If experience has taught me anything, it sure as hell taught me that heat can be a killer on the system. All electronic devices generate heat, some more than others. Amplifiers for instance. There have been times when I felt my amplifier rack, especially in the duration of a few shows. the amplifiers were hot. I could almost cook an egg on them! The most important is to prevent stagnant airflow in the racks. get a couple of these two draw the hot air out. These exhaust fans do not cost much but they will be a boon to you. Put a couple of them in your rack, better still, mount a couple of them on a 19″ strip. They will save your equipment in the long run. Remember, as far as amps are concerned, heat = bad. the last thing we want or need is a thermal shutdown in the middle of a gig!
OK. I will begin by putting a disclaimer. this amplifier rack is not mine, but I sincerely wish that it was. It is sweet, isn’t it? Actually, I got it from this website. I found the picture here because I was looking for a picture of the C-Audio RA 2000 amplifier, an amplifier that totally got my respect more than 20 years ago. I was working in a pub for about 9 months and this amplifier (the RA 2000) was driving all the club’s speaker systems. Very powerful they were and very dependable. They certainly do not make them like they used to any more. In any case, dear reader, if you are wondering what these babies were capable of delivering, I got the specs from this website:
The RA2000 is a solid well built amp, a workhorse through and through. Built to withstand life on the road, 450w per channel @ 4 ohms, 900w in bridge mode @ 8 ohms, in a 2u rack space. Inputs are via XLR and jack, outputs on binding post.
I just wish that they were still around. Reliable amplifiers are a rarity these days.
In my daily trawls of the Internet, I come across some really interesting stuff. This is another one of them. When I first saw it, I thought immediately that it was a QSC amplifier of old. It even uses the same alphabets in the model number i.e. PLC. This piqued my interest and I find out that it is manufactured (probably in China) for a New Zealand company named SNW Electronics. This company also seems to manufacture and sell motorbike parts. Maybe they are trying to do something what the Yamaha Corporation is doing, I just do not know. In any case, the specs of this amplifier are, as taken from their website:
Stereo Mode:
Both channel driven 8ohm : 1200W X 2
Both channel driven 4ohm : 1800W X 2
Both channel driven 2ohm : 2700W X 2
BRIDGE Mode:
Bridge Mode 8 ohm : 3400W
Bridge Mode 4 ohm : 5200W
Friequency Response HZ: 20-20K
THD+N: 0.02%
S/N: 90dB
SLEW RATE: 40V/s
INPUT IMPEDANCE: 20kohm
INPUT SENSITIVITY: 0dB
MAX INPUT GRAIN: +_20
HEIGHT : 3U
DIMENSIONS:480W x 465D x140H mm
Gross Weight (kg) :42
It costs about NZD$1200 and it looks like it is a pretty hefty amplifier, with a weight of 42 kilograms. I am not too sure how it performs as the specifications are merely words on paper. The specs look good from what I see but reliability-wise…I ain’t too sure.
I had a devil of a time trying to get more information about the amplifiers that were powering the speakers of the gig I was doing on New Years Eve. It seems that these are the amplifiers…made in China. The amplifiers in the rack, as seen on my previous post, were devoid of any name identifying who or what they are. It is only after I asked the sound engineer that night that I found out the brand name. But I must say that these amplifiers were decent sounding and I must say I was impressed.
This was the setup of the New Years Eve gig that I did yesterday. As you can see, the Hercules controller is set up to play music and it performed faultlessly. The sound company supplied four Wharfedale Titan 12s and this was the amplifier rack containing two Aual Audio amplifiers. Mixer is the standard Yamaha 16-channel mixer. It was a good night and we had many satisfied guests. I suppose that is what matters most.
My dad bought a three-piece hi-fi set back in 1978. This was one of the components on that hi-fi set…the Sony TA-11 integrated amplifier. And you wanna know the funny thing about this amplifier? I used this amplifier as the main amplifier in a mobile disco in the mid 80′s. I jest you not…this amplifier was capable of putting out some HEAVY wattage. It could drive huge speakers as well as the problematic ones that came with this set. Imagine…7 years after they were first bought and this set was still kicking! It finally bit the dust in the year 2000 I think…after giving 22 years of reliable and solid duty as the home’s hi-fi amplifier and as my mobile-disco amplifier. They sure do not make them like they used to. Any of you reading this, if you ever come across it, buy it without a second thought. This amplifier is worth its weight in gold!
