Distorted bass

[Edbostan]

The neighbours are on holiday so I decided to stretch the legs of the Onkyo 9010 amp and Kef iq10 speakers. I picked some bass loaded tracks such as Billie Jean by Michael Jackson. The volume control only reached 11 o'clock position before the woofer started to flap around with the bass sounding distorted. The amp is 44W with the Kefs designed to handle 100W. It looks as though I have reached the sonic capabilities of the amp. The music source was Amazon Music streamed through Sonos Connect plugged into back of amp. Would an amp of more wattage give better control of the woofer?

 

[Gray]

Would an amp of more wattage give better control of the woofer?

You should find that it will.
Higher wattage from something with a better power supply, able to give more current.

You know how you're going to find out.....try before you buy.

 

[npxavar]

The volume control only reached 11 o'clock position before the woofer started to flap around

You need speakers with bigger woofers. The woofers are supposed to barely move for best performance. Subwoofers are another story ... 100W power handling is meaningless without mention of frequency and THD%. It may be measured at 10%, which is listenable quality but with audible distortion.

 

[Al ears]

You need speakers with bigger woofers. The woofers are supposed to barely move for best performance. Subwoofers are another story ... 100W power handling is meaningless without mention of frequency and THD%. It may be measured at 10%, which is listenable quality but with audible distortion.

Where did you get this sort of information from?
About woofers I mean

 

[npxavar]

Where did you get this sort of information from?
About woofers I mean

The CEA-2010-B specification for measuring subwoofer max SPL assumes that the lower the frequency the higher our tolerance to distortion, for frequencies bellow 160Hz at least.

The more the cone movement approaches maximum excursion, the higher the distortion. A small woofer has to move more relative to a larger one to produce low frequencies, hence in high volumes it will have higher distortion.

 

[Al ears]

The CEA-2010-B specification for measuring subwoofer max SPL assumes that the lower the frequency the higher our tolerance to distortion, for frequencies bellow 160Hz at least.

The more the cone movement approaches maximum excursion, the higher the distortion. A small woofer has to move more relative to a larger one to produce low frequencies, hence in high volumes it will have higher distortion.

i meant if it is barely moving it isn't going to make a good transducer....

 

[npxavar]

Visually, not literally.

 

[NADman]

I 'm not sure if this a relevant comment but in my musician days i found bass players preferred smaller (8"-10") speakers on their amps as they said it gave a tighter more controlled bass with more thump, a theory something which could possibly carry over to a hifi system?