A recent discussion on the Chipamp forum brought up the general question of how much to pay for amps of a certain power. Of course, there are the $10000, Five Watt Single Ended Tube amps, but I'd like to limit the scope a bit...
The question is this:
What Class AB (or Class B) Amps, purchased new, seem to offer the most watts for the buck? (The Class D guys I'm sure get a rather different answer to this question).
Here's a first data point:
The QSC GX3, which seems to sell for around $300 everywhere, and is rated at the onset of clipping, at 300 WPC, both channels driven into 8 Ohms, at 1 kHz. At 4 Ohms, both channels driven at 1 kHz it's rated at 425 WPC. That's a lot of power! The comments on these amps seem favorable for reliability, but there are complaints about fan noise. It's probably not an issue in the original sound reinforcement application. I'm a bit concerned about their description of "pure class B", but does anyone have any home listening experience with this? I'm also amazed by much power for the price, and the light weight of 27 pounds. (The old Dynaco Stereo 400 weighed in at 52 pounds!) Does anyone have first-hand experience with the GX3?
I had looked at some of the Behringer amps, but decided not to add them as there were numerous comments posted about reliability problems and not meeting specs.
Which Class AB amp would you nominate in the "a lot of Watts, for not a lot of money" category? This question is for new amps. Please say whether it's something you've read about, or whether it's something you've owned.
Update My Dynaco
The question is this:
What Class AB (or Class B) Amps, purchased new, seem to offer the most watts for the buck? (The Class D guys I'm sure get a rather different answer to this question).
Here's a first data point:
The QSC GX3, which seems to sell for around $300 everywhere, and is rated at the onset of clipping, at 300 WPC, both channels driven into 8 Ohms, at 1 kHz. At 4 Ohms, both channels driven at 1 kHz it's rated at 425 WPC. That's a lot of power! The comments on these amps seem favorable for reliability, but there are complaints about fan noise. It's probably not an issue in the original sound reinforcement application. I'm a bit concerned about their description of "pure class B", but does anyone have any home listening experience with this? I'm also amazed by much power for the price, and the light weight of 27 pounds. (The old Dynaco Stereo 400 weighed in at 52 pounds!) Does anyone have first-hand experience with the GX3?
I had looked at some of the Behringer amps, but decided not to add them as there were numerous comments posted about reliability problems and not meeting specs.
Which Class AB amp would you nominate in the "a lot of Watts, for not a lot of money" category? This question is for new amps. Please say whether it's something you've read about, or whether it's something you've owned.
Update My Dynaco