Will loud recorded ear piercing distorted sounds damage tweeters?

Squall Leonhart

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Hello

I have a PM8005 and SA8005 connected to Dali Opticon 1 speakers and so far the sound quality is amazing. However on some of my CD's I have encountered the odd flaws in recording and while flaws like this is to be expected from some music I am very worried if this will do damage to speakers. Flaws in recordings include distortion, pops and high pitched ringing or high pitched sounding distortion.

For example on one CD I was listening to last night it has many different instruments playing at the same time and gets pretty congested, however the speakers are so good it seems to somehow seperate nearly all of it. During one of the tracks the sound engineer either missed this part or it was probably an issue with the recording equipment they used because all of a sudden there was a painful ear piercing high pitched sound that came out of left speaker that went on for about half a second. I then turned off source direct on amp and set balance to have sound only come out of left speaker and I replayed track and when it got to the same part of track I got the same ear piercing sound on very same part of track which confirms it was from the CD. Volume was set at 8 as the music is mastered loud so volume is already loud at that level.

Considering that distortion was painful to listen to has me worried it could be overloading or damaging the tweeter. Because I am worrying I am no longer enjoying music. This is the first time I have got hifi equipment this expensive so I am very paranoid any damage could be occuring.

Can speakers like Opticon 1 handle loudly mastered demanding music and recorded distortion or will they get damaged? Are the tweeters being overdriven and possibly overheat? I really want to put my mind at ease and get back to enjoying music.
 

MajorFubar

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I'd say it's very possible to damage the speakers with loud shrill clipped distortion from poor recordings and over-compressed masters, especially if it's loud enough to hurt your ears. Though it really depends what the sound is exactly.
 

stereoman

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I always wondered if such recording actually can damage speakers ( especially tweeters ). Especially when I always listen to Chemical Brothers "We are the night" song. It seems to be specially made to damage the speakers :D , I think the tweeters are pretty safe if not strained in high volume. But I am not sure as well...a professional opinion would be welcome.
 

NSA_watch_my_toilet

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The answer is : Yes

Tweeter don't like distortions and extremes at very loud volumes. Had many reports about that on hifi-forum.de Some tweeters seem to be more resistant than others, but I would not take the risk anyway.
 

Electro

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Squall Leonhart said:
Hello

I have a PM8005 and SA8005 connected to Dali Opticon 1 speakers and so far the sound quality is amazing. However on some of my CD's I have encountered the odd flaws in recording and while flaws like this is to be expected from some music I am very worried if this will do damage to speakers. Flaws in recordings include distortion, pops and high pitched ringing or high pitched sounding distortion.

For example on one CD I was listening to last night it has many different instruments playing at the same time and gets pretty congested, however the speakers are so good it seems to somehow seperate nearly all of it. During one of the tracks the sound engineer either missed this part or it was probably an issue with the recording equipment they used because all of a sudden there was a painful ear piercing high pitched sound that came out of left speaker that went on for about half a second. I then turned off source direct on amp and set balance to have sound only come out of left speaker and I replayed track and when it got to the same part of track I got the same ear piercing sound on very same part of track which confirms it was from the CD. Volume was set at 8 as the music is mastered loud so volume is already loud at that level.

Considering that distortion was painful to listen to has me worried it could be overloading or damaging the tweeter. Because I am worrying I am no longer enjoying music. This is the first time I have got hifi equipment this expensive so I am very paranoid any damage could be occuring.

Can speakers like Opticon 1 handle loudly mastered demanding music and recorded distortion or will they get damaged? Are the tweeters being overdriven and possibly overheat? I really want to put my mind at ease and get back to enjoying music.

What are the titles of the offending recordings, just out of interest ?
 

alwaysbeblue1

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Problem with a good Hi Fi in my opinion is that you can have a conversation even playing at high volumes, because there is not as much distortion.

Problem is the temptation to play louder and then the LOUDSPEAKER breaks !

Never happened to me but how a loudspeaker breaks at high volumes is beyond me.... Yes I know if played at stupid level, party levels things can go wrong, but you would think at these prices and beyond they would be loud proof
 

alwaysbeblue1

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Problem with a good Hi Fi in my opinion is that you can have a conversation even playing at high volumes, because there is not as much distortion.

Problem is the temptation to play louder and then the LOUDSPEAKER breaks !

Never happened to me but how a loudspeaker breaks at high volumes is beyond me.... Yes I know if played at stupid level, party levels things can go wrong, but you would think at these prices and beyond they would be loud proof
 

MajorFubar

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alwaysbeblue1 said:
Problem with a good Hi Fi in my opinion is that you can have a conversation even playing at high volumes, because there is not as much distortion.

Problem is the temptation to play louder and then the LOUDSPEAKER breaks !

Never happened to me but how a loudspeaker breaks at high volumes is beyond me.... Yes I know if played at stupid level, party levels things can go wrong, but you would think at these prices and beyond they would be loud proof
While a speaker can be physically damaged by being over-driven with a clean signal, it's the amplifier clipping which causes most damage. Some ampilfiers, such as some (older?) models by NAD, had a switch to control clipping at high volumes, but by and large it remains an uncommon feature on HiFi amplifiers. Beyond that, it relies on you not being a knob with the knob (pardon expression).
 

