Monitors overheating & cutting out

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This past weekend I was "Dj'ing" a couple small parties with my monitors. Mackie MR5s. Now I use one of them and the music kept cutting out and initially I thought it was my iPhone overheating. When I touched the back of my monitors they were scorching to the point that it would burn you. After a while they cooled off the music came back. The same thing happened when I did a party that night with all three monitors. So I had to keep switching them out and one just plays treble now. (spare unit I'll fix.)My question is, is there a way around this? They never overheat when I use them casually for studio use. I know they aren't PA units and I won't be doing this anymore, but can anyone tell me why they overheat when volume is exceendingly increased?
 
Trill The Beatmaker said:
This past weekend I was "Dj'ing" a couple small parties with my monitors. Mackie MR5s. Now I use one of them and the music kept cutting out and initially I thought it was my iPhone overheating. When I touched the back of my monitors they were scorching to the point that it would burn you. After a while they cooled off the music came back. The same thing happened when I did a party that night with all three monitors. So I had to keep switching them out and one just plays treble now. (spare unit I'll fix.)My question is, is there a way around this? They never overheat when I use them casually for studio use. I know they aren't PA units and I won't be doing this anymore, but can anyone tell me why they overheat when volume is exceendingly increased?
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Physics.

Any amount of power usage generates a proportional level of heat.
That's the reason why running a fan in a closed room ends up INCREASING the room temperature (although it helps you feel cool in the short-term by moving air over your skin to help it evaporate sweat).

5-inch monitors are usually only rated for 40-45W or so. It's mildly odd that your woofer went out before your tweeter, though. Usually, it's the other way around (tweeters are generally more fragile).

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
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So there is no way to prevent this, other than using them at optimal volume? There aren't a lot of threads on this subject and the one I found on GS said that the heatsink will cut it off to prevent damage to the other parts.

The "broken" monitor was a replacement one. I'll have to take it apart to take a look at it, but the woofer is no longer operating.

Here's the thing. When I used one at the party it was pretty loud and ran fine all night. Once I cranked the input on the back and the input on the mixer they started to get HOT.
 
Trill The Beatmaker said:
So there is no way to prevent this, other than using them at optimal volume? There aren't a lot of threads on this subject and the one I found on GS said that the heatsink will cut it off to prevent damage to the other parts.

The "broken" monitor was a replacement one. I'll have to take it apart to take a look at it, but the woofer is no longer operating.

Here's the thing. When I used one at the party it was pretty loud and ran fine all night. Once I cranked the input on the back and the input on the mixer they started to get HOT.
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If heatsinks dissipated heat perfectly, I wouldn't have a watercooled PC.

A heatsink's intended purpose would have been to prevent heat-related damage. It can't do its job properly if it's overloaded. I'm guessing that the air was fairly hot during your party -- more bodies giving off heat increases the ambient temperature of the air. When I had roommates, they would have house parties of about 30 or 40 people. Higher ambient temp = more difficult to remove heat.

I don't know how far out-of-spec you were pushing the monitors and for how long. However, the end result isn't all that surprising. It's possible that one was defective, but it's also very possible that it wasn't.

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
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It was probably that amount of people in and out. But it did the same thing at the pool ( off to the side away from water) where it was open in the air. It even had a towel cover the tops (slight rain).

That's cool. I plan on purchasing some equipment solely for that purpose so that it doesn't overheat.
 
Salem Beats said:
Did you take it outside AFTER it already presented issues?

-Ki
Salem Beats
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Take them outside? No. At the pool party they were outside. In the house party they obviously weren't. Another thing is I use that one speaker for a cypher fridays outside surrounded by a lot of people. It has never had an issue overheating or cutting out.

Could it have been the power source? The pool cable was a wide plug outdoors extension cable typical of big industrial vacuums or something of that nature. The house party I had my surge purtector plugged into there surge protector.
 
As has already been stated you are using a an underspecified set of speakers for the job at hand.

If you are running them as loud as you can then you will generate heat in the amplifiers that are integral to the monitors - if these are not provided with adequate heatsinks, then the likelihood is that the transistors will become victims of this heating and burn out or the fuses in the amplifier circuits will burn out (trying to shed more current than the amplifiers can handle.

So whilst your power source is not a problem, your actual use of power is - the amplifiers are running hot to produce the volume you require.

Solution, get yourself a set of djing speakers and amplifier setup that is rated for this type of work and leave your studio gear at home.....
 
So even if I turned the monitors down and my mixer up, they would still overheat. Well at least that issue is resolved. I'm no longer using my studio monitors for small parties. Instead I will most likely be going to GC this weekend to purchase a used PA.

Thanks for you guys hlep though.

bandcoach said:
As has already been stated you are using a an underspecified set of speakers for the job at hand.

If you are running them as loud as you can then you will generate heat in the amplifiers that are integral to the monitors - if these are not provided with adequate heatsinks, then the likelihood is that the transistors will become victims of this heating and burn out or the fuses in the amplifier circuits will burn out (trying to shed more current than the amplifiers can handle.

So whilst your power source is not a problem, your actual use of power is - the amplifiers are running hot to produce the volume you require.

Solution, get yourself a set of djing speakers and amplifier setup that is rated for this type of work and leave your studio gear at home.....
Click to expand...
 
Trill The Beatmaker said:
Take them outside? No. At the pool party they were outside. In the house party they obviously weren't. Another thing is I use that one speaker for a cypher fridays outside surrounded by a lot of people. It has never had an issue overheating or cutting out.

