Audio Equipment: Is the loud popping sound when you plug/unplug your speakers bad for them?
Most speaker cones are driven from a power amplifier.. The pop - like you said - is a transient spike. But the important thing here is that it gets amplified up through the pre-amp and into the power amp.. Speakers usually move in the ol' in-out fashion with respect the the voltage at the input.. and a big spike could loosen the cone from its suspension mechanism.. The higher the power and the more delicate the cone - the more the danger to the speakers ( what is normal for a woofer cone, could end blowing up a tweeter cone) . For e.g. In live events, where high output PA speakers are used, this is a very serious issue - because such a spike could throw the speaker cone out of its place, and it wouldn't work from that point on. For this reason, some high end audio equipment have a limiter at the output, that prevents signal from exceeding a certain predefined limit. So any occuring transients would never hit the cone at a level that is unhealthy to them.Most home audio equipment tends to operate at lower levels. That being said, there is still some damage inflicted on the speakers - just maybe not of the same magnitude.. especially the smaller ones.If your system has a remote control, it might be wise to hit a mute button just before you change to another input... or maybe find a way to turn off just the speakers (if separately powered) before you interchange the connection.Hope this wasn't too star warsy :)
What makes you such an expert to answer questions about audio ?
30+ years in the AV business.