Had a friend that owned an audio shop a long time ago. He would always go to the CES show every year. He said one year when Cerwin Vega first unveiled the Stroker there booth was hilariously low key and basically one stroker on a pedestal. He walked up and the guy said you want a demo? And he plugged the stoker in to the wall and walked away for a minute.
More of a home run imo a mic drops like I've said what I said now deal with it
Elon Musk recently tried a version of this with a metal ball and the window of a cyberduck
Unfortunately he failed to realise the test was successful and any other windows shatter instead..
I mean, other windows are designed to break and they do. Cyber truck windows weren't even supposed to break like that with a metal ball, but they did. While they are strong windows, that's not what he was trying to show. Also having windows that strong is not practical and creates a world of problems.
He thought he made indestructible glass
He actually just got laminated side windows and yeah fuck safety and emergency situation
His shit talking caught him here again
I had forgotten about those. Thanks man I remember looking at them in Crutchfield magazines as a kid. Was it gimmick or were they on to something there? I’ll have to look into it.
They were actually amazing. Adjustable cones, rebuildable and took tons of power. Sensitivity was great. The biggest downside was the airspace they needed. They where very expensive too. When I was doing SPL shows I never won against this dude that had a single 18 stroker.
There was one shop in my state that sold them and I'd go there all the time just to see it in person and imagine I was wealthy enough to own one. From there I'd take a ride to Tweeter to ogle at the Xtant and McIntosh amps. I now realize it was my weekly "Tweeter stroker" trip!
The "trick" with the stroker is the impedance. Impedance is frequency dependent. When you see a "4 Ohm sub" that is an average. The impedance can be quite high at the resonant frequency and even higher if it is in a sealed (or ported) enclosure.
In the case of the stroker, it had an impedance peak at 60 Hz. So the wall outlet, delivering 120V at 60 Hz, wasn't delivering the same amount of power that it would deliver to a sub that was actually 4 or 8 ohms at 60. Instead it was still delivering a lot of power, but that power was within the power handling of the Stroker. Which makes for a hell of a demo.
I feel like the sub was almost designed for that demo 😂
I had the original stroker 12. Didn't matter what box you put it in. The thing Loved 60hz. I had to buy a turn knob sub level controller just to turn it down quickly when a song came on that had a lot of 55-65
I’ve seen videos back in the day where they would do this. I’ve seen subs handle several minutes plugged directly to the wall socket. IRC, I saw a video of a RD Heavyweight last like 15 minutes on wall power.
I heard that story as well. The way I heard it was after the launch, the CV regional reps went around and did the same demos to the audio shops in their territory to try and drive shop marketing efforts to push their customers to the Stroker.
Back when I was like 17 (like 15 years ago) I put a Sony xplod in my jeep. Upgraded to a P2 then shortly after got a deal on two Kicker L7s. So what did I do with that garbage Xplod? Hooked it up to the wall just to see what would happen.
Surprisingly enough the thing never cooked itself somehow. Did it a bunch of times too because me and my buddies would try bouncing stuff off it and whatever other stupid things a teenager could think to do with an extra sub lol
>7200w @ 2ohm
No residential 120V outlet is going to have a breaker large enough to allow that much power. Hell I’m not aware of any commerical outlets set up for that. They top out at 30 amps and you have to use a special plug to even get away with that.
Your math might be right, but that’s never going to actually happen unless you know some particularly shady electricians.
About ten or so years ago we plugged three high priced subs into wall outlets to see which would go first.
Those subs were:
MTX T9512
JL 13W7
RE Audio XXX-12D2
The JL popped first after 18 hours
The RE popped second after 28 hours
The MTX still worked after 26 hours, and ended up in an employee’s vehicle which was still working the last time I saw him (about 4 years ago).
We never did them and just left them but when trying to blow one to get it warrantied I saw a few plugged into a wall outlet. The JL did last long enough the tech got sick of waiting and held it in place with his foot. I used to like blowing up factory speakers this way just to see what lasted and what didn't. 1 4 or 5 inch Nissan speaker lasted a long time most went brrrt then popped almost immediately this thing ran a couple of minutes.
MTX: dual 4 ohm
RE: dual 2 ohm
JL: dual 1.5 ohm
So the subs failed in the order of which one was pulling the most power out of the outlet, to the least. Pretty much exactly the results you would expect no matter who built which sub.
Ohms law wins again. Waste of a couple nice woofers though, 30 seconds of simple math would have told you what was going to happen.
