Crazy plate amp idea...

[mazeroth]

I have the opportunity to purchase some 100w @8ohm 150w @4ohm full-range plate amps for $32 each with shipping. They're roughly 9 inches x 9 inches. I was thinking of making a wooden box cube with a nice finish, say 12 inches x 12 inches, and mounting 5 of them on the outside, with the bottom solid wood. Put a small surge bar inside and run all the power lines to it, with only 1 power cord running out of it. Put 5 pair of speaker binding posts on the outside for each channel. This whole project would only cost me about $175 and I would have a 5-channel 100/150w RMS amp with adjustable gains. What do you guys think? Good idea or silly?

Thanks!

[Stocker]

Jump

at

the

chance.

Especially if you think they are amplifiers of even moderate quality (for the money). Pair them with another amplifier of similar dimensions and one channel of output with the same power as the other 5 and you have a killer 5.1 setup.

OR

Depending on the depth of the amplifiers

You could line the side of a home theater cabinet with them in a like-finished box or in cutouts in the side. Cover with a screen or a door for little fingers. Or line the inside on one or both sides. If you don't like to look at things (or if the WAF is important), Make them into one plate, either long, wide or neither, and hang it off the BACK of the entertainment center.

Ideas come fast with other peoples' money.

[mazeroth]

Hehe, thanks Stocker. I'll have to consider that idea.

Anyone else?

Thanks!

[psychosteve]

buy 4 and parallel/bridge the lot for about 600 watt into 8ohm

or buy 8, and bridge pairs for 4 x 300watt

laugh, or ill make your ears bleed!!! lol

see you soon, steve.. ..

[mazeroth]

Have to alter them to make them bridgable, correct? Don't really want to have to go through all that

Besides, 100/150 8/4 RMS should be plenty

[cunningham]

Originally posted by mazeroth

Besides, 100/150 8/4 RMS should be plenty

For home theater?? God...I'd hope.

What? Huh? WHAT!!! I can't hear you!

[psychosteve]

no you shouldnt have to modify the amps, just split then invert one signal and conect the -v side of speaker to the +output of the inverted amp.

actualy its better if you run a dual op amp, to invert one side and use the other side to buffer the standard signal, both sides with unity (zero) gain.

u may like to do this for a sub amp as most sub woofers prefer a lot of power and 300/400watt subs are quite low in price.

see you soon, steve.. ..

[Stocker]

Hence my comment about the sub amp...

unless your mains and surround speakers are shockingly inefficient, 100W is enough. 200 is for bragging.

And if you try to bridge a pair of amps that are internally bridged (do you know really know without tearing into them? ) you may regret it...

[anatech]

Hi mazeroth,
Sounds like a good deal on the surface. What make or type are these? What supply voltages do they require?
-Chris

[Stocker]

anatech, my impression is that these are no-questions-asked, possibly generic amplifiers. Supply is 120V to the socket.

Yes?

Oh, I had an idea you may not have considered: Unless the "plate" on the outside is just the heatsink or an actual plate, the connections for the speakers will be on the outside...and you'd have speaker connections on 5 sides of your cube...unless you went from the binding posts directly through a hole, to the group of binding posts arranged as required.

Come to think of it...If you didn't mind making a little jumper cable for each input and output... you could have a short loop of cable from each amp's input and output, going to a nearby hole in the wood; from there they go inside the box, to the "input / output" spot for the set. If it was ok to have one amp be on the bottom, you could have ... ooooh, wait...

You could have your cube with all the inputs in a row on the "back", next to a row of outputs...and then chop the end off the internal power strip and mate it to a power socket like most equipment these days has...oooooh. Nice. Especially if the wires from the backs of the amps to the inside of the box are *pretty* wires...