Do piezos require a uF cap when plugged directly into a amp?

[aclaydon]

I'm building a 4 piezo array to run along with my Ampeg 4 x 10", 8 ohms cabinet. I plan to wire them in series/parallel and use a 100W, 8 Ohm L-Pad. Is that enough or do I need a uF cap or sometime of resistor to filter out the low frequencies?
The tweeter in the cab alone isn't loud enough for the amount of high end I'm pushing. My bass head is a BVT550H (550 W, 4 ohms).

[LelandCrooks]

Piezos don't like lpads much, but the lpad will act as the resistor. Typically you put a 4-8ohm resistor in series with the piezo. They don't require caps for crossovers. They basically are a cap.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I'm building a 4 piezo array to run along with my Ampeg 4 x 10", 8 ohms cabinet. I plan to wire them in series/parallel and use a 100W, 8 Ohm L-Pad. Is that enough or do I need a uF cap or sometime of resistor to filter out the low frequencies?

LPads don't work with piezos. While they can be run without a high pass filter they work far better with one. Those sold by speakerhardware.com for use with our piezo arrays will work; AFAIK it is the only off the shelf piezo high pass filter on the market.
Be sure your array is vertical. A horizontal array of tweeters creates more problems than it solves.

[aclaydon]

Good to know. The L-Pad was to control volume. My space for them is horizontal too so maybe piezos isn't the answer. I think I need to look for a heavy duty PA horn instead. I was using a 2-Inch Titanium Super Tweeter back when I was running 2 x10", 4 ohms speakers but the "super tweeters" kept blowing out.

[Tom Smit]

Hi there and welcome to the forum!

I have another idea which is going in a totally different direction. What are your thoughts about selling your cab to raise some funds so that you can build a pair of Jack 112s.

[aclaydon]

I'm confused why vertical isn't a solution when I see things like this being sold.
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/content/p ... -10350.jpg

Is it okay to do just two horizontal when cut down like in the DR250 or even that configuration two high using four piezos total?

I will admit I'm not looking for clean, I'm looking for loud and noisy.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

I'm confused why vertical isn't a solution when I see things like this being sold.
http://www.mcmelectronics.com/content/p ... -10350.jpg

Such things should not be sold, they're total trash. And you seem to be confused as to horizontal versus vertical. The tweeters in that cab are horizontal, which should be avoided.

Is it okay to do just two horizontal when cut down like in the DR250 or even that configuration two high using four piezos total?

If you mean as in the melded array yes, you can do that, it being the only method where horizontally placed drivers works.

[aclaydon]

I think I'm gonna go less with more power. Here's what I think are my two options.
One KSN-1165.
or
Two KSN-1141 (looks the same as the 1165 only with the wider horn) in a melded array. Is this over kill?

Add in a 30 Ohm Series Resistor and plug it in direct to the head. I'll skip the L-PAD and high pass filter and use the amps EQ to adjust its volume.

If I do feel I need an L-PAD, is the high pass filter you refer to the 2k 8 ohm one? It's the only one I could find on speakerhardware.com.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

LPads do not work with piezos.

[cheapbasslovin]

But, what if I wanted to put an LPad on my piezos? How would I go about making that work?






:::runs and hides:::