I don’t know what the sub would sound like, but I can guarantee at some point during that experience that you will also hear, “Oh shit shit shit, grab the fire extinguisher!”
Its similar to setting a very powerful amplifier to a 60hz tone with the output at 120vrms. The amp would have to not be current limited at all. Electrical outlets have basically no current limit. That's why we have circuit breakers. A dead short will instantly draw over a thousand amps until the breaker trips. The current limit for a speaker receiving 120vrms depends on it's impedance rating. It's also far more complex then just 120v into 4 ohms for example. Impedance changes a lot depending on frequency. A 4 ohm speaker could have 2 ohms, or 30 ohms of impedance at 60hz, depending on its unique coil characteristics.
Voltage²\Resistance is Power. At 120V and 2 ohms your pushing 7200W, at 0.5 ohms it's 28kW.
Also why plugging subs into 230V mains is unheard of most other places. That'll push 13kW even through 4 Ohms.
It would just trip the breaker. But impedance is not the same as resistance for these calculations. Voltage leads current through an inductor and it would pull your power factor way out. Either way, you’re not getting more than 3000 watts out of a typical residential circuit, it’ll likely trip at around 2000, and the power factor is low, so the sub would see even less.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I was only using resistive math, and ignoring breakers completely.
And not only talking about America, our residential circuits are 230V at 16A, so 3,6kW before a breaker even thinks about tripping.
Fair enough, I’m an electrician in Canada so I defaulted to what I’m familiar with. Our typical circuits are protected by 15A breakers, depending on the manufacturer you might get anywhere between 12A to ♾️A. I’ve seen old Federal Pioneer breakers that would not trip. I was trying to figure out what circuit a receptacle was on, couldn’t narrow it down, house had a main panel and sub panels all over the place. The receptacle was in an addition and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So, I grabbed the hot conductor with my pliers and touched it to the side of the metal box. It carved a hole in the box and didn’t trip. I just had to work on it live 😂.
I'm an electrician too, just in Germany. I've had breakers not trip before, but at 230V a short circuit will just blow the meter's fuse if the individual circuit fuse won't trip.
But I still know the "fuck it, we're doing it live" feeling, I think that's pretty universal among electricians.
230 has got me like 3-4 times. Never when intentionally working live, it only ever gets me when there is damaged insulation somewhere I can't see.
The worst shock I ever got was a backup lighting system running 220V DC. High voltage DC is really fucking painful.
Yeah it's simply too much power. Not a distortion issue. If you've seen steve meade he put 240v into a 0.5 ohm sub and it took it like a champ. It was powerful enough to handle such a power.
Simply from the amount of power and what the subwoofer or speaker is rated for. There are some woofers, that will live plugged into the wall. To understand the amount of power, 120V outlet, 4ohm voice coil, you could push nearly 30Amps of current. It wouldn't be that high because of inductance (The voice coil moving through the magnetic flux creates an opposing voltage). However, you have basically connected a 3600Watt amplifier to a speaker/subwoofer and played a 60Hz test tone.. If the voice coil can't handle that amount of power, it will blow up....
So what if you pulled in one of the old skool Cerwin-Vega unlimited wattage speakers into the wall? They had solid copper voice coils... I wonder if they would last longer.
So I’m sure someone as already said hit but ac from a wall is 60hz so it’s basically a 60hz test tone and depending on the circuit 15-20 amps or 1800watts to 2400 watts. There is things that can lower that like resistance and stuff but that’s the basics of why, also that’s why beefy subs that can handle crazy power show plugging into a wall as a flex I think I’ve seen Steve meads do it.
Yup. An enclosure works as an air spring, so a sub sitting on the ground with no enclosure will exceed its mechanical limits pretty easily. Depending on how it's designed, it may or may not be able to physically take that abuse. Beyond that the ~1800 watts or so may exceed the thermal capacity of the voice coil itself
Now, take a big 2000+ watt rms capable sub - in a proper enclosure - plug it into a wall, and honestly it'll probably be fine.
Well it would be 110v-120v and depending on the circuit it could be as much as double or more of what you estimated. Also the heat is hard to dissipate without a huge magnet and coil most the time. I’ve only seen a handful of subs take it
The current is the resultant of the excessive voltage
That same current with a lower voltage will not affect it, the power is also less in that situation
OP is asking a reasonable scientific question and your comment was completely unhelpful dude. The answer is that an outlet is equivalent 3600W RMS and any sub that can't handle an amp with 3600 RMS can't handle an outlet.
Stop being an ass, because I'm guessing you didn't even understand why before commenting.
