VLC gives you the option of increasing the volume upto 400 %. But its often the case that this damages the speakers (especially the tiny inbuilt speakers on some of the cheaper laptops). I dont know how this is but I've plenty of anecdotal evidence that this happens. So I think you guys should caution the users against using it too much .
This is software amplification, so at worse, you clip everything. It's like saying that you should not listen to metal or experimental music because it is more saturated and might destroy your speakers. The software cannot make the difference.
VLC only uses the normal system APIs, so at worse, it will have a fully saturated output, that could be caused by the input OR the software amplification.
If the laptop speakers cannot hold what the audio card is outputting, the issue is in the drivers.
That is not necessarily nonsense, but it depends on the speakers.
Digital clipping is one of the worst things you can do to speakers with a separate high frequency driver - it radically changes the power distribution due to the additional frequencies generated by square wave clipping[1]. This can overload and burn out the driver (depending on its design). Even expensive speakers may not have sufficient protection, or the "conservative" ratings may be not adequate.
I don't know if any laptops come with 2-way (or better) speakers, but lots of computers are connected to such.
Did you read that reference all the way through? It's not at all convincing, IMHO. In nearly all of his experiments you need a gain factor of at least 5-10x before the high frequency range starts to damage the tweeter. He starts with analysing artificial waveforms, and the effect actually lessens as he tries it on more real-world examples. My conclusion: don't play HIA's UFO Detection System too loud? Which no sane person would do, anyway.
That aside, I've always perceived some type of limiter-effect whenever I turn up VLC over 100%. Which is not clipping. I never really considered whether this limiting happened in VLC, the OS or my soundcard. It's a small laptop so no fancy soundcards either.
So, checking VLC's preferences, under Advanced>Audio there's an option called "peak protection", which is on by default. Sounds like something that does a type of limiting?
But I may be wrong, I just checked, (apparently my VLC only seems to go up to 200% by default?), but with a sufficiently loud sample, I could definitely hear clipping, instead of limiting.
But, just like your reference says, at the moment you've applied 5x clipping that's pretty extreme. You might as well have a 1-bit waveform at that point because it'll be either up or down. It won't sound like the original any more, at all. If you play that to your expensive speakers at high power, and think it's a good idea to do that for a while, then I really don't think it's VLC's job to protect you from yourself. The only possible excuse might be someone that has a long playlist of quiet sounds, amped up to 400%, leaves and isn't there to correct it when a forgotten loud track starts up. But that scenario is somewhat far-fetched, somewhat stupid and at 400%+clipping still not certain to damage the tweeters much more than loud sounds might do in general, clipped or not.
Since I know nothing about this subject I'll take your word for it . Well I'm from India and the guy who sold me the laptop told me - "Dont use VLC" . Since then I've heard this "wisdom" from some others as well . I would like to respectfully add that I too have faced this and I dont know the cause . You can try googling "VLC damages speaker" and you'll see hundreds of threads turn up . Eg: http://www.indiastudychannel.com/experts/27429-Does-VLC-play...
From what i gather on the above thread it turns out that some sound drivers are not that smart and so it ends up damaging the speakers and its not VLCs fault .