This amplifier was a lifesaver to my crew and myself back in 1986, somewhere in October. Picture this scenario. Back in the day, we did not even have our own sound-reinforcement speakers. All we had were turntables, a Tamon mixer and records. That is about it. So we had to do a function in a hotel room, which if I remember correctly was the Cockpit Hotel. In the last minute, one of the people we hired a sound-system from stiffed us. So, we had to get the speakers from somewhere else but we did not have an amplifier. So after much begging and pleading, we managed to rent one from another mobile disco company. I remember while waiting for the amplifier, I was very close to ripping out the house amplifier from the room where the function was held. Then one of my crew showed up with this amplifier.
I was dumbfounded. How could this ugly looking amplifier help us? It looked old; it looked out-of-place. The bloody thing had two huge heatsinks behind, along with two giant capacitors. It looked like it was something from out of the 70′s (which it was). But, beggars cannot be choosers and we hooked it up, thinking that this was going to be a party that was going to blow. All I can say is, I was very pleasantly surprised. This bloody thing rocked!
That amplifier was a Crown DC300A. After that function, I was a total convert. Crown was number one in my books but it was a bit out of my pocket, affordability-wise. Crown saved our asses and this amplifier was so powerful. Imagine this. Only now, thanks to the power of the Internet, I know that we were driving about 150 watts per channel into 8 ohms! No wonder audio hobbyists and sound engineers still look for this amplifier…its legendary status has made it a collectors item and there are some installations that still use it to this day! I want one but I think one is out of my reach. But I will never forget how it saved my bacon. To Crown we salute!
This shows the typical innards of an active speaker, something very popular among many professional audio brands today. In this case, it is a JBL PRX615M and I got this illustration from Midwest Pro Sound and Lighting. The designs among the various brands are very similar. The numbered components are:
1) The horn driver 2) The casing 3)The woofer 4) The built-in amplifier
The amplifier in this case was made for JBL by Crown. Nothing new really. Marantz used to have their amplifiers built by Philips back in the day. The thing is (and this is very smart thinking) why re-invent the wheel? Get some one who knows better about amplifiers and contract them to build the custom amplifier for you. Heck, in the 80s and 90s, JBL hired Urei to build their amplifiers for them. It is either that or they re-badged the Urei amplifiers. In any case, JBL and Crown are part of the same Harman Group so they are like sister companies.
So as you can see, it all seems very simple and it is, in a way. Your equipment racks are lighter because the amplifier is built in the speaker. You do not lose amplifier power over long speaker wire, which can be resistive. You can connect a low-impedence, balanced XLR cable to your active speaker from your mixer. Common Mode Rejection or CMR will take care of the static noise.
It almost seems that there are more pros than cons about using active speakers. One of the cons are that if the amplifier is shot, there goes the whole speaker, unless you have a bypass and can power it with external amplifier. Secondly, not all the active speakers have cooling fans like the big amplifiers, just huge heatsinks. So they can overheat. For me? I like active speakers but being a traditionalist, I would take the combination of speaker and amplifier anyday!
I remember using this one at a party. What was great about the Marantz amps, other than them oozing quality, was this particular model, the PM450. This amplifier could take two turntables! There is a fader that to seamlessly switch between Phono 1 and Phono 2, very handy for house parties when one needed two turntables. Now this is one amplifier that I will remember for the rest of my life.
I have one of these…and till today, I have yet to meet or see an amplifier that can handle its own like this old-school Peavey CS-800 amplifier. This thing can take lots of abuse, is huge and can handle almost anything you throw at it…that is right, anything! I have used to drive my SP2ti speakers and they drive them and come back hungry for more. Not only that, I can say that the only con about this is that it is heavy as hell…but that is what makes it so robust…part of the weight comes from this huge transformer in the thing. But you know what, I may have to retire this one soon, or at least send it away for servicing. Problem is that I have yet to find someone qualified to fix this baby.
