par and will cause problems if you try to use them for a party or any live setting.

[Tiefer]

Sony speakers? Come on dude, you can't use home audio speakers for parties.

The only speakers that will be up to par for DJing are professional PA speakers. Anything else is asking for trouble, car speakers, home theater, computer speakers, audiophile speakers, none of it will be good enough for live playing. If you do parties there is no excuse not to have real PA speakers.

haha! im a university student in a health science program, once i *stumble* across 500 dollars i dont need for school ill purchase some new speakers. For now burning plastic smelling speakers are great.

[Xonetacular]

haha! im a university student in a health science program, once i *stumble* across 500 dollars i dont need for school ill purchase some new speakers. For now burning plastic smelling speakers are great.

They are great until the plastic actually burns and you fry your system. I've made the same mistake before, although I was using good monitors.... Luckily I was able to return them since they were a week old.

I learned my lesson and listened to the advice people gave me and got a real PA....

[the shmobletons]

haha! im a university student in a health science program, once i *stumble* across 500 dollars i dont need for school ill purchase some new speakers. For now burning plastic smelling speakers are great.

+1. you gotta figure... if this guy/girl had the extra skrill to throw on some speakers, then they probably would have already. but in the mean time...

home speakers > no speakers

[Fatlimey]

Why is that?
I always heard it was the contrary, because that way it's more difficult to blow the speakers. Maybe you mean using a 1K amp at low volume so you never overheat the amp?

It's to do with the "elastic" system I was talking about. During fast movements, the speakers not only require a lot of energy to move, they also generate energy and try to oscillate when they return from a movement, just like pinging an elastic band, and it's the capacity of your amp to absorb and redirect this energy that prevents the amp and the speaker from killing each other due to clipping.

Yes, you'd use the amp at lower volumes and have the reserve power available to remove this extra movement. This ability is called the "damping factor" and it's where having a little extra power in your amp makes all the difference in sound quality.

Here's a short article explaining some of the parameters and features of a good Amp: http://www.astralsound.com/amplifiers.htm

[Xonetacular]

+1. you gotta figure... if this guy/girl had the extra skrill to throw on some speakers, then they probably would have already. but in the mean time...

home speakers > no speakers

Not necessarily, people cut corners everywhere if they don't think something is important. And that's also not true, if you use home speakers you will soon have no speakers if you try to use them for a big party.

[Tiefer]

Not necessarily, people cut corners everywhere if they don't think something is important. And that's also not true, if you use home speakers you will soon have no speakers if you try to use them for a big party.

yeah i totally agree with you. but for now it has to do. i acquired this sound system very cheap for what it does so i am not worried about blowing it in the near future. im sure blowing it would be great motivation to get a pa system haha.

[pier]

Yes, you'd use the amp at lower volumes and have the reserve power available to remove this extra movement.

Thanks, that makes sense now.

Nice article btw.

[djtimmmy]

Yes, you'd use the amp at lower volumes and have the reserve power available to remove this extra movement. This ability is called the "damping factor" and it's where having a little extra power in your amp makes all the difference in sound quality.

The other major factor in using an amplifier that can put out more power then what the speakers are engineered for is a term called "Headroom" there is a greatly reduced chance of sending the speakers a clipped signal because of the extra headroom you have, hence happy speakers.

I run my amps at about half gain, and my subs off my xti amp usually hardly turns on the cooling fan. my subs are 10 years old and still thump just like the day I got them and im usually have them running at about 800-900 watts a piece