I'd like to wire up an external on/off switch for my bench speakers for those times when I'm testing an amp that has a DC thump at power on and off. Idea obviously being that I'll switch on the speakers a few seconds after powering on the amp and switch them off right before powering down. (If I had a bench preamp with a speaker switch, I'd be good, but I use an old smartphone as my signal source, feeding it directly into the amp.)
So, I have a DPDT slide switch handy--is there any reason not to connect both the + and - speaker wires through the switch, versus just + or -?
So, I have a DPDT slide switch handy--is there any reason not to connect both the + and - speaker wires through the switch, versus just + or -?
Doesn’t matter. What ever floats your boat. Nothing will happen if you break the circuit by disconnecting only the + or - wire rather than both.
As long as you don't use tube amps, this will not matter much. Tube amps need a constant load on the output, so there you want to make sure when you switch of the speaker, that there i a dummy load on the amplifier (in the form of a high power resistor) otherwise your amp my go down due to that.