I love how the fans on a 1RU amplifier sound just like the fans in a 1RU server. Then again, there isn't a lot one can do with only 1.75 inches. And, the fans are probably all sourced from the same manufacturers.
Yeah, companies building amps and servers will source the products that perform for the application and since the dimensions are the same, the fans can be similar. There are loads of companies making those 1.5" box fans.
@@DaveRat It's officially "secret weapon" stuff. What if I told you the last time one of my bosses sat down for dinner with me, before he died at 90-odd... I did his memorial service booklet notes... he basically told me with a wink and a nudge that he was the dude who designed the propellors for the nuclear submarine program. I mean, I knew that already, and way more than he expected... but... Oh yes, I'm a fan of acoustics, and in the gas turbine industry, there's some really interesting stuff to do with flame propagation and wavefronts, so if you get yourself the F1 / jet engine / rocket scientist toolkit... Well... moving a whole bunch of air, and generating air pressure... and megawatts to gigawatts per square foot... we do that in power generation and engines... but we don't do that in sound reinforcement. See what I'm saying here? Yup. If you really want to move a lot of air, I'm proposing that the fan *is* the speaker. The thigpen subwoofer plays down to DC. And absolutely we use active airflow as a way of keeping stuff cool inside a gas turbine, of course we do, hence keeping the active electronics cool... almost every industrial and hand-tool electric motor does that.
I have a Behringer class D power amp for my sub at home, and I swapped the fam for a Noctua one. Definitely recommend it for anything using standard fan types.
Would've liked to see the difference on output on scope , or at least voltage levels as you scaled up !! interesting test though !! Great to have a family member interested in your business.
Excellent, you have managed to make the powersoft amp to display excellent performance under duress He said the amp was receiving 270 volts Seems the amp doesn't like to reproduce higher frequencies Not sure of the price of these
About 9k but you can get the 8x for the low low price 16k its double the rack space but its double the power and channels. To put that into perspective you can literally get 160 thousand watts into an 8 space amp rack. That’s less than 18” tall. You could fill giants statium with 2 of those racks. Probably one
Yes, with the testing that was done, seemed to do an excellent job, of course it didn't like the pink noise and seems a bit pricey needs 220 volt, l think a lot of sound guys out there are interested in amps that run a 20 amp circuit, 120 volt lightweight, can run a dual 18 cab as well as mid high top and be readily available cheap used Durable, repairable
Great analysis Dave. Any idea what the Class D Switching frequency is ? Also might be interesting to see what the class D LPF rolloff / curve looks like. (all presuming you have this set up again sometime in the future). I'm impressed with the crazy amount of power and effectiveness of the limiter with expected program material.
I will run the amp through smaart at some point and look at the LPF. Also I believe I can see the switching freq on the output as residual noise so I will look next time.
Pulled up the manual to check the specifications. As suspected the power ratings are peaks, not RMS. I look at the maximum power draw for the amp. It uses 3 phase power from 100 to 240VAC. Assuming 208V power draw is 9A at 1/8th power, or average music, not a tone. Suggested circuit breaker is a C16, Max consumption for all AC Mains Cases is < 3000 Watts. This amp can not output a 5KW tone and still draw under 3KW of power except as a peak pulse. Still very impressive and a great way to make speakers into fireworks in a show. These would be great for subs that take 1-2 KW. Don't know of any single speakers that would take the full output other than a 16 speaker series/parallel array. What do you normally connect this to at a concert? I'm guessing passive subs.
These amps are quite good and we bought them to power what we call the SuperWedge. A dual 12", 10", 2" quad amped wedge with an 8 ohm load on each way. We can drive up to 8 wedges from a single amp. Having a 10 to 1 or at least a 5 to 1 peak power over the rated power is desirable. We also used the amps to drive V-Dosc boxes for delays and had really good sounding V-Dosc presets made for them.
