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swedishstyle 14 April 2016

Hi all,

New poster here, so be gentle - I think this is the right subforum.

I have 2 Yamaha HS7's hooked up to a Line 6 UX2 (don't laugh, I've had it for years, just about to upgrade to a Scarlett 2i2)

They work great and I'm very happy with them. However, I've noticed that upon startup and shutdown of my PC, the monitors make a fairly loud 'pop' sound as the USB powered Line 6 powers on/off - powering them on/off via the power switch on the back of each monitor is fine, just when they're disconnected from the audio interface is when they pop. I'm just curious if this is potentially damaging the monitors and I should turn them off before shutting the computer down every time? I'd really like to hear that it's fine, as that would not be the most convenient of solutions :/

Any ideas?

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swedishstyle Thu, 04/14/2016 - 06:03

Makzimia, post: 437880, member: 48344 wrote: Speakers should always be turned on last at startup and first in turned off before shutdown.

Thanks for the reply Makzimia, but it's really impractical for me to do that every time, as this computer is not dedicated to recording, so it's often being switched on and off. Are there any workarounds your could suggest, or are you aware of what kind of damage this could be doing to the speakers, if any?

DonnyThompson Thu, 04/14/2016 - 07:26

swedishstyle, post: 437879, member: 49813 wrote: New poster here, so be gentle

I think that the answers Tony gave you were straight forward, accurate, gracious, and not at all harsh or insulting. RO has a membership roster made up of audio professionals who are here to help, and we are happy to do so, but it's a bit frustrating for us to then have someone doubt that advice, and when you "second-guess" us on something - especially something this simple and straight forward - it's just begging for someone ( like myself) to roll their eyes and to reply to this thread... and trust me, my response is a lot more "buffered" than what you'd get from other RO professionals - like Kurt Foster or @Brien Holcombe , who would be much more ...well, uhm, how should I say this? ... They would both be very "no-nonsense" in their replies - LOL ) - yet, I still can't resist injecting just a small trace of frustration and sarcasm myself, when I ask you these questions back:

How tough is it to make sure your speakers/power amps are turned on last after you boot up your production computer? Or for them to be turned off before you shut down your system??
C'mon now... it's not like you're being told that you have to do something difficult... no one is saying that you have to dig a 6' deep hole with a teaspoon, or slam your head in a car door each time you power up/power down your system...

I mean... jeez... how "impractical" can it really be? After all, what we're talking about here is a task no more difficult, involved, or time consuming than simply pushing an on/off switch in the proper sequence. o_O

You want your monitors to last? To avoid potential speaker damage, and costly repairs or replacement?

Then it's this simple: On last, Off first.

dvdhawk Thu, 04/14/2016 - 09:15

If it's simply a matter of the switch being difficult to reach on the back of the monitor, plug just the speakers into a power strip with a switch, or better yet a good (ETA, Furman, etc.) line conditioner . Leave the power strip within easy reach, leave the speakers in the ON position, and use the switch on the power strip/power conditioner to turn both speakers ON/OFF simultaneously. It's not ideal, but not significantly any different than using the simple make/break power switch on the monitors. They're not super-high-power monitors where inrush of current is going to be a factor.

You would obviously still have to observe the "On last, Off first" rule.

Boswell Thu, 04/14/2016 - 10:38

Faced with a similar problem in a friend's studio several years ago, I built him a small box containing a pair of Form C reed relays and an off-the-shelf tiny linear a.c. power supply. The line-level loudspeaker signals were fed through the box, where the reed relays shorted the + and - signals together when the relays were unpowered. I swapped the smoothing capacitors in the box's power supply for relatively small ones, so the d.c. output that drove the relays responded quickly (about 100ms) to presence and absence of mains. This was much quicker than the hold-up times of the switch-mode power supplies in the loudspeakers, and completely solved the thump problem on switch-off.

Boswell Fri, 04/15/2016 - 06:12

kmetal, post: 437911, member: 37533 wrote: Mackie HR series have a sensor that kicks the amplifiers out of standby, when you play music into them. This way you don't have to turn off the speakers, unless your going away for an extended time. It's a great feature.

Yes, it's a useful feature, and most active monitors behave in that way at start-up. However, the problem comes at switch-off if the monitors are still awake. Because of the large reservoir of power supply required for good transient performance, they take their time to turn fully off when mains is removed, and so will follow any wild excursions at the interface's outputs during power-down, potentially causing cone damage.

bouldersound Fri, 04/15/2016 - 21:51

Makzimia, post: 437921, member: 48344 wrote: If speakers are passive you would turn the amplifier on with volume down, and off with volume down. Same basic principle though, no hot signal.

Thanks!

Okay, sorry, I was just being sarcastic. Twenty years of live sound taught me at least that much (power on/off order, I was already sarcastic).

paulears Sat, 04/16/2016 - 01:21

Did this take off, and I missed it? What remains seems rather gentle! My system has a mater fader, and before I turn things off, I pull it down, as I do if I leave the room. That said, my system always goes crack if the phantom power is turned on, on the Tascam interface. I always forget. I don't like it, but always seem to forget it. So far I've been lucky.

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