Hi
What stereo amp would you guys recommend arround 600 Euro.
Best sound, best build and best power?
Its for a small mobile disco, might eventually use 2 and a active crossover.
Uwe
PS I have a Samson SXD5000, and its not powerfull enough. Thought about buing a Yamaha P7000S, but is there any better out there for that price?
(Around 680 Euro at Thomann)
What stereo amp would you guys recommend arround 600 Euro.
Best sound, best build and best power?
Its for a small mobile disco, might eventually use 2 and a active crossover.
Uwe
PS I have a Samson SXD5000, and its not powerfull enough. Thought about buing a Yamaha P7000S, but is there any better out there for that price?
(Around 680 Euro at Thomann)
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What speakers are you driving and what makes you say the Samson is not powerful enough? Not enough bass? If you don't have subs that will be the next best move.
I own some of the Yamaha amps and they are very good amps but I don't know if it would be enough of an increase in power to have any meaningful effect.. technically you need to double power just to hear a difference. But at the power levels we are talking about here you are getting into an area where speakers can be destroyed very quickly if you don't have some very good speaker protection inline. As mentioned above consider adding subs instead and if you do that consider powered subs since you have to buy an amp for them anyway.
I own some of the Yamaha amps and they are very good amps but I don't know if it would be enough of an increase in power to have any meaningful effect.. technically you need to double power just to hear a difference. But at the power levels we are talking about here you are getting into an area where speakers can be destroyed very quickly if you don't have some very good speaker protection inline. As mentioned above consider adding subs instead and if you do that consider powered subs since you have to buy an amp for them anyway.
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Got to be a Crown.
CROWN XTI-4000 POWER AMP 650W @ 8 OHMS
The XTI Series of Crown amplifiers are professional tools designed and built for portable PA applications. All are rugged and lightweight, and offer unmatched value in their class.
XTI-Series amplifiers feature an LCD screen with DSP speaker presets for crossover frequencies, EQ, limiting, delay, and a subharmonic synthesizer. Other features include a switch-mode universal power supply, useful function indicators, proportional-speed fan assisted cooling, XLR inputs, Speakon? and binding-post outputs, short-circuit protection and more.
With their powerful, reliable performance, XTI-Series amps easily handle 2-ohm loads and are capable of chest-thumping lows. Plus, your investment in an XTI-Series amplifier is backed by Crown's Three-Year, No-Fault, Fully Transferable Warranty.
Features:
CROWN XTI-4000 POWER AMP 650W @ 8 OHMS
The XTI Series of Crown amplifiers are professional tools designed and built for portable PA applications. All are rugged and lightweight, and offer unmatched value in their class.
XTI-Series amplifiers feature an LCD screen with DSP speaker presets for crossover frequencies, EQ, limiting, delay, and a subharmonic synthesizer. Other features include a switch-mode universal power supply, useful function indicators, proportional-speed fan assisted cooling, XLR inputs, Speakon? and binding-post outputs, short-circuit protection and more.
With their powerful, reliable performance, XTI-Series amps easily handle 2-ohm loads and are capable of chest-thumping lows. Plus, your investment in an XTI-Series amplifier is backed by Crown's Three-Year, No-Fault, Fully Transferable Warranty.
Features:
- 650W - 8 ohm Stereo (per channel)
- 1,200W - 4 ohm Stereo (per channel)
- 1,600W - 2 ohm Stereo (per channel)
- 2,400W - 8 ohm Bridge-Mono
- 3,200W - 4 ohm Bridge-Mono
- Integrated proprietary DSP with LCD front panel display
- Accurate, uncolored sound with very low distortion for the best in music and voice reproduction
- Advanced protection circuitry guards against: shorted outputs, open circuits, DC, mismatched loads, general overheating, high-frequency overloads and internal faults
- Extremely versatile, handling a wide range of speaker impedances and outputs
- Switch-mode universal power supply
- Speaker presets for crossover frequencies, EQ, limiting, and delay
- All products fill 2U rack spaces and weigh under 17 pounds; weight sets a new standard in lightweight amps (20% less)
- Speakon? and binding post outputs, XLR inputs and loop-thrus
- Comprehensive LED status per channel
- Three-Year, No-Fault, Fully Transferable Warranty completely protects your investment and guarantees its specifications
- Or the 3500.
