We have a sony DVD player with home theater speaker system. Recently, we are using it for live band rehearsal.
Does bass drums and bass guitar really damage home theater speaker system?
Band instruments have small audio mixer and that goes straight to the home theater speaker system using aux input.
Thanks
Any speaker will sustain damage if you drive it too loud. Nowadays, it can be judged pretty well electronically when this happens, and modern professional PA systems will generally protect the speakers by limiting or even shutting down the power amp level – at least in active systems, where the amp is exactly matched to the speaker. Live PA equipment is expected to be driven rough and possibly out of the safe range, and supposed to somehow cope with it.
The same is not necessarily true for HiFi systems: these can much more optimistically expect a “well-behaved” input signal, like from a CD player (always limited to 0 dBFS). Which means you're a bit on your own risk when driving it with anything but consumer signals. An unmastered drum track has a very wide dynamic range, in particular quite severe transients. The same goes for bass. So I wouldn't bet on your home theater system surviving this. If you have a compressor, you can set it to limiting mode, insert it in the master out and get some safety, but really this isn't very well-controllable.
My recommendation would be to get a pair of professional (not necessarily high-end) active monitors, or even a single one.
Fact. Anything using up enough power bandwidth for a long enough time through a system where the maximum output of the power amp is higher than the maximum dissipation of the speakers can damage the speakers. Or, if a system allows a large enough transient to cause over-excursion then you can damage a speaker that way. Doesn't have to be drums, bass, or band practice. You can do that with an iPod.
Get a crown or QSC power amp and a couple yamaha wedges for band practice.
