Speakers limiter lighted up

Portable PA
1

Happy new year everyone.
Had a birthday party last week-end using a pair of BOSE F1 Model 812 with digital mixer console and DJ mixer. The speakers LIMITER lighted up after about 2 hours of use while playing some tracks (not all) and had to reduce the speakers volume 'till 11 o'clock (limiter lights went off).
Initially:
- Pop, RnB music played
- Speakers volume at 13 o'clock - No clipping lights noticed
- DJ Mixer master volume at 13 o'clock - Treble, Medium, Bass knobs at 12 o'clock (default)
- Mixer console VU-meter level at Orange light maximum, the master volume at 0dB - No clipping lights/signals noticed.

I confirm, when the speakers limiter lighted up, there were NO clipping lights/signals everywhere (my first look was on them)
What happened? Is that normal at 13 o'clock volume use? Are my speakers faulty? Is that dangerous to the speakers?
Regards.
V.R.

2

Hi vonjykely,


It’s good that you weren’t clipping anywhere but it sounds like you may have indeed reached the limit of what the 812s are capable of. Since the pair simultaneously limited it doesn’t sound to me like anything is defective. The limiter provides protection for the drivers and while it’s not a best practice to continually limit, particularly if you hear audible distortion, compression or limiting, it’s doing just that - limiting the output to protect the drivers.

One technique to try, potentially creating more headroom, is to send the mixer signal to subwoofers first and then high pass to the 812s. By letting dedicated subwoofers handle the bass frequencies, you may likely find more headroom to play 812s at higher levels before limiting. On the F1 subwoofer, you would switch to HPF to achieve this.

Thanks,
MattS-at-Bose

3

Hi MattS,

Good to know, thanks.

What is the "THRU" switch on F1 subwoofer for then?

4

Hi vonjykely,

THRU defeats the high pass filter, outputting the full range of audio including bass. This would be useful if you needed even more bass than the subwoofers could provide adding bass from the 12” driver in the F1 812 top.
Thanks,

MattS-at-Bose

5

Ok, thanks MattS