- Fleabay from £300
Subwoofers yes and no
Hi
I use the Samson for my homemade tops. Rigth now I run them fullrange. But for larger rooms I can add two 12" subs for each side.
The top has 10" woofer/ midrange Monacor 250 PRO and a 1,5 inch horn. Impedance is around 11 ohm.
Top is a rebuild from german magasin HOBBY HIFI. Great sound but needs lots of power.
Best regards
Uwe
Hi
I use the Samson for my homemade tops. Rigth now I run them fullrange. But for larger rooms I can add two 12" subs for each side.
The top has 10" woofer/ midrange Monacor 250 PRO and a 1,5 inch horn. Impedance is around 11 ohm.
Top is a rebuild from german magasin HOBBY HIFI. Great sound but needs lots of power.
Best regards
Uwe
Considering your tops, using a more powerful amplifier isn't going to do you much good. Using the P7000S for instance is going to add 1.8 dB but after subtracting the increased power compression, that might not even gain you a single dB. One dB being the smallest audible change you can hear.
Can you give more info about the design you're using, is it closed or vented, what high pass are you using on it?
What subs can you add? When doing mobile disco you want the subs able, to be at least +6 dB around the x-over. If you got that settled, you could add another 10".
Johan
Can you give more info about the design you're using, is it closed or vented, what high pass are you using on it?
What subs can you add? When doing mobile disco you want the subs able, to be at least +6 dB around the x-over. If you got that settled, you could add another 10".
Johan
Which one sound better
Hi
Ok they (Samson 5000/7000 and Yamaha 5000/7000) have on paper approximately the same power. What in real life?
And which one sound best?
What about a Rotel RB 1091 how are they compared to the two others. And I know its not for Pro use. But how will it compare power wise and sound?
best regards
uwe
Hi
Ok they (Samson 5000/7000 and Yamaha 5000/7000) have on paper approximately the same power. What in real life?
And which one sound best?
What about a Rotel RB 1091 how are they compared to the two others. And I know its not for Pro use. But how will it compare power wise and sound?
best regards
uwe
How did you end up with that impedance? What is the rated impedance of the 10" woofer?
A quick web search turned up the print specs but no response or impedance curves, but overall it looks like a very decent but typical 10" PA driver. Did you use an impedance compensation circuit on the woofer? In any case I suspect you are pushing this driver for all it is worth, more power will not help just shorten it's life. Does your design only use a single 10"? A dual 10 design would give you 3dB more sensitivity and more than that in output as these amplifiers can deliver more power into a 4ohm load. This is how I utilize my P7000s... driving dual 4ohm 18' subs one driver per channel. But that said these drivers appear to be designed more for "fullrange" operation which is a bit counter productive you can't really get any meaningful bass output from a 10".. at least not for Pro audio applications when the cabs are usually hoisted up on stands, so a purpose built low/mid driver would likely deliver much more output with the power you have on hand.
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McDonalds (Samson) or any real restaurant?
Sam Ash was the major New York City music store. Sam's sons market a lot of low cost products. Yamaha actually engineers and makes their stuff.
My low cost favorites; Ashly KLR series, Yamaha PX series, most any QSC from eBay.
My experience with Crown is that for a while the reliability was inadequate. Many years back I went to a Crown show where among other things they showed their new brochure touting the major venues with Crown amplifiers. I asked if I could get 4,000 copies. The president who had produced the brochure asked why. My answer astounded him. All of the touted projects in the US were mine.
I've got a QSC GX7 here that I'll recommend (not selling). It's not that powerful and doesn't have super sophisticated DSP, but it has a massive amount of power for its weight, it's very reliable, and very price efficient.
It's 2 X 1000W into 4 Ohms, but that's really enough for an efficient driver. As can be seen with the OP's situation, you can double the power and get nothing for it because of inefficient drivers and power compression. I'm not saying nobody can use more than ~1000W, but it is about the right amount of power per channel for a mobile DJ operation on a budget (the subject of this topic). I can easily say some Powersoft amp will be better because it's got 20,000W, 8 channels, and loads of DSP, but none of that is really relevant to finding a good amp for the budget of 600 Euros.
