Speaker Popping

[MatrixS2000]

Originally Posted by Driver_King

Could you explain this more? And what should I do to correct it?

To correct it, turn down the volume - you are overdriving your speakers and could be damaging them.

Your speaker is controlled by a coil of wire called the voice coil (VC).

When you pass an audio signal through the voice coil it interacts with the magnetic field that the permanent magnet on your speaker produces which causes the VC to move up and down which makes the speaker cone move and and actually produce the sound you hear.

When you overdrive your speakers, you are pushing the VC outside of the magnetic field of your speaker's magnet which causes it to lose control of the VC movement. So you are basically pushing it well past that point of control causing it to pop by slamming into the backplate or exceeding the speaker's surround in extreme causes (the surround keeps the speaker cone centred).

For those that want the technical stuff, the max distance the VC can travel is part of the Thiele-Small parameters every speaker has. This parameter is Xmax and specifies the maximum distance the VC can travel before you start pushing it outside of it's design parameters.

For example, my Earthquake Magma 12 sub has an Xmax value of 22 mm. Meaning it can travel up to 22 mm peak-to-peak before putting the VC windings outside of the magnet's control. This is fairly long meaning that the speaker can move in and out more without damage. This means it can displace more air.

Another example is the Infinity Reference 1220w with an Xmax of about 12 mm. This basically means that this speaker has about half the travel distance of the Earthquake Magma 12.