When I have my empeg player powered on in my car (playing or even just muted), why do I get a VERY loud spike-bass hit/pop when the car is shut off. My work around is to shut off the empeg before I shut off my car. Why would my amp disipate stored up energy in the caps like that since my old alpine CD player ir replaced did not do this. I'm running a rockford fosgate punch 60 amp, it drives both front and back. two way mid/highs in front. two 10" subs in the back. Do they make a device that will shield me from this spike or drain off/filter the energy a split second before my car is shut down? This isnt a dier need obviously but it would be cool to not have to shut off my stereo before I park and kill the ignition. Other then that little tid bit... I really love this thing!!!!!!!
I am looking for a nice case to carry it in though. Anyone got a good web site with custom/generic hard cases with foam?

que #907 EMPEG S/N:00078 (10gig) Sunnyvale, California

I get the same thing when I turn off my car. I have a Sony amp, so it's probably not the amp. I just yank the empeg before I turn off my car, solves the problem, and reminds me not to leave it in the dash.
Anthony, 73/703. Northern VA.

Yep, i get this too.

The pop is mainly a capacitor discharging in the diff output circuit - one thing to try is to open up the plug end of the grounding leads supplied with the empeg and fit a 1k resistor between signal and ground: the output of the empeg is 'stiff' enough (current-wise) to deal with this load without affecting audio quality, and it reduces the size of the power-off pop. Try it on one channel first and see if it helps.

Wether you get this or not depends on various parameters like how the amp is powered etc.

Hugo

Altman, can you be more specific as to which leads I should open up and where to exactly fit the resistor?
Henno

The set of grounding leads you got with the empeg (the ones which fit at the amp end) - there are 2 sets and you may want to do the fix on either the one which drives your subwoofer or both.

Open up the plug end of these - the hoods unscrew. Inside here you fit a 1k resistor between the 2 terminals. This can be done pretty neatly and the top should still fit back onto the plug.

That's it really. The resistor doesn't dissipate much energy so any old 0.125w will do.

Hugo

Hugo,

Haven't done this yet; waited for the antenna amplifier to arrive so I could do all at once. Have the amplifiere installed now, but had a hell of a time getting all the cables back into the dash: there is hardly any space in a BMW to contain them. As a result, I still haven't tried the resistor trick and don't want to remove the cage again!

Could I also mount these resistors in the Amp between the + from the Empeg and its own ground?

Henno

Last night I had to turn off the car, but instead of turning the Empeg off (long press on top-button) before stopping the engine, I muted it (short press). On killing ignition, the Empeg prodiced it loud pop as usual, but remained silent thereafter. During playing the visuals moved OK and also the elapsed time indicator etc moved with the track OK, but no sound. Changing volume settings, or setting/removing mute did not help. I really believed the pop had killed some output stage.

For some reason, I left it on, just displaying the visuals. Suddenly, after about 5 minutes, it started playing again!

Did the Empeg get hurt, but managed to reset itself after some time, or is there may be some sort of protection circuit in my amplifier (Rockwell) that suspended output? Any danger that the pop will someday kill the Empeg or the amp?

Henno

Yes, the resistor is fine anywhere between the centre and shield of the audio cable. It's just to discharge an output capacitor a bit quicker.

Hugo

I have this problem too. What i do is just power down the empeg before i turn off my car. It may seem like a hassle, but i memorized the menu button rountine, (down, left, left, down), and it takes like less than 2 seconds to do and i dont have to worry about the crack/pop. :)

i memorized the menu button rountine, (down, left, left, down), and it takes like less than 2 seconds to do and i dont have to worry about the crack/pop. :)

Alternatively, just press and hold the top button :-)

--
Mike Crowe
I may not be speaking on behalf of empeg above :-)