Plate Amps or Monoblocks

[pixleboy]

Hello,

I'm new to this site... I've posted this same question under "Chip Amps", and a member suggested that I repost it here... so here it is...

I'm building a pair of subs that use big, high displacement drivers, which can
handle lots of watts (800 continuous, 1600 peak), and sit in really large sealed concrete boxes (Qtc = .56).

I recently bought a 1000 watt Keiga plate amp to test with them... Since I don't live in a stadium, I didn't think I would need to drive them with anywhere near 1000 watts; I was in fact originally planning to drive the subs with a nice pair of class A hybrid monoblocks that put out a conservative 100 watts each, and are supposed to be capable of driving extremely difficult loads (they are left over from another system). I bought the Keiga amp after reading what happens when using a bit of EQ to extend the LF capabilities, I see that in fact I do need quit a lot of juice. I was further swayed by the convenience factor that this type of amp typically offers, with the adjustable crossovers and a little EQ built right in.

If I had an active low pass filter with some EQ available (suggestions ???), I could also try driving the subs with the monoblocks and compare the two solutions, but I don't yet have that opition, and so am asking if it would be worth acquiring such a device, or if it I would be best off just sticking with the powerful plate amps and integrated filters.

Also, any thoughts on the not so pretty signal to noise numbers of the plate amps when
used with a cutoff (12db/octave) at 50-60 Hz ?

Thanks in advance to all for any thoughts on the subject,

pb.

[XEAGLEKEEPER]

Have you looked at the ESP site? This my be of some assistancehttp://sound.westhost.com/project48.htm.

[leadbelly]

IMHO, I would go with non-plate amp, because the quality is poor. I built my main sub with an Adire plate amp several years ago, which I think is probably the same OEM as Keiga, and I have completely soured on the thing now as it acts up plenty. At first I wanted to just troubleshoot it to rip out the mute circuitry, but now plan to rip it out and build a replacement for it.

[HiFiddle]

You can build one of Greg's sub crossover kits -

http://www.diyhifi.org/amplifierguru/guru_010.htm

if they're of the same standard as his amps you won't be unhappy.