Answer:
Clipping is one form of distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven, which happens when it attempts to increase voltage or current beyond its limits.
When an amplifier is asked to create a signal greater than its maximum capacity, it will amplify the signal only up to its maximum capacity, at which point the signal will be amplified no further. As the signal simply "cuts" or "clips" at the maximum capacity of the amplifier, the signal is said to be "clipped." The extra signal which is beyond the capability of the amplifier is simply cut off, resulting in a fixed signal. Note that this fixed signal suffers from other forms of distortion, such as total harmonic distortion.
Because the clipped waveform has more area underneath it than the smaller unclipped waveform, the amplifier produces more power in clipping. This extra power can damage any part of the loudspeaker, including the woofer or the tweeter.
2006-12-12 07:47:26 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Cars & Transportation ➔ Car Audio
Additionally:
The clipping introduces additional high frequency components, meaning the clipped signal will be weighted more towards treble than the unclipped signal. Some people believe this additional treble weighting is dangerous to tweeters. Others believe that it is not dangerous, noting that normal music recordings sometimes have significant treble energy and yet don't damage tweeters.
Underpowering a sub, does not cause clipping (as some people believe).
My question is if you answer these types of question, can you answer them correctly?
2006-12-12 07:48:44 · update #1
Oooohhh, Mad Dog you are close, but no banana. If the signal is clipped, then you are sending a square wave as the signal. You'd have to use a signal generator to do this, as an audio source won't send a square wave because it's analog.
2006-12-12 15:00:25 · update #2
if i'm not mistaken it's not necessarily the amplifier that clips but the signal that clips. after a certain amount of volume, the system does not get louder but it tries to and usually the by-product is distortion or clipping. the signal can no longer be amplified cleanly so in order to amplify the signal furthur distortion is added into the signal by the source unit. all an amplifier will do is amplify the distortion it's being fed. the clipping could be viewed on an O-scope. the normal sinewaves would be viewed as rolling peaks and matching valleys....a clipped signal would be just that..... clipped....as if someone had chopped or clipped off these peaks and valleys so that now they are flat and plateaued instead of smooth and bumpy...it is in these plateaus that the distortion can be found
2006-12-12 14:49:52 · answer #1 · answered by Mad Dog 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
Actually, sound can be seen mathmatically as an infinite series of summed sine waves (see Fourier Transforms). If looking at an oscilloscope, an UNCLIPPED analog signal will be composed of peaks and valleys with curves.
CLIPPING occurs when the sine wave amplitude of the audio signal exceeds the voltage output of the amplifier. These waves have FLAT lines in them. The transition from a sine wave to a flat wave is discontinuous. The ear easily decodes this as distortion. Other types of distortion exist, such as odd and even order harmonics in the amp which have nothing to do with clipping and cause distortion while the amp works within its normal operational limits. The flat lines appear at the outputs as DC current, and clipping always occurs when the amp approaches the power supply rail value.
Class D amplifiers purposely convert the audio input to square waves (clipped) and then reconstitutes them at the end. This allows transistors to switch digitally, either fully on or fully off, so the actual power dissipation in the switches is less. When sine waves are not being digitally switched, FETS or bipolar transistors have power dissipation (act as resistors) during sine wave output. This can make for a cleaner amp, but more power = more cost (not that Class D amps are cheap).
I think this is recasting much of what you said, so I'm not sure why I answered it--another vague mystery in the world of Yahoo answers ;)
PS--this applies to general amps, including car amps. What is popular now is to put switching power supplies in the amps which up-convert 12-14 volts from the supply to much higher voltages, 24 or 48. (I'm not sure if they go higher because of regulatory requirements.) This allows higher power outputs than available usign only 12 Volts. If you have a 4 Ohm speaker, the max. power is P=Vi, P=3A*12V at 4 Ohms DC, which is only 36 watts continuous DC output. When you get into changing the magnetic strength in an inductor (speaker core) it requires higher voltages to deal with the L/R (inductance / DC coil resistance) problem when driving a coil. Driving coils needs more voltage than off the 12V battery.
2006-12-12 08:10:50 · answer #2 · answered by DellXPSBuyer 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Quoted directly from sparky3489
"Clipping is when someone tries to over compensate a low powered amp by increasing the sensitivity level (adjust the gain to a lower voltage) to get more power out of it. This is one way to damage a subwoofer. Over powering is another."
Im sure this is best awnser
2006-12-12 07:58:30 · answer #3 · answered by x000794293 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
in football it is tackling from behind when ur on offence
2006-12-12 07:55:10 · answer #4 · answered by ~TwInKiE~ 2 · 0⤊ 2⤋