General purpose musical instrument amp/speakers

[knutinh]

Anyone here curious about this subject? It seems that Mackie etc demand top-dollars for components that can`t possible be that expensive...


How to build keyboard/vocal amp/speakers that are durable, light weight and sound nice.... The obvious choice would be chip/pwm/digital amplification, although a heavy transformer should be avoided. Switched powersupply?

The case probably should be made out of plywood (durable compared to weight), unless some kind of molded plastic is possible (like mackie etc)

And what kind of speaker elements to use? Very low frequency output can safely be sacrificed. 6.5-8" coaxials? 2.1 solution with 10" woofer and 2 drivers? (means one more amp)

Bi-amped or not?


Just wanting to start some discussion and thoughts :-)

knut

[Giaime]

...I'm not an expert, but in sound reiforcement situations, in my opinion and experience you need:
- durable speakers that resist to mistreatment;
- a very hard high pass filter (nothing under 100hZ has to reach to the speaker, more would be even better)
- a not so hi-fi power amp, IMHO the best soultion is biamping, a class D amp for the woofer and a chip amp for the tweeter (where clarity is needed). A 200W D amp and a bridged LM3886 would be ideal.
- Lower frequencies are for the subs...
- THD is not important, since it's hard to build an amp that has higher THD than the average live-beaten microphone... I think anything under 5% at full power would do...

Any thoughts?

[jerishi]

I'm wondering if some of Bill Fitzmaurices' work might work... in order to get the most (and most portable) sound out of cabinets and amps... to get the job done, for working in a band . Don't have a link, but remember some innovative stuff. I believe he's in Oregon, U.S.A. (not usa, japan) ... and wouldn't be surprised if there's a link.