Electronics > Beginners
Can I connect a 100W subwoofer to the 40W+40W rear speaker outputs of a stereo?
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Bassman59:

--- Quote from: Byonnem on September 02, 2019, 02:16:16 pm ---Why not power it with 1x 40W? Underpowering a speaker does not hurt it. However it could possibly damage the amp. (but if that is the case then 2x 40 is still underpowering!)

--- End quote ---

You've got it exactly backwards.

Underpowering a speaker could indeed hurt it -- IF you drive the amp into clip, so the speaker sees a lot more power than if the amp output was clean. And this overheats the voice coil, which causes failures. As for whether this condition can damage the amplifier, that depends on the amplifier design. Even inexpensive amplifiers have some kind of thermal overload protection.

If you have a 40 W amplifier and a speaker capable of handling 100 W and you only demand 20 W from the amplifier, nothing is going to break.
Jwillis:
How much do you want to spend ?

2 ways you can add your subwoofer to your stereo .
You can "sum" the left and right together using the below diagram.This is a passive circuit and won't require additional power but its not perfect. It may reduce the volume and theirs a possibility of cross talk. Easy but won't give the best results.

The other way is to get an inexpensive subwoofer power amp. Theirs quite a few available on Ebay and come in various power ratings.
Heres a few examples https://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_sacat=0&_nkw=subwoofer+amplifier&_pgn=2&_skc=50&rt=nc
Hope this helps
 
Zero999:

--- Quote from: Bassman59 on September 03, 2019, 07:06:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: Byonnem on September 02, 2019, 02:16:16 pm ---Why not power it with 1x 40W? Underpowering a speaker does not hurt it. However it could possibly damage the amp. (but if that is the case then 2x 40 is still underpowering!)

--- End quote ---

You've got it exactly backwards.

Underpowering a speaker could indeed hurt it -- IF you drive the amp into clip, so the speaker sees a lot more power than if the amp output was clean. And this overheats the voice coil, which causes failures. As for whether this condition can damage the amplifier, that depends on the amplifier design. Even inexpensive amplifiers have some kind of thermal overload protection.

If you have a 40 W amplifier and a speaker capable of handling 100 W and you only demand 20 W from the amplifier, nothing is going to break.

--- End quote ---
Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. The person you've just responded to is talking about driving a 100W woofer with 40W, which will not cause any problems.

--- Quote from: Audioguru again on September 03, 2019, 05:02:07 pm ---Almost every speaker "shrieks" at its cone-breakup frequencies. You do not want to hear the shriek frequencies of a sub-woofer.
Here is a typical small 4 ohms 100W sub-woofer:

--- End quote ---
That shriek is only 15dB above the output at 100Hz and is probably not that noticeable, especially if the acoustics of the enclosure, i.e. a car boot, attenuate high frequencies. If it's an issue, a simple inductor will easily get rid of that and won't lose much power if it has a low enough ESR.
Bassman59:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on September 04, 2019, 07:30:28 am ---
--- Quote from: Bassman59 on September 03, 2019, 07:06:03 pm ---
--- Quote from: Byonnem on September 02, 2019, 02:16:16 pm ---Why not power it with 1x 40W? Underpowering a speaker does not hurt it. However it could possibly damage the amp. (but if that is the case then 2x 40 is still underpowering!)

--- End quote ---

You've got it exactly backwards.

Underpowering a speaker could indeed hurt it -- IF you drive the amp into clip, so the speaker sees a lot more power than if the amp output was clean. And this overheats the voice coil, which causes failures. As for whether this condition can damage the amplifier, that depends on the amplifier design. Even inexpensive amplifiers have some kind of thermal overload protection.

If you have a 40 W amplifier and a speaker capable of handling 100 W and you only demand 20 W from the amplifier, nothing is going to break.

--- End quote ---
Sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. The person you've just responded to is talking about driving a 100W woofer with 40W, which will not cause any problems.
--- End quote ---

Let's see how much power that amp puts out when driven into clip, which is (unfortunately) very common for subwoofer amps.
AVGresponding:
If you drive any amp into any speaker hard enough it'll start to clip  :-//

The solution is pretty simple: turn it down a wee bit.

You have to work with what you have, always. The OP has the head unit already and seems only to be considering the implications of using a sub/s on the rear outputs. If they turn it up too high, it'll distort, then clip. That's just part of learning the limits of your system  :palm:
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