too much power

[llewop]

I have a pair of Peavey SP2's and i have powered them with two crown xls602 amps. bridged mono (1200) watts at 8 ohms each.
The peaveys are rated at 1000 watt w/2000 watt peak.
Am I just cooking the coils in these speakers with that much power?

I had to replace one blackwidow basket which simply blew up. (Arced and melted the winding )
When that happened a guy was messing around with the mixing board unauthorized, while i was plugging in the speaker to the amps. I heard some banging and then a pop.
All she wrote for that speaker.
How much loudness would i loose with the use of a plx3602 in stereo? ( 770 watts per channel )
Is there a formula to use to fugure db's for wattage comparison?

 

[avkid]

Do you have any limiters on the system?

 

[howlingwolf487]

You loudspeaker drivers can handle what your amp is putting into them, but only for a certain amount of time - it could be many months or just a few minutes. That amount of time is highly dependent on the types of signal have you been running through them (sine waves - not much dynamic range, spoken word - a good bit of dynamic range, etc.).

Take a look at this article about loudspeaker drivers (and failures) - it's a very good read.

 

[museav]

When that happened a guy was messing around with the mixing board unauthorized, while i was plugging in the speaker to the amps. I heard some banging and then a pop.
All she wrote for that speaker.

You were connecting the speaker to the amplifier with the amplifier and mixer powered on? Regardless of the amplifier used that is not a good practice, make any speaker connections with the amplifier turned off.

I have a pair of Peavey SP2's and i have powered them with two crown xls602 amps. bridged mono (1200) watts at 8 ohms each.
The peaveys are rated at 1000 watt w/2000 watt peak.
Am I just cooking the coils in these speakers with that much power?

How much loudness would i loose with the use of a plx3602 in stereo? ( 770 watts per channel )
Is there a formula to use to fugure db's for wattage comparison?

Yes there is a simple formula 10log(power/reference power), so 10log(775/1200) = -1.9dB. However, that assumes the power ratings are comparable, by the time you account for differences in THD used for the ratings, full range response, etc., the actual difference is probably a tiny bit less than that. So a difference that the average person may just be able to distinguish, if they notice it at all.

You may want to be careful about the SP2 specs. The power rating is actually 500W continuous/1,000W Program/2,000W Peak and while it is a nominal 8 Ohm load, the minimum impedance is 6 Ohms. With an amp rated 1,200W into 8 Ohms and 1,680W into 4 Ohms you shouldn't necessarily have problems with the existing setup, however as Wolf noted, you may need to operate it conservatively. Pushing the system too hard or running it near its limits with a signal that has little dynamics could indeed stress the speaker. And if you are pushing the system too hard as it is then you may not want to cut back on power as you could then try to push that system even further past its limits.

 

[llewop]

Do you have any limiters on the system?

Yes, I have a 32b eq w/ limiters.

 

[tdeater]

I am in a similar setup in one of my theaters, the sound guy had replaced some amps at one point and now they are much too big. (not as close as your ratings are). Most of the time it works fine, but I have had to re-build the speakers once now from an accidental feedback that was not dealt with. (he was not in the booth when it started) It melted down the coil in the speaker pretty nicely. (he blamed it on faulty wiring) We got replacement coils from a speaker site and had them up and running again for under $50. So, my short answer is it will work, but be careful of that accident or someone pressing buttons. You have no margin for error.