Could it have been the power source? The pool cable was a wide plug outdoors extension cable typical of big industrial vacuums or something of that nature. The house party I had my surge purtector plugged into there surge protector.
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I have a feeling that it was gradual damage.
In the same way that smokers don't "suddenly" develop lung cancer the first time they take a drag, your monitors weren't "suddenly" destroyed the first time you blasted them past spec.

However, it'd be worthwhile to find a way to test your power source anyway. I can't tell you with certainty that your power supply DIDN'T cause the problem. There are too many variables.

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
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Trill The Beatmaker said:
This past weekend I was "Dj'ing" a couple small parties with my monitors. Mackie MR5s. Now I use one of them and the music kept cutting out and initially I thought it was my iPhone overheating. When I touched the back of my monitors they were scorching to the point that it would burn you. After a while they cooled off the music came back. The same thing happened when I did a party that night with all three monitors. So I had to keep switching them out and one just plays treble now. (spare unit I'll fix.)My question is, is there a way around this? They never overheat when I use them casually for studio use. I know they aren't PA units and I won't be doing this anymore, but can anyone tell me why they overheat when volume is exceendingly increased?
Click to expand...

Long story short...

You were using pieces of equipment in ways they weren't meant to be used. An iphone connected to a pair of studio monitors (not to be confused with actual speakers) is not the ideal setup for djing. This is common sense. You can throw numbers and ohms and wattage around all you want, but the truth is you weren't equipped for the situation and it went down hill. No point in stretching this out with retarded "theories" or assumptions. Buy shit that is meant to be used at DJ gigs and you won't have these problems.
 
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macbeat said:
Put in your sig if you really don't know the difference. It'll make a good laugh for the rest of us. Because you sir, are a dumb ass.

MONITORS versus HI-FI SPEAKERS
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You do realize that "Near-Field Monitors" are, in fact, "Speakers", correct?

Do you also know that a square is a rectangle in spite of the fact that a rectangle is not necessarily a square?

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
neither of which are very smart things to do with electricity involved

get equipment specified for the job (party speakers/amp rig) rather than trying to use equipment meant for a different purpose.
 
is and thing

are and things

the plurality or singularity are in agreement in either version of the statement

so both are equally valid grammatical constructions, although by inclusion of the "of which", I guess that it is better to use singularity than plurality

however, when most folks here write in Ebonics why bother to be that correct?
 
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bandcoach said:
neither of which are very smart things to do with electricity involved
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bandcoach said:
both are equally valid grammatical constructions, although by inclusion of the "of which", I guess that it is better to use singularity than plurality
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Your sentence would diagram like this:

Neither [of which] <are> very smart things [to do] [with electricity involved].

The subject is "Neither", which is always singular (borrowing from its non-abbreviated form, "Neither X nor Y is..."). Hence, "neither is a...".

I don't really care, though. There's really nothing left to add to this thread, so I was just making a funny feigned disagreement. Hence, the Grammar Nazi clippy. ;) Your sentence is in agreement with common (albeit incorrect) usage.

Years and years ago, back in AP English class in high school, they acted as though you wouldn't be taken seriously in adult professional life if you didn't get this stuff down perfectly.
I suppose that it's probably true for peer-reviewed academic journals, but I spot too many grammatical flaws in business communications. They lied to me! :'(

-Ki
Salem Beats
 
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This is why I tend to lean for amps over the ones built into monitors. But that's crazy talk to most producers these days. I remember when powered monitors came into the game like you guys remember when MP3s replaced CDs, lol. I never liked the idea of waiving the right to pick the best speaker amp out to power your passives/speakers and having to settle for cheaply built crap on the back of a cabinet.

IMHO, the stereo amp is the gun, the speakers/monitors are the bullets. It was like replacing the gun with slingshots. It's different when you talk high end powered monitors, but they're gonna utilize being able to calibrate those amps to a specified speaker more so than the cheaper builds.

I could be biased, I grew up in a home where my dad had like 20 things wired together pumping out of 15" floorstanding speakers. I also went to the club alot, lol. My friends and I put big ass subs and amps in the back of our cars so the world could hear what we were playing. I guess these days memories are built around those little 'beat pill' things beats by dre make. I in no way mean to sound like I'm lecturing you, I find myself sounding more and more like the dad I hated lecturing me everyday...but he taught me to f**k with grown man shyt like speakers you need to own a home to blast...that's probably the main reason I own my home, lol.

DJing with MR5s sounds crazy anyway. MR5s are accurate, but not meant to be blasted for entertainment purposes. I'd hit a pawnshop for the cheapest amp and pair of big speakers you can find. $200 will get you enough power to rock a room for entertainment and provide a great reference to those MR5s adding more to what you take from them. Just a suggestion. :cheers:

---------- Post added at 02:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:55 PM ----------
macbeat said:
Long story short...

You were using pieces of equipment in ways they weren't meant to be used. An iphone connected to a pair of studio monitors (not to be confused with actual speakers) is not the ideal setup for djing. This is common sense. You can throw numbers and ohms and wattage around all you want, but the truth is you weren't equipped for the situation and it went down hill. No point in stretching this out with retarded "theories" or assumptions. Buy shit that is meant to be used at DJ gigs and you won't have these problems.
Click to expand...

I applaud you, bro. I read this post and thought, "this guy knows his stuff" then I read the name and had to reread because I was surprised I completely agreed. :cheers:
 
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