Eli5 Why do speakers blow out? Shouldn’t they be ableto handle the volume that they are set up to receive?

Question

Eli5 Why do speakers blow out? Shouldn’t they be ableto handle the volume that they are set up to receive?

In: 1

Answer 1

Speakers are electrical components. Just like any electrical component, if you try to stuff more power through it that it was built to withstand, something will fail (typically heat up then burn up…aka “blow out”). If the electrical bits are up to it you might physically break the moving speaker components (cone, etc.) just by yanking them too far or too hard.

Speakers are rated up to a particular power; if you feed them power at (or below) that rating they should be fine. The *are* able to handle the volume (power) they’re setup to receive. But if you hook them to an amp that can send more power than the speaker can take, you’ll get into trouble. That’s not the speakers’ fault, that means you picked the wrong amp for those speakers.