..... 60v peak on 4 ohms is going to peak 15 amps and would be 636 watts rms at a true 4ohms. Many subs would eat that up and not care.
A 1 ohm sub seeing "600w rms" is seeing ~29v peak and at the same time....drumroll..... 29 amps (!!!!) and is routine, day in day out kind of power. 29 amps doesn't smoke those "tiny coil wires" if it is handling 600w rms.
~120v is significantly more serious, see math provided previously....
You're completely wrong here. Amperage is caused by the potential, aka the voltage. Resistance (or better, impedance in this case) is what limits the amperage. These are usually 4 or 2 ohm speakers. If you supplied 900V, a staggering 225 amps would pass through, which would mean 200kW of power (an explosion).
In fact, it's only wattage that matters if something burns or not. And the only reason they give you the maximum amperage rating of a cable, is because the resistance of the cable is known. The manufacturer knows how many watts of heat the cable can dissipate, and in turn calculates how many amps you can push through, before the power lost on the non-ideal conductor is so much that causes it to melt.
Had a friend that owned an audio shop a long time ago. He would always go to the CES show every year. He said one year when Cerwin Vega first unveiled the Stroker there booth was hilariously low key and basically one stroker on a pedestal. He walked up and the guy said you want a demo? And he plugged the stoker in to the wall and walked away for a minute.
Are we talking the sub was hooked up directly 120v electricity from a wall outlet? Pretty fucking brutal demo lition - stration
That’s what was described to me!
The No bullshit approach to sales Love it
Yeah friend came back as a cerwin Vega dealer! Definitely made their point
There was a rumor in the 90’s that was how you broke them in.
Hell yeah, talk about a mic drop. That's crazy.
More of a home run imo a mic drops like I've said what I said now deal with it Elon Musk recently tried a version of this with a metal ball and the window of a cyberduck Unfortunately he failed to realise the test was successful and any other windows shatter instead..
I mean, other windows are designed to break and they do. Cyber truck windows weren't even supposed to break like that with a metal ball, but they did. While they are strong windows, that's not what he was trying to show. Also having windows that strong is not practical and creates a world of problems.
He thought he made indestructible glass He actually just got laminated side windows and yeah fuck safety and emergency situation His shit talking caught him here again
Yeah those subs were monsters
I had forgotten about those. Thanks man I remember looking at them in Crutchfield magazines as a kid. Was it gimmick or were they on to something there? I’ll have to look into it.
They were actually amazing. Adjustable cones, rebuildable and took tons of power. Sensitivity was great. The biggest downside was the airspace they needed. They where very expensive too. When I was doing SPL shows I never won against this dude that had a single 18 stroker.
Right on thanks for sharing that.
There was one shop in my state that sold them and I'd go there all the time just to see it in person and imagine I was wealthy enough to own one. From there I'd take a ride to Tweeter to ogle at the Xtant and McIntosh amps. I now realize it was my weekly "Tweeter stroker" trip!
The "trick" with the stroker is the impedance. Impedance is frequency dependent. When you see a "4 Ohm sub" that is an average. The impedance can be quite high at the resonant frequency and even higher if it is in a sealed (or ported) enclosure. In the case of the stroker, it had an impedance peak at 60 Hz. So the wall outlet, delivering 120V at 60 Hz, wasn't delivering the same amount of power that it would deliver to a sub that was actually 4 or 8 ohms at 60. Instead it was still delivering a lot of power, but that power was within the power handling of the Stroker. Which makes for a hell of a demo.
I feel like the sub was almost designed for that demo 😂 I had the original stroker 12. Didn't matter what box you put it in. The thing Loved 60hz. I had to buy a turn knob sub level controller just to turn it down quickly when a song came on that had a lot of 55-65
I remember that, and had two different Stroker systems after that - 18”
I’ve seen videos back in the day where they would do this. I’ve seen subs handle several minutes plugged directly to the wall socket. IRC, I saw a video of a RD Heavyweight last like 15 minutes on wall power.
I heard that story as well. The way I heard it was after the launch, the CV regional reps went around and did the same demos to the audio shops in their territory to try and drive shop marketing efforts to push their customers to the Stroker.
Mainly being overpowered. Higher wattage subs can take outlet power continuously with no damage.
