Mirage powered speaker problems

Dean guitar pla

My next door neighbor has major problems with his top of the line powered Mirages, he keeps blowing the high and we are wondering if it his Onkyo receiver being the culprit w/ voltage spikes. Is this possible?

heiney9

Dean guitar pla wrote:

My next door neighbor has major problems with his top of the line powered Mirages, he keeps blowing the high and we are wondering if it his Onkyo receiver being the culprit w/ voltage spikes. Is this possible?

Yep, sure is; it's clipping and doing damage. What model are they? The powered section is only the woofer. The rest of the speaker is run from whatever amplification you have hooked up; ie; Onkyo. Turn it down or get a separate high quality amp if the Onk has pre-outs.

Dean guitar pla

The powered ones are OM-6's and the tweeters are all fried

Same thing happened w/ his non-powered OM-10s except the tweeters and mids are blown

His Onkyo is a model TX-SV717 PRO

He said that when he takes the Onkyo up to past mid volume, that is when the problem starts. This has only been a problem only since last year. Prior to that, he had no issues w/ the Onkyo unit ever. Is there something he should look for w/ a voltage tester? What could be the possible problem? He uses top quality gold plated RCA cables and Monster Cable heavy gauge speaker wire just like I do

Replacing the Onkyo is not an option at this time, we just wonder if the issue can be corrected with it

Thanks

jm1

Have a look at this article for further clarification.

Dean guitar pla

jm1 wrote:

Have a look at this article for further clarification.

Thank you! Interesting reading, a lot of what was mentioned I am familiar with but it does not answer my question. What is causing the Onk to clip at just over half volume and what needs to be done to correct it as this was not a problem prior. I understand about compression in cd recording and how that translates to the potential for clipping but this is a problem only noticed in the last year. It would seem by the article that the equipment is not at fault but the recording of the cd's is causing the amp section to clip far earlier then it should

From what I gather, its the cd's that are blowing the drivers at high levels, that is all he uses for music formats. An upgraded amp would not really help since he will crank it (cd's) to the max anyway, would that be a correct assessment?

Refefer

Just because the volume is at 1/2 doesn't neccesarily mean that the dynamics are compressed there. Whenever you hear a kick drum, you're sending a lot more wattage to the speaker than the normalized volume is at. Transients in music, such as the feeling of "air" around an instrument are similar to the kick drum in that you need extra juice to be able to provide their full glory.

As for his CDs, they should be outputting at a standard line level. An upgraded amp would allow him to crank them to much higher volumes without the amplifier distorting. It's called dynamic headroom. Ideally, your amp should be able to provide more power than the speaker is capable of at RMS. That means, no matter what volume you play it at, your amplifier won't distort and cause your speakers to meltdown.

Of course, that doesn't mean you can't blow it the good ol' fashion way. But, by the sounds of it, he's gonna keep killing his speakers if he keeps doing it this way.

Simply put, get a separate amp.

Dean guitar pla

Yeah, I though about it last nigth and that's the same conclusion I came to. He does need a better amp setup because he has already blown them out twice. I sent him a link to the site, hopefully he will purchase something that will suit his needs from someone here