Squall Leonhart

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Thanks for all responses. I am also very interested in a professional opinion if there is any sound engineers lurking on these forums. Although I welcome all opinions offcourse. The music I was listening to is mastered loud but is quite clean sounding and retains some dynamics. The flaws only effect a small amount of the track (except loudness) and the song with the high pitched sound was one of two flaws I heard the whole song. It would be frustrating if only those infrequent flaws would be enough to cause damage.

It's all quite depressing really, I listen to a wide range of music from classical all the way to Jpop. Music from all genres should be mastered well but unfortunaly loud overly compressed mastering leads to more sales and labels need there profits.
 

Squall Leonhart

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I had to double post as I can't seem to copy and paste quote on to my edited post.
Electro said:
Squall Leonhart said:
Hello

I have a PM8005 and SA8005 connected to Dali Opticon 1 speakers and so far the sound quality is amazing. However on some of my CD's I have encountered the odd flaws in recording and while flaws like this is to be expected from some music I am very worried if this will do damage to speakers. Flaws in recordings include distortion, pops and high pitched ringing or high pitched sounding distortion.

For example on one CD I was listening to last night it has many different instruments playing at the same time and gets pretty congested, however the speakers are so good it seems to somehow seperate nearly all of it. During one of the tracks the sound engineer either missed this part or it was probably an issue with the recording equipment they used because all of a sudden there was a painful ear piercing high pitched sound that came out of left speaker that went on for about half a second. I then turned off source direct on amp and set balance to have sound only come out of left speaker and I replayed track and when it got to the same part of track I got the same ear piercing sound on very same part of track which confirms it was from the CD. Volume was set at 8 as the music is mastered loud so volume is already loud at that level.

Considering that distortion was painful to listen to has me worried it could be overloading or damaging the tweeter. Because I am worrying I am no longer enjoying music. This is the first time I have got hifi equipment this expensive so I am very paranoid any damage could be occuring.

Can speakers like Opticon 1 handle loudly mastered demanding music and recorded distortion or will they get damaged? Are the tweeters being overdriven and possibly overheat? I really want to put my mind at ease and get back to enjoying music.

What are the titles of the offending recordings, just out of interest ?
FictionJunction Elemental album which is Jpop. Here it is on loudness wars database:

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/view/86620

The thing is I read somewhere that the sound engineer has earned a good reputation in Japan and I assume the loud mastering is due to pressure for higher sales. The high pitched sound could have been some type of feedback from the recording equipment maybe.

Edit: Just found out mastering engineer is Yuuji Chinone who is said to be very good at his job. So the problem could either be loudness wars or recording equipment that caused distortion. I would assume a veteran like Yuuji Chinone would have filtered or compressed the distorted parts to cut of the extreme frequencies to make it safe for playback on all consumer equipment. So while the distorted part sounded very high pitched it might not be negatively effecting tweeter? That is what I am hoping is the case anyway.
 

Macspur

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Can't find that track on Spotify nor Apple Music, only a backing track version and that sounds fine.

Have you listened to it on your second system?

Just turn the volume down for that track, don't let one incident like that spoil your enjoyment of your new Hi/Fi or music.

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net
 

insider9

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MajorFubar said:
alwaysbeblue1 said:
Problem with a good Hi Fi in my opinion is that you can have a conversation even playing at high volumes, because there is not as much distortion.

Problem is the temptation to play louder and then the LOUDSPEAKER breaks !

Never happened to me but how a loudspeaker breaks at high volumes is beyond me.... Yes I know if played at stupid level, party levels things can go wrong, but you would think at these prices and beyond they would be loud proof
While a speaker can be physically damaged by being over-driven with a clean signal, it's the amplifier clipping which causes most damage. Some ampilfiers, such as some (older?) models by NAD, had a switch to control clipping at high volumes, but by and large it remains an uncommon feature on HiFi amplifiers. Beyond that, it relies on you not being a knob with the knob (pardon expression).
Amen to that
 

Squall Leonhart

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Macspur said:
Can't find that track on Spotify nor Apple Music, only a backing track version and that sounds fine.

Have you listened to it on your second system?

Just turn the volume down for that track, don't let one incident like that spoil your enjoyment of your new Hi/Fi or music.

Mac

www.macsmusic.blogbubble.net
Thanks. I am very pleased with hifi so I wont let it spoil enjoyment. Sound quality is the best I heard and even overly compressed music sounds better unless it's got unintended distortion or is badly mixed. But well recorded and mastered stuff sounds phenomenal with this system, I wish everything was recorded and mastered well.

The track on the album with distortion is called Gaika. It has distortion for style reasons but there is a part of track with high pitch that seems unintended and that's the part that is ear piercing but on my second system it's not as bad, I guess the Opticon's are just more revealing then the diamond 220's.
 

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