What causes an amp to discharge a thump.?


I have installed a Quad 909 amp in my system amd ever since when it is shut down I here a slight thump or like a statice discharge through the speakers.
This takes any where from 5 to 8 seconds .
The order in which I turn off the equipment is the reverse of turn on, that is amp first preamp next then source.
I'm sure it is coming from the amp, but why?

Thanks for your help.
wnegele

Showing 1 response by gs5556

The thump is caused by a DC transient that gets through to the speakers. If the amp is direct coupled, meaning no capacitors in the coupling stages, then DC offset will be there. Also, the speakers, by presenting a reactive (rather than resistive) load on the amplifier, cause the amplifier to be slightly unstable, making conditions more ideal for the thump to be heard.

Usually amp manufacturers will design a "speaker protection" circuit which consists of either time delay solenoid switching or an output shunting relay to defeat the transient on startup and shutdown. Some mfrs think that protection circuitry and/or DC coupling capacitors degrade the signal path and opt to leave them out.

A call to Quad's tech support should be made just in case there are protection devices that may have failed. Just to be sure.