I'm using 805S...Am I just being paranoid?

[Prodigal]

I am new in this forum, and I really enjoy watching the photos of you guys wonderful set ups.

I'm using B&W 805S and McIntosh MA6500 as 2-channels set up, about two nights ago, I was trying a new coaxial cable and connected it to my new DAC (kinda cheap one just for fun ) to my MA6500, I paused my CDP and changed the cable, but I forgot to turn down the volume of my AMP, it was about 10 o'clock position, after pressing "PLAY" on my CDP, I got a very loud white noise ( kind of sa..sa..sa... possibly the DAC couldn't sync. the data from the CDP digital out for some reasons)...I was really horrified to see the power meter on MA6500 swept to the full scale, 8O as 805S with 8 ohms impedance, so I think at least 100W had been fed into the 805S say for ~5secs, the power gurad on my Mac did not kick in though, as this kind of noise can spread all over the spectrum, so I just reconnected the system again and checked any significant damage had been done, no obvious crack or scarp sound could be heard, but somehow I found the sound image seems altered and a bit blur as well, of course I needed some tools to verify, so I used my burn-in CD to play the 40Hz to 19KHz freq sweep track for serveral times, and no abnormal sound was heard from both speakers...Having said that, I have been playing all sort of CD today for hours, and still the sound sounds a bit blur to me.

Is there any better way to test my 805S in order to know is the crossover/tweeter/woofer is intact ? I worry the excess digital noise that fed into the input might've already done some damages to the 805S units but not enough to kill it... Of course I hope I'm just being paranoid.

[caleb]

Were the FTS cones still in the cabinet, or did you have to pick them up off the floor?

If they were still in the cabinet then I suggest all is well.

[Russ L]

Thats gotta throw a scare into you :E But I think that if the Mac guard system didn't kick in, the level of noise was too low. So your probably OK because the Mac is a reliable unit {it should be at that price }Also the power handling of the 805s is about 120W, so 100W is well within range. As for the blurriness in sound you later heard your ears may have been recovering from the blast of white noise! Just my guess...you should be OK :T Russ

[misterdoggy]

This question is often asked and answered. I think the Dbs those 805's can handle is pretty enormous. If its so hard to hear and be sure, then you are probably OK.

We tend to attribute something different pyschologically when-ever we change something ie: cables etc and why not when we think we may have done something too.

Turn off everything when you are wiring rule of thumb.

You are OK IMHO welcome to the land concern

[Prodigal]

Thanks for you guys' responses.

I didn't mention in my 1st post, in fact the white noise output to the Mac was quite high, because I reconnected the coaxial again after the 1st blast, but I did turn down the volume to min. the 2 nd time, the DAC still not locked with the CDP signals, so it still output the noise not before I'd reset it afterwards, the strange part is that I could still hear the noise through speakers before resetting it and just like if I'd turned the vol. to 8 o'clock position, I think the bl**dy little DAC did output the noise voltage level with the full blast, it was really scary indeed. ops:

We tend to attribute something different pyschologically when-ever we change something ie: cables etc and why not when we think we may have done something too.

Well said, I will use this pyschological pratice to convince myself that my cheap cables do give out same results as those products selling 10 times higher, never underestimate the brain power.:B

[PewterTA]

I'd say let the system sit for a day or two or three, this will help YOU forget how it's exactly supposed to sound. Then start listening to stuff again and see if you think it's really aweful. It's possible something could have been damaged, but if the speakers sound fine through a test disc like what you have, then most likely you should be okay.

If anything you might have done some slight damage to the tweeter which is causing your feeling...

[Ade]

If you were going to blow anything it would have been the tweeters as they can handle far less power than the other drivers - if the white noise contained a lot of very high frequency noise at very high dB's (100w of 15kHz noise would blow any tweeter) then it is possible to damage them... But I don't think the difference would be subtle, it would be immediately apparent.

BTW, our aural memory is very short - seconds, minutes at best.

So, in summary, yes, you're just being paranoid but that's not surprising - I would be too!