2.5KW RMS Power amp project

[Riddles]

Hi.

Does anyone have a project for a 2.5KW RMS amplifier. It's for a dual 18 bass bin project, Loaded with Eminence KiloMax 18A.The load inderpedance will be 4Ohms. The speakers will be 2.5KW RMS and 5KW Max. Trying to match the amp & speakers. Don't really have the money to buy a amp of this size.

Thanks
Jake

[madtecchy]

HI.
What is your budget for such an amplifier. Also what experience do you have in amplifier building.

Ian

[Riddles]

Hi,

It would probley be in the £200-250 Mark which is probley to low. I don't have any real experience. I've made PCBs in the past. But was going to get this one pre-made. I know it's gunna require some very large caps and transformers so don't need things going wrong.

[sawreyrw]

Riddles, this project is not appropriate for someone with no experience. You need to start with something much smaller - maybe 5 watts.

[madtecchy]

hi again
a 2.5 kw amplifier is seriouse . high voltages and high current most definatley not a toy. it would be worth concidering using a seperate amplifier for each driver. I recentley bought an Ecler pam 1000 When bridges it will provide 1000Watts rms into 8 Ohms. i payed £150.00 for it so it is nearly possible to do it on your budget.
regards Ian

[jkuetemann]

You'd be lucky to get a new transformer suited to the project for your budget. I'd suggest shopping the market for a decent commercial amp for your needs. An amplifier capable of +/- 140V swing and 35A peak (into a resistive load no less) is not for a beginner. Getting a deal is definately possible, I recently scored an old Yamaha PD2500 bridgable to 1000W RMS into 4Ω for free (right place right time I suppose - these and similar are cheap on eBay) and it only needed to be cleaned up and fully resoldered.

[madtecchy]

all the ecler required was a new cooling fan as the old one was very very noisey.The ironic thing is i proberbly use no more than 10 watts a channel as my loudspeakers have a sensitivity of 91 db. As for ebay unless you find somthing very local the postage o n a powerfull proffesionall amplifier will be huge . NIce find jason now lets see if you can get a second one for free . now that would be lucky lol.

Regards Ian

[djk]

The Kilomax 18 is excursion limited, you don't need anywhere near rated power to hit x-max.



1600W/4Ω when tuned to 40hz, if you tune lower it will require even less power.

[Riddles]

HI,

Thanks for the various inputs. I like the Bi-Amping idea If i was to go with that it would probley be a powered system. Having four of these amps flight cased would take a lot of space up! + The mids amps. There not bad figures. They will probley be tuned down to 35-30Hz. The reason for a 2.5K amp was the match the speaker power, and not try to over load the amp. Will have a look for a 1K amp.

[Studio1]

If your speakers are rated at 2.5 kW and max of 5 kW then your amp needs to be higher still.
In most applications you don't rate the amps to that of the speakers, the amps need to be higher in capacity.
Reason being is that most speakers are killed by amps which are underpowered, not by amps that have too much power.
This is due to the DC which is created when the amp reaches clipping (saturation) and speakers don't like DC.

I agree with the previous responses - amps of this size are not for the faint-hearted or those with little or no experience.
I have worked in pro-audio and sound engineering for 35 years and I still wouldn't attempt to build an amp of this calibre.

The only project I am aware of is one by Elektor some years ago. I have a copy of it tucked away in my audio files. I'll see if I can locate it, simply for the specs.