Posted by Wayne Parham [ 65.69.120.122 ] on January 08, 2004 at 15:04:53:

In Reply to: Re: Just a thought posted by Chris R on January 08, 2004 at 14:27:13:

You're right, it's loud. The bulbs glow at about 300 watts, so the speaker is hitting about 120dB at a meter. But the tweeters aren't strained; They're only getting 30 watts at that point.

As an aside, the actual bulb used is a 211-2, and there are two of 'em in parallel. The 211-2 bulb is designed for 1A at 12V (12 ohms) but cold resistance is only about 2 or 3 ohms, so the pair is about an ohm and a half. When used on the input of the crossover, there is no noticeable impact until high current makes the filament glow, increasing resistance and limiting current. It acts like a compressor and protects the tweeter, but the compression effect is very natural sounding, you can hardly even tell. And it doesn't happen until the amplifier is generating about 300 watts.

Replies: