Recordings damage car speakers

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I recently recorded a song that consists only of one mono track of acoustic guitar. That track was sent through an Aux track with reverb on it. The reverb I used was the D-Verb that came with Protools. I panned that guitar all the way to the left and the reverb all the way to the right, similar to what I think Jimmy Page does at the beginning of Stairway to Heaven. I have played it in a different car now, with undamaged speakers, about ten to fifteen times at 50-75% volume. The right speaker is now starting to rattle/crackle, and that is the side with only the reverb coming out of it. The left speaker seems fine. What is happening?
 
Whatever is happening, it's not related to your recording unless you're looping a harmonic throughout the whole song. The only way to damage a speaker is sending it more power than it is designed to handle or, with respect to tweeters, only, running sustained high-frequency sounds through it. Incidentally, though I've never tried anything like this (no reason to), my recollection of the various reverb plug-ins that I have is that it is possible to configure them so that the high-frequency cutoff is raised or eliminated and the decay extended way out. I suppose deliberately messing with the reverb MIGHT result in feeding back high-frequency sound that would be enough to fry a tweeter, but I've never heard of that happening.
 
Yeah. I don't get it. And I was wrong...both speakers are crackling. This isn't even my car. I rarely use this stereo. I just played Kanye West and the heavy bass was making the speakers crackle at low volumes.
 
simulation said:
Yeah. I don't get it. And I was wrong...both speakers are crackling. This isn't even my car. I rarely use this stereo. I just played Kanye West and the heavy bass was making the speakers crackle at low volumes.
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If you were playing Kanye West, the sound you heard was probably just the speakers throwing up. ;)
 
Yeah. I guess it could be the speakers vomiting. I play most of my music through an ipod adapter that plugs into the lighter. Could that be sending in to much sound that would cause damage?
 
simulation said:
Yeah. I guess it could be the speakers vomiting. I play most of my music through an ipod adapter that plugs into the lighter. Could that be sending in to much sound that would cause damage?
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Does the same problem occur when listening to the radio?
 
simulation said:
I just played Kanye West
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Greg_L said:
There's your problem right there.
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:laughings:

simulation said:
I have played it in a different car now, with undamaged speakers
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simulation said:
The right speaker is now starting to rattle/crackle, and that is the side with only the reverb coming out of it. The left speaker seems fine. What is happening?
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simulation said:
Yeah. I don't get it. And I was wrong...both speakers are crackling. This isn't even my car. I rarely use this stereo and the heavy bass was making the speakers crackle at low volumes.
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Well, having taken into account all you've relayed throughout this thread and considered all the possible angles and outcomes and considered the fact that reverb is involved in all cases and that the speakers gradually deteriorate even in a car that isn't yours and with a stereo you never use, the answer is blindingly obvious.
You're cursed......
 
In all seriousness though, you've got some duff speakers in the cars you drive. It's not uncommon.
 
simulation said:
Ok, thanks. I think I have a lot of mud or boom or whatever on my guitars. And I just assumed car stereos were designed to withstand their own maximum volume.
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Ya' know ...... there are other things that can damage speakers too ..... enough distortion can be enough high energy stuff to kill tweeters. It'd actually help if we could hear a clip but I'm gonna bet on too much sub to the mix.
 
What are sub-frequencies? Low Frequencies? Windows wont start on my computer again. I may have to reformat and then rerecord the song in order to post it. I dont like Lenovo.
 
The shape of the waveform has nothing to do with it. It's all about the area inside the wave (power), height of the wave (peak voltage) and the frequency. All speakers have a low frequency cutoff below which the rapidly lose the ability to reproduce the sound without physical damage. Above the LF cutoff they also have mechanical limits in how far the cone can move before the cone, spider or surround physically come apart, which results from too much instantaneous voltage. Every speaker can dissipate only so much heat, which derives from the power they draw.

You can feed square wave to a speaker all day as long as the power, voltage and frequency values are within the speaker's limits.

If the OP would answer my question about whether the radio has the same problem as the iPod input we could determine if it's distortion in the speakers or happening somewhere upstream.
 
simulation said:
What are sub-frequencies? Low Frequencies? Windows wont start on my computer again. I may have to reformat and then rerecord the song in order to post it. I dont like Lenovo.
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It's possible there are low (bass) frequencies in your mix that you aren't aware of if you are mixing on smaller monitors or headphones that don't reproduce them. Those low frequencies can be really hard on speakers if you turn the volume up.

Does the same problem happen if you switch to the radio?
 
550x700px-LL-0c45e171_Back-To-The-Future-Amplified-Speaker.jpeg
 
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