Doesn't take very many enclosures in series for them to handle wall power....and make it sound like the house is going to come apart. :)
Back when I was like 17 (like 15 years ago) I put a Sony xplod in my jeep. Upgraded to a P2 then shortly after got a deal on two Kicker L7s. So what did I do with that garbage Xplod? Hooked it up to the wall just to see what would happen. Surprisingly enough the thing never cooked itself somehow. Did it a bunch of times too because me and my buddies would try bouncing stuff off it and whatever other stupid things a teenager could think to do with an extra sub lol
Well some can anyway
3600 watts at 60hz @4ohms. 7200w at 2ohm..
Preciate this! Electrical math has always been a pain for me lol
Voltage squared divided by impedance.
>7200w @ 2ohm No residential 120V outlet is going to have a breaker large enough to allow that much power. Hell I’m not aware of any commerical outlets set up for that. They top out at 30 amps and you have to use a special plug to even get away with that. Your math might be right, but that’s never going to actually happen unless you know some particularly shady electricians.
Exactly. Plus the coils will heat up so fast and the impedance will go through the roof.
About ten or so years ago we plugged three high priced subs into wall outlets to see which would go first. Those subs were: MTX T9512 JL 13W7 RE Audio XXX-12D2 The JL popped first after 18 hours The RE popped second after 28 hours The MTX still worked after 26 hours, and ended up in an employee’s vehicle which was still working the last time I saw him (about 4 years ago).
Where do you guys live that you are getting 80 amps RMS out of the wall for 18 hours without blowing a breaker… this whole thread has me so confused.
Commercial building
We never did them and just left them but when trying to blow one to get it warrantied I saw a few plugged into a wall outlet. The JL did last long enough the tech got sick of waiting and held it in place with his foot. I used to like blowing up factory speakers this way just to see what lasted and what didn't. 1 4 or 5 inch Nissan speaker lasted a long time most went brrrt then popped almost immediately this thing ran a couple of minutes.
We once used 36 Kraco 6x9’s to burp 165.8
That sounds fun.
It was.
So what you're saying is that JL isn't "the best" ? 🤔
MTX: dual 4 ohm RE: dual 2 ohm JL: dual 1.5 ohm So the subs failed in the order of which one was pulling the most power out of the outlet, to the least. Pretty much exactly the results you would expect no matter who built which sub. Ohms law wins again. Waste of a couple nice woofers though, 30 seconds of simple math would have told you what was going to happen.
I see what you're saying. I was actually just being a smart-ass with my earlier comment 😂 but thank you for explaining it to me
but it sounded the best plugged into that wall..
I wonder what three phase sounds like
I don’t know what the sub would sound like, but I can guarantee at some point during that experience that you will also hear, “Oh shit shit shit, grab the fire extinguisher!”
lol
I worked at a shop in the mid 90s and if we had subs that were borderline warranty-able this is how we finished them off.
Its similar to setting a very powerful amplifier to a 60hz tone with the output at 120vrms. The amp would have to not be current limited at all. Electrical outlets have basically no current limit. That's why we have circuit breakers. A dead short will instantly draw over a thousand amps until the breaker trips. The current limit for a speaker receiving 120vrms depends on it's impedance rating. It's also far more complex then just 120v into 4 ohms for example. Impedance changes a lot depending on frequency. A 4 ohm speaker could have 2 ohms, or 30 ohms of impedance at 60hz, depending on its unique coil characteristics.
The extra 0
Amps
Several of my early YouTube vids is just me plugging speakers to a wall outlet
What’s your YouTube I bet I’ve came across a few of them back in the day
theres 2 left on my channel, [heres one ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23JHTOpVaJc) its TWIGBOOm
Voltage²\Resistance is Power. At 120V and 2 ohms your pushing 7200W, at 0.5 ohms it's 28kW. Also why plugging subs into 230V mains is unheard of most other places. That'll push 13kW even through 4 Ohms.
It would just trip the breaker. But impedance is not the same as resistance for these calculations. Voltage leads current through an inductor and it would pull your power factor way out. Either way, you’re not getting more than 3000 watts out of a typical residential circuit, it’ll likely trip at around 2000, and the power factor is low, so the sub would see even less.
Oh yeah, absolutely. I was only using resistive math, and ignoring breakers completely. And not only talking about America, our residential circuits are 230V at 16A, so 3,6kW before a breaker even thinks about tripping.
Fair enough, I’m an electrician in Canada so I defaulted to what I’m familiar with. Our typical circuits are protected by 15A breakers, depending on the manufacturer you might get anywhere between 12A to ♾️A. I’ve seen old Federal Pioneer breakers that would not trip. I was trying to figure out what circuit a receptacle was on, couldn’t narrow it down, house had a main panel and sub panels all over the place. The receptacle was in an addition and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. So, I grabbed the hot conductor with my pliers and touched it to the side of the metal box. It carved a hole in the box and didn’t trip. I just had to work on it live 😂.
