MISTAKE to recommend these? Tweeter Protection Capacitor Test!

When we run a system active in custom car audio we need to use a protective capacitor on the tweeters to protect them in the event that the active crossover fails. But does adding this passive crossover tweeter protection capacitor actually ruin the sound? Do these add latency or delay, and what is the impact on phase? Let's test and discuss!

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[MickeyMishra]

You went WAY above and beyond on this one Mark! Outstanding scientific method on display here.

[joshhaimes]

One tip for installing caps for tweeters... I was getting popping sounds in my tweeters that coincided with bass hits. It was bass-volume dependent, meaning increasing bass gain knob but leaving the master volume constant would increase volume of the tweeter pop. After a bunch of troubleshooting I finally realized that the capacitor was installed too close to my bass amp, and was picking up electrical interference from the amp. Simply re-routing the tweeter's speaker wire away from the bass amp cleared everything up.

[JesseOsby]

Great video! I love these ones where you investigate technical stuff like this for those of us who don't have the equipment to do it (or are just too lazy lol)

[ZoeyR]

Any active crossover will have delay a lot more than anything passive, but the plan is to pass all the signals into the dsp so everything is in sync coming out.
I have 4x 4ch 800w rms at 4ohm amps feeding my dash and doors. This is a full active 4way setup on a 16ch dsp I have 8 15in subs on 8 amps, all individually chambered and ported. This lets me do time alignment and phase control to an extremely fine level.
I can stack the bass pressure wave to focus at a single point in the cab.

I just started building a much, much larger version of this on a semi trailer for burning man.

[princecharmonpoirtoi]

The advantage of adding a capacitor to the tweeter input line is, that you can install a 2-way system with the tweeter wired out-of-phase just like you would intentionally wired the mid-bass or midrange put-of-phase on a 3-way system. An out-of-phase installation would give the sound system better slopes at the cutoff frequencies and deeper, cleaner transient response...

[marscounty]

Capacitors have been used to limit the frequency sent to tweeters long before car audio was a thing. They have been used in home audio forever. No worries, they work.

[Tekjive]

Needing out on car audio is a personal hobby, dig this 🤙🏻

[BaddDukk]

Seven and a half minutes of 'jam it'. Excellent. Good work!

[peaceandwealthseeker]

Nice testing and it shows it's a great thing to add for safety

[daltonmckee]

Capacitors do not add latency for audio because they act as a short for AC signals. That being said they do limit the slew rate (rise time) which results slower transients. No one can hear this change, but it is visible in the RTA. Less pronounced spikes, rounds the points

[gen-X-trader]

that was a cool test. didn't think there would be much of a delay and certainly not one you would hear. one thing you didn't mention though is how various caps all sound different on a tweeter. if you take a basic electrolytic, mylar, a solen and a clarity csa you'll hear a slightly different sound out of them. for a few dollars more that clarity is a warmer sounding cap. anyone questioning this can try it themselves for a few dollars buying each at one of the various vendors like madisound. your phase test was really cool too. in theory it should be off 90deg....but....it wasn't ! testing beats theory every time

[hfail]

Cool video. Shows how sensitive placement is and why the sweet spot is so small on my time corrected home setup.

[erok]

This may be a vague question but.... Where did you learn about car audio? Was it an accumulation of knowledge over a number of years or have you just always been a car audio guru? Genuinely curious. It's fascinating. Cheers!

[googleyoutubechannel]

Quick tip, just learned you can use two non-polarized caps joined back/back in series to replicate a non-polar cap, the two polar caps (normal kind you can find everywhere) just create a non-polar of half the rated F value of the cap, much much cheaper (free, caps are everywhere in broken electronics) to make this way.

[mrupholsteryman]

coming from the 80's... the phrase "to the max" was a throwback. 😅🤣😂

[jeffh]

I called Morel and asked if they had any suggestions for a capacitor value for their Piccolo tweeters. This one tech (who may not represent all of Morel), said that they don't recommend capacitors as it adversely affects or may adversely affect the sound. Since I'm brand new to DSPs/Active, I thought maybe I might put a capacitor inline at the amp side to protect the tweeters, at least until I get the system tuned up and I'm no longer worried that I might accidentally send too much low signal to the tweeters and blow them. At least the capacitor wouldn't be buried in the dash or the A-pillar. That might also allow me to test whether I can audibly hear any difference as I'd prefer to have some protection. Thanks for this video as it seems to suggest that using a capacitor should be a good idea.

[mabolzichjjl]

I, too, have heard the passive crossovers can cause latency. I wonder if it's the woofer that will be affected rather than the tweeter 🤔
.
Thanks for the definitive proof!

[muztan]

Its been a while since my electrical theory classes, but phase should only max out at the F3 cutoff at 45deg, so as long as you're picking the F3 value significantly lower than your active crossover F3 point, there shouls be negligible phase delay from the 6db/octave pole the capacitor creates in the a/c frequency response.

[manisathish]

Hi sir
I am Satish from Hyderabad.I saw your YouTube video on dual voice coil connection.

[HannibalLecter-wr]

Not really a delay, but a phase shift. I checked in rephase, series cap is a first order high pass, so if we tune it to 1kHz, we get about 45, 25, 19, 13 degs on 1, 2, 3, 4 kHz respectively. Impossible to hear. By the way, if you are using dsp you can linearize this back with FIR filters, but they cause actual delay.