I'm not sure if it's the recording that gets funky when you're analysing the distortion of the high frequency content. However I'm pretty deaf above 12khz and can clearly hear some harmonics come into play when you're pushing that 20k tone pretty hard. Would be pretty interesting to see exactly what kind of 2nd/3rd wave harmonic distortion is occuring instead of the normal overload distortion in the newer class-d amps.
Hello Lerryn! Thank you and yes, a quality HiFi system is wonderful to listen to, as are great headphones. I look at sound systems in differing ways. Some are built or playing to be the focus and some are built or playing to add ambiance and not distract. Home HiFi as well as venue public systems fall into these catagories. An airport sound system is purely to distract and grab attention. A restaurant may have a system to purely add ambiance and not distract. A rock show is to grab focus as are high end HiFi systems, which I appreciate both. And I also like MidFi backgound systems like Sonos or Bose. Love all well deployed sound when it is the right tool for the application.
Are the high voltage not much more likely to fry the voice coils? I would expect arcing to start much earlier at those voltages. Especially if you get some voice coil rub when the speaker becomes damaged. I hope issues like that don;t destroy the newer amps.
Higher voltages and higher currents can be tougher on speakers but also that's what's required if you want higher volumes and clean transient response. As far as the durability of new amps to deal with speaker faults and such, That's highly dependent on the manufacturer of the amp. Some of these newer amps are incredibly durable and smart.
Dave build a all in one multiple amp speaker switching load box that is midi controlled that allows 4 amps in minimum and the power can be sent to 1,2,3 or 4 cabinets.
Interesting. Had to look them up. There are some good Class D amps out there. If I run into a need for modular amps or issues with the brands I currently use, I will look into testing when I have an applicable project.
Very good but please don't play that high pitch sound again! Please. I like collecting old amps they are cheaper. I have MC2, Martin and Lab, Crest, QSC, and some older Powersoft. The crest are Granit Line. I sold some of my Cloud and a nice old school Crest and in the UK I have a BSS. I also have some Peavey which is Crest. In storage I have some Harrison and Yamaha and still got lots of Cloud amps. I use a mix of amps with switching power supplies and linear. Generally linear are more reliable from day to day, especially after a few years. I like the size and weight saving of the powersoft but after only experiencing used amplifiers I find the Powersoft are not amazingly reliable. I bought one and fixed the power supply management section but there is also another issue with one of the amp boards. I need to delve further. It still works but the level lamps act strange, + some strange power supply noise after power up in one ch. Then it also clips hard all of a sudden on that ch or rather those 2 ch as it's a 4ch. But it powered 24x 1" drivers running way too low at 1.3 Ohm per ch (at half power on the amp). 1" diaphragms are not that hard to run compared to 18" bass drivers hence not an issue with the low impedance at half power! The other one I have is a 4kw 4ch at 2ohms per ch. It works fine but when it's first powered on there is a very high pitch noise in the speakers, the frequency rises and rises untill it's no longer audible after 5 seconds or so. This is not normal! I suspect some old capacitors. The issue within these amps is that the air flows quickly around some parts of the amp but in other parts it can remain quite stagnant. Capacitors can become hot if too close to certain components then they fail after some time.
LOL Watch as Dave Rat tests the limits of his daughter's sanity by creating painful high-frequency distortion that doesn't bother him because he can't hear it.
Not a big fan of "probably" Love to see info or a demo clarifying. Though I have done tests and shown that frequencies above 20k are definitely "perceivable" But of course we all know frequencies above 20k are perceivable because light and infrared head and uv and sunburns are all perceivable frequencies well above 20k. Plus I did a video with my daughter Sammy showing that 40k is perceivable ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-tNpPFEwX6Y4.html
Hi, These amps are designed to run off of 3 phases when available. How did you have it powered for your tests? Sorry if I missed info in the video. I'm not sure if it would make any difference for these tests. I'm just interested. The couple of times I've used them I was running from a single phase 240v (EU) supply.
