Using a cap on the tweeter when bi-amping

[MikeHunt79]

I've got some 2 way speakers, and I'm bi-amping them, I'm using a DCX 2496 as a crossover.

I'm using an in-line resistor to pad down the tweeter output a little, but when I turn my amp on, it makes a small pop sound.

I doubt this is good for the tweeter, so I was thinking on putting a cap on the tweeter, in parallel. Would this protect it from the 'pop'?

I was planning on using a 100nF 63v film cap, would this be ok?

[planet10]

You need to put the cap in series with the tweeter. At least an octave below its XO point.

Why aren't you padding the tweeter with a gain control in the amplifier?

dave

[Dr.EM]

I did it a different way. Although the amp I'm using seems to switch on silently, I am using a planar tweeter so thought a cap was a sensible precaution. I needed a 24dB LR slope, and so built an 18dB active Butterworth and added the tweeter capacitor at the crossover point the give an overall 24dB LR electrical response. This works especially well with the planar tweeter's flat impedance, but depending on the flexibility of the DCX2496, your crossover point and tweeter you might find success with this approach

[richie00boy]

I prefer to do the filtering active and just have the cap roll off way out of the passband. You get full benefit of active damping that way. I used 20uF motor run caps.

[Charles Darwin]

I'm using an 18dB hp on my ribbon supertweeter about 3/4 of an octave below the actual xover point. Seems to work ok ie the ribbon isn't fried yet!

[JamesTRexx]

Originally Posted by MikeHunt79

but when I turn my amp on, it makes a small pop sound.

If you hear a pop or any other sound when you turn on your amplifier, check the amplifier or replace it.
The Tannoys I use have the drivers connected directly to (Rotel) power amps as well, and I've never had any strange sound turning them on or off because the amps have a protection circuit.
That only happens if I don't turn on the amps last or turn them off first. (always use the right sequence)

[Drew Eckhardt]

Originally Posted by JamesTRexx

If you hear a pop or any other sound when you turn on your amplifier, check the amplifier or replace it.
The Tannoys I use have the drivers connected directly to (Rotel) power amps as well, and I've never had any strange sound turning them on or off because the amps have a protection circuit.

Lots of amplifiers don't have any sort of muting circuit (Adcom bipolar amplifiers for example) and produce turn-on transients.

Much of the time this isn't enough to be a problem - I've turned my Orion amplifiers on and off thousands of times over the last six years with no negative effects on the directly connected tweeters.

When I built those speakers I was concerned, hung my oscilloscope on the tweeter amp, watched what happened on startup. The wave form peak was less than the 1.5V battery I used to check driver polarity so I ignored it.