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[Tim Malone]

I've set our pastor's preamp level (RF headset) nominal for spoken word. When he sings along with the hymns (muted to the house), the preamp distorts. Will this cause damage to it?

[Brad Weber]

I've set our pastor's preamp level (RF headset) nominal for spoken word. When he sings along with the hymns (muted to the house), the preamp distorts. Will this cause damage to it?

It shouldn't damage it but why not turn down the preamp gain so that it does not distort and then turn up the aux send and fader levels to compensate?

[Tim Padrick]

Won't hurt it, but it will sound like death.  Why do it?

[Jean-Pierre Coetzee]

Won't hurt it, but it will sound like death.  Why do it?

Lazy engineer? As he said it is muted in the mains when this happens. Personally I would fix the problem at the source, ask the pastor to turn off the mic when he's not talking into it, two birds one stone.

[Tim Weaver]

No.

I did however, through no fault of my own, apply the output of an amplifier to the input of the channel that was feeding that amplifier causing a feedback loop that lit up the console like a christmas tree. It did kill that channel, but the rest of the console was alright.

[Jonathan Johnson]

Overdriving a preamp with a line-level source is unlikely to damage it. Driving it with a speaker-level source (the output of an amplifier) possibly could cause damage.

Clipping a preamp could cause speaker damage IF your speakers are being driven at or near their peak power level for an extended period of time. That is, if your speakers are fed a square wave and they are driven close to the physical limits of their excursion, it could result in overheating of the voice coil. Since the channel is muted when it is clipping, this shouldn't be a concern.

I found this article which explains one person's take on the issue. It deals with clipping caused by underpowered amps in car audio, but the waveform generated by a clipped preamp fed through a properly sized amp would have very similar characteristics in any setting.

[TJ (Tom) Cornish]

Overdriving a preamp with a line-level source is unlikely to damage it. Driving it with a speaker-level source (the output of an amplifier) possibly could cause damage.

Clipping a preamp could cause speaker damage IF your speakers are being driven at or near their peak power level for an extended period of time. That is, if your speakers are fed a square wave and they are driven close to the physical limits of their excursion, it could result in overheating of the voice coil. Since the channel is muted when it is clipping, this shouldn't be a concern.

I found this article which explains one person's take on the issue. It deals with clipping caused by underpowered amps in car audio, but the waveform generated by a clipped preamp fed through a properly sized amp would have very similar characteristics in any setting.

The article you linked is better than many on this subject - refreshing from the car audio part of the world. 

Speaker damage occurrs due to either over excursion (too much signal amplitude), or overheating - too much area under the curve of the waveform.  The shape of the waveform is certainly a contributing factor if it causes the speaker to be driven beyond its excursion capability or its heating capability, but other than that, "clipping" pretty much just sounds bad.  Here is some more info on the subject.

http://www.bennettprescott.com/downloads/LoudspeakerFundamentals.pdf
http://srforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/54915/85/

As you mentioned, this isn't going to happen with the channel turned off, and I would hazard a guess that even if the mic was turned on full blast and the pastor's distorted singing was heard at full volume, you'd be very far from speaker damage.

[ProSoundWeb Community]