why do I have capacitors?

[elwesso]

SO I have a sony CD unit in my BMW. The HU works fine but none of the speakers are hooked up.. I got to take the dash apart and outside of being a complete cluster****... I noticed on the wires that were hooked up, on one side of the wire was spliced in a small capacitor, like 5 micro farads or so...

Whats the reasoning behind this? Im probably just going to rewire everything wiht regular speaker wire...

[the converted]

Because BMW has the battery in the back on their cars sometimes you can get a little electrical noise. Putting a capacitor in usually cleans it up.

[0wn3r]

my guess is to get rid of bass / lower frequencies..

http://www.bcae1.com/passxovr.htm

[elwesso]

the 533's have them in the front.

[Rex]

Caps are used as "passive cross-overs", so there isn't too much "low end" getting to a mid/high range speaker.

[joe603]

[elwesso]

The front speakers are small (4x6?) pioneer components.. its got a tweeter thats hooked in the middle..

should I leave the caps in or take them out?

[the converted]

Because BMW has the battery in the back on their cars sometimes you can get a little electrical noise. Putting a capacitor in usually cleans it up.

I'm a dumb ***, I haven't used them as bass blockers in so long. I would keep them in there, its going to keep them from distorting.

[audtatious]

The cap acts as a 6db per octave crossover (frequency depends on the size of the capacitor). Also known as "bass blockers" as mentioned above.

[92socal240]

They are their to "filter" out the lower frequencies that blow smaller speakers.