The GX7 has a 100Hz crossover that works fine for a sub. If you get two of them you get (nominally) 4000W to drive tops and subs and you don't need another DSP unit or crossover -- and you'll only be carrying 31 pounds of amplifiers, and spent no more than the 600 Euro budget for the two (used) amps.
It's 2 X 1000W into 4 Ohms, but that's really enough for an efficient driver. As can be seen with the OP's situation, you can double the power and get nothing for it because of inefficient drivers and power compression. I'm not saying nobody can use more than ~1000W, but it is about the right amount of power per channel for a mobile DJ operation on a budget (the subject of this topic). I can easily say some Powersoft amp will be better because it's got 20,000W, 8 channels, and loads of DSP, but none of that is really relevant to finding a good amp for the budget of 600 Euros.
The GX7 has a 100Hz crossover that works fine for a sub. If you get two of them you get (nominally) 4000W to drive tops and subs and you don't need another DSP unit or crossover -- and you'll only be carrying 31 pounds of amplifiers, and spent no more than the 600 Euro budget for the two (used) amps.
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Output power vs input power
Hi
Right now I am considering Yamaha P7000S, PX8 or the Dynacord SL1800.
When you look at the back of those modern amps the power consumption is way less than their output power.
PX8 has rated output power of 2 x 800w/8 ohm put only 280w power consumption???
That is not possible according to what I learned in school.
Is the amp with the best ratio between in and output the better amp?
best regrds
uwe
Hi
Right now I am considering Yamaha P7000S, PX8 or the Dynacord SL1800.
When you look at the back of those modern amps the power consumption is way less than their output power.
PX8 has rated output power of 2 x 800w/8 ohm put only 280w power consumption???
That is not possible according to what I learned in school.
Is the amp with the best ratio between in and output the better amp?
best regrds
uwe
Music is a dynamic signal. So with a bit of energy storage in the power supply capacitors you can reproduce peak energy far greater than the average power line draw. If you are running a sine wave into a resistor then the power draw will go way up.
Even with linear amplifiers I could run a 5000 watt amplifier on a 30 amp 120 volt circuit even playing hard driving music.
But since the USA dropped the requirements for rating amplifier power the defacto standard has become power available for .02 seconds.
So input power to rated power is really more a measurement of efficiency and energy storage. It has often become more of a fantasy rating. That is why you can find very cheap amplifiers that have power ratings of thousands of watts and weigh almost nothing. Or just another reason to stick to profesional brands.
Even with linear amplifiers I could run a 5000 watt amplifier on a 30 amp 120 volt circuit even playing hard driving music.
But since the USA dropped the requirements for rating amplifier power the defacto standard has become power available for .02 seconds.
So input power to rated power is really more a measurement of efficiency and energy storage. It has often become more of a fantasy rating. That is why you can find very cheap amplifiers that have power ratings of thousands of watts and weigh almost nothing. Or just another reason to stick to profesional brands.
The simple numbers that are published on a spec sheet or printed on the enclosure aren't total lies but but they don't tell the whole story, you really have to dig into all the details and collect first hand experience to get an impression of how well an amplifier performs. Take the Behringer iNuke 6000 for example, they rate this thing at 3000w/ch but independant bench tests report it only produces a little over 2kw/ch and peak AC current draw is upwords of 80A!! So it doesn't appear to meet the published specs but subjective listening tests report that on subs it outperforms amplifiers costing 10 times as much so it's performance per dollar ratio is off the map in that case. First hand reports of the sound quality of the amp with fullrange speakers is not so favorable however, some say it is acceptable and others say it just bad, and the bench tests produced some data to explain this performance shortfall.
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Weight is mostly a function of the amplifier class. Class-D and variants like class A-D or Class "H" or something are going to be far lighter than a Class A or AB for the same power. For a PA, there is generally not an audio-quality reason to avoid the varieties of Class D amps and get far more power for the weight (and size). Of course if the amp is installed and not mobile/portable then the low weight is not an advantage. Most of the PA powered speakers from manufacturers on the low-end of the PA market, like JBL, EV, QSC, Bose and Yamaha (the kind of stuff you can buy at Sweetwater or Guitar Center) are all Class D. It might not be audiophile stuff, but nobody complains about the amplifier performance because the loudspeaker performance, in terms of SPL, pattern control, and off-axis response is easily the weak link for PA use.
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