If you’re Cicada Audio RR1T or RRO75T, tweeters are seemingly shutting off at high volume levels, but come back after a few seconds…. you’re not blowing up the tweeters, but they are turning off – at least momentarily. That certainly seems somewhat strange for sure. Let’s explain what’s going on. What’s happening is this – Inside the cool passive crossover case, there is a capacitor, a coil (inductor), and a “PolyCell” device. This Polycell is basically a resistor at high volumes. Amplifiers put out AC volts. If you exceed a certain AC voltage, like at high volume levels – you’ll have higher AC voltage coming out of your amplifier (at least peaks anyway). The tweeter will turn off because the resistance gets so high that this “PolyCell” gets HOT and literally “opens”. This means It removes the connection to the tweeter – momentarily. The tweeter doesn’t blow up. But it shuts off. If this is what you’re experiencing.
The reason? You’re exceeding the maximum SPL level of the tweeter. Or you’re clipping the amplifier hard. One of the two. Now….how to fix it? The first thing is if it is the RR1T or RR075T tweeters that are being used make sure you have a high pass on your DSP set at least 6,000Hz @ 12 dB or are using our crossovers. BUT NOT BOTH. Either go FULLY active or use our passive crossover, NOT BOTH. With 50 WRMS these “horn tweeters (ours are called Ring radiators) will play OVER 125dB at above 6kHz! That is REALLY loud at only 3 ft (or less) from the tweeter on your bike.
Let’s put his into perspective: The loudest concert you EVER heard was NOT 125dB above 6kHz!. Not possible. Assuming you were 50 ft away from the stage and sound system that would mean the tweeters are doing OVER 139dB on stage 3 ft from the musicians!!! And woofers would be at least 6 dB louder, or 145dB!!! Seriously???? You may THINK it was that loud. BUT…did you measure it?? I can tell you everyone would be deaf for weeks after that concert and have SERIOUS hearing loss of about 6kHz. The US government has monitored live music for years and says that typical indoor concerts average better 85-105dB. And for every 3dB more it is TWICE as loud. And 10 dB is 10 times louder. So needless to say, 125dB is REALLY loud on a bike. Especially above 6kHz.