Blowing a Speaker

Ok, lets dispell some myths about speakers. I figured we could have a small list of the different ways you could "blow" a speaker and have a little technical explanation to go with it. I also want to talked about clipped and unclipped signals and thier effects on a speaker.

Ways to blow a driver

1. Degrading of materials

This one is plain and simple. Speakers get old. Typically when a speaker gets old the surrounds go first, especially in stock speakers. most surrounds are made of a foam or rubber and time, heat, sunlight (common in dash mounted speakers) cause the materials to degrade, and then when you play them again they fall apart.

2. Thermal Limits of a driver

When a driver is given too much power the voice coils can be burned and ruin the driver

3. Mechanical Limits of a driver

It certain enclosures and with a low enough frequency a speaker can reach its mechincal limits, which is commonly known as "bottoming out" the driver. If this happens enough the driver can tear itself apart

Clipped and Unclipped signals

Does a clipped signal kill a speaker? If you give a 1000W speaker a 100W Square wave or clipped sin wave will it tear the speaker apart?

Obviously my answers arent' the best so, I'm leaving this open to all to elaborate on. I am at work right now and can't be typing too much . If you answer one of these tell which one you are answering and make a good consice set of statements, and then I'll edit my original post. Also any other good questions are welcomed!