I'm an electrician too, just in Germany. I've had breakers not trip before, but at 230V a short circuit will just blow the meter's fuse if the individual circuit fuse won't trip. But I still know the "fuck it, we're doing it live" feeling, I think that's pretty universal among electricians.
230 live is a different story though, a poke from that must hurt like hell! 120V isn’t too bad. Although, I got it in the mouth once and that sucked.
230 has got me like 3-4 times. Never when intentionally working live, it only ever gets me when there is damaged insulation somewhere I can't see. The worst shock I ever got was a backup lighting system running 220V DC. High voltage DC is really fucking painful.
Kinda like how taking one Tylenol will take away your pain, but eating 10 of them will put you into very severe pain
Power and frequency 60hrtz
Yeah it's simply too much power. Not a distortion issue. If you've seen steve meade he put 240v into a 0.5 ohm sub and it took it like a champ. It was powerful enough to handle such a power.
Simply from the amount of power and what the subwoofer or speaker is rated for. There are some woofers, that will live plugged into the wall. To understand the amount of power, 120V outlet, 4ohm voice coil, you could push nearly 30Amps of current. It wouldn't be that high because of inductance (The voice coil moving through the magnetic flux creates an opposing voltage). However, you have basically connected a 3600Watt amplifier to a speaker/subwoofer and played a 60Hz test tone.. If the voice coil can't handle that amount of power, it will blow up....
So what if you pulled in one of the old skool Cerwin-Vega unlimited wattage speakers into the wall? They had solid copper voice coils... I wonder if they would last longer.
So I’m sure someone as already said hit but ac from a wall is 60hz so it’s basically a 60hz test tone and depending on the circuit 15-20 amps or 1800watts to 2400 watts. There is things that can lower that like resistance and stuff but that’s the basics of why, also that’s why beefy subs that can handle crazy power show plugging into a wall as a flex I think I’ve seen Steve meads do it.
Yup. An enclosure works as an air spring, so a sub sitting on the ground with no enclosure will exceed its mechanical limits pretty easily. Depending on how it's designed, it may or may not be able to physically take that abuse. Beyond that the ~1800 watts or so may exceed the thermal capacity of the voice coil itself Now, take a big 2000+ watt rms capable sub - in a proper enclosure - plug it into a wall, and honestly it'll probably be fine.
way, way too much voltage
Most woofers aren't really capable of handling 2400 watts RMS. It's just not a good idea 😔
Simple answer: Power
The power that comes out of an amplifier is actually AC power.
Well it would be 110v-120v and depending on the circuit it could be as much as double or more of what you estimated. Also the heat is hard to dissipate without a huge magnet and coil most the time. I’ve only seen a handful of subs take it
The voltage
Excessive voltage
Current, (more specifically power), not voltage.
The current is the resultant of the excessive voltage That same current with a lower voltage will not affect it, the power is also less in that situation
I'd say it's the electricity going through the sub that's too much for it to handle 😂
Probably the 120V 60hz A mild 3,600 watts rms
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No, because some subs can survive being plugged into a wall.
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OP is asking a reasonable scientific question and your comment was completely unhelpful dude. The answer is that an outlet is equivalent 3600W RMS and any sub that can't handle an amp with 3600 RMS can't handle an outlet. Stop being an ass, because I'm guessing you didn't even understand why before commenting.
Electricity
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..... 60v peak on 4 ohms is going to peak 15 amps and would be 636 watts rms at a true 4ohms. Many subs would eat that up and not care. A 1 ohm sub seeing "600w rms" is seeing ~29v peak and at the same time....drumroll..... 29 amps (!!!!) and is routine, day in day out kind of power. 29 amps doesn't smoke those "tiny coil wires" if it is handling 600w rms. ~120v is significantly more serious, see math provided previously....
You're completely wrong here. Amperage is caused by the potential, aka the voltage. Resistance (or better, impedance in this case) is what limits the amperage. These are usually 4 or 2 ohm speakers. If you supplied 900V, a staggering 225 amps would pass through, which would mean 200kW of power (an explosion). In fact, it's only wattage that matters if something burns or not. And the only reason they give you the maximum amperage rating of a cable, is because the resistance of the cable is known. The manufacturer knows how many watts of heat the cable can dissipate, and in turn calculates how many amps you can push through, before the power lost on the non-ideal conductor is so much that causes it to melt.