Dave, at 3:40 you mention this third type of amp using dual hot configuration, could you please give an example on a current commercial amp using this, im keen to read more. Cheers.
Yes, the L-Acoustics LA12X is I tested. L-Acoustics purchased Camco and the LA12X is Camco amp. So it is possible or probable that other Camco models use the same configuration.
Thank you for sharing all of your experiences and knowledge! I specifically wanted to know if this amp could push subs. Would you say that this amp can run the Adamson S119s × 8?
@Dave Rat I agree! To be honest, I run my current Adamson setup with the PLM20K44s, and have one of the X4s from a deal, and havent gotten the chance to use it due to the lockdown. Right now it's less of a, "how good will it sound" question, and more of a, "is it even advisable?" Question. Can this amp run subs well? Should I limit it to just 6 subs or will it be able to drive all 8? The 8 and 4 Ohm ratings seem to be similar to the 12k44.
Dave, can you see a waveform of the signal as it approaches the internal limiter? Any evidence of a DC signal going out to the speaker as that limiter engages?
Hmmm, A limiter operating correctly is basically just a really fast volume control that turns down the signal when it peaks. So, there should not be a DC component added to the signal. That said, it the attack is set too fast, there will be an undesirable distortion added. Keep in mind that distortion is a change of the signal from the original. So all limiters are a form of (hopefully) desirable distortion
I did plan to and started testing one but the rental department at Rat Sound needed the LA12X back for gigs. Once things slow down I will bring one home and do a video testing it.
@@DaveRat i was just thinking that the point at which you hear distortion in the high frequency information from the powersoft amp, most any high frequency driver would have been fried, wouldn’t it? Even 8 at once. Maybe not.
So your loading 2 channels with almost 5kW continuous? how is the amp supplied from 110V? and how where are you dissipating al this power? whats the load Resistor?
Thier power supply can go from 115v to 440 automatically. It’s one of those smart power supply’s automatically adjust itself to whatever you feed it. It’s crazy the power you can from class D
@@lambda7652 well it’s running on a standard 20a electrical socket so I would be pretty impressed if it’s got 200a going into it. I know that if it were dc power it would need that kind of amperage but since this is ac I’m not really sure how that works. Remember this amp has an extra 108 volts to work with over say a car amp that has a average of 12. I’m sure thiers somekind of step up transformer inside this thing that steps up the voltage even higher than the 120 since this amp will handle 440v if you give it to it
@@jamband4230 20A Amps on 110V is only 4400W even if it has 3 phase its only 13kW. So not closes to 20kW. Maybe "peak" for some channels. So testing it with Sinewave with or constant noise is surely not appropriate for this AMP. since it must reduce Gain to not pop the fuse or power supply
US voltage is now 120V and has not been 110 for years. Also, rarely are amps used to deliver continuous power unless being tested. Music tends to have 5:1 or higher peaks so a 5000 watt amp will really only draw 1000 watts. Also the circuit breakers used for building power don't instantly trip at rates load and have a trip curve that allows peak current draws way above the rating for varying time frames. In real world system deployment, supplying ac wall amperage that is 1/2 to 1/3 the amperage that an amp is rated is typically a safe bet for most applications. That said, running a powersoft X4 which has a rated output of 5000w x 4 so, 20,000 watts outout off of a 3 phase 30 amp 120v ac supply will offer 10,800 input watts and that is more than enough to supply the 20,000 watt output peak power needed for music. In real world, an X4 driven at max power can be runs from a 30 amp single phase 240 and not blow breakers. So an AC input capable of 7200 watts continuos is sufficient to power an amp with 20,000 watt peak output power reproducing music
Hmmm, possibly. Also there may be artifacts generated by the youtube encoder and rendering of the video. I did a series of videos testing the low and high freq response of RU-vid, here is a link to the first of 2 vids on the highs ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Tj9MHv3cbdI.html
