World's biggest amp? check it out,

Hope you guys don't think I'm into BIG amps. I just remembered seeing such an interesting creature on Dynaudio site.....

I'm running my JLH'96 amps at the moment and they give me some 10+ watts and I'm very happy with that. Ooo but wait, if one considers the physical size of the amps mine are guite big also 50cm x 32cm x 14cm (19x12x5.5 inches for you there over the ocean) and as they are monoplock theres two of them. It's quite fun - every time a "non audiophile" visists me they oooh and aaah about these babies being ONLY 10W : )

Ergo
 
Re: 1000W is greater than 700W

Originally posted by Harry
The "Ko'lok" seems to be vaporware. Dr. Gizmo was going to build a 50KW amp and write a book about it also. Never came to pass as I remember.
I hope there was no pun intended here ..... it was a shocker if intended !

I wasn't going to even bother to look at this, then I recognised the URL as Rod Elliot's page. I have to concede it does sound a little "entrepreneurial", however other aspects of Rod's site have been quite helpful (to me at least, ie. a non-EE enthusiast) and most of his projects seem solid enough.

I appreciate the site probably offers little to the likes of Harry, but there you go!
Nelson, I'll bet you sleep just fine..... What does anybody need with a 1000 Watt amp by the way?
Oh god ..... I have flash-backs to my efforts in trying to explain dB/W to some fellow rank novice :(

It would actually be quite interesting to hear the high-end X-series lined-up against each other.

Actually, down here at the bottom of the globe, it would just be nice to go along and hear any of NP's offerings ;)

cheers, mark
 
"700 watts and 14 output devices. " You want to see scary? A Carver M1.5T will do 1200W bridged with only a grand total of 16 output devices, no heatsink, no fan, no switching power supply, and all on a 3.5" chassis that weighs in at 16 lbs. The +/- 125V main rails sport a single pair of 3,400µF caps and the bridge for the +/- 75V rails used four 3A diodes, later upgraded to 6A types.
 
"no switching power supply" The Labgruppen has a switching supply. Also that is peak power at 1Khz at 1%THD according to the fP6400 spec sheet. The Carver is continuous power from 20hz~20Khz at 0.1% THD. From a non-switching supply. If we look at the Carver 2.0 we see it had a switching supply. At 8 ohms the 22 lb Labgruppen puts out 1dB more peak power than the Carver 2.0, the Carver 2.0 weighs 10 lbs 12 ozs . The power out spec on the Labgruppen is based on peak voltage, no load, and then converted into RMS. With the MLS (tm) switch set for high impedance and then calculating voltage into a low impedance. At full power at 1Khz with 1% THD the maximum limited power input is 4600W, if we assume 90% power supply efficency and 90% amplifier efficency the most we can get out into a resistive load is 1850W per channel. And much less into a reactive load like a loudspeaker. And it no where near fast enough for hi fi use. Minimum slew rate for good hi fi is 0.5V/µS per peak volt of output. That means this amp ought to slew at 75V/µS, not the 20V/µS that it is. Actually, I think NP was making fun of the Dynaudio having 700W from only 14 outputs, his A75 design has 24. My mentioning the Carver was not that it was the best, but quite the opposite. Maybe I should have mentioned the Crown VZ5000 instead, it has only half the number of outputs per watt that the Carver does. Of course it has one of those matching load switches like the Labgruppen has, Crown just calls theirs VZ (tm) instead of MLS (tm).
 
This is degenerating into insanity ......

I hope (really) that we are not concerned with max watts per kg ....

Actually, I seem to recall from a long distant e-mail, that NP has actually reserved the rights to the trade name "first watt", or something similar.

The point being that the performance of any amplifier in the first few watts is actually miles more important than its performance at the extreme !!!!!!

There is so much misinformation in the general hifi press, supported by "vested interest". It would be a great shame for us to follow that here !!!!

cheers, mark
 
Silly thread

This thread is rather silly. Big amps are usually intended for PA and therefore not very suited for high fidelity use.

When we are talking big here, does anybody know about the huge (I'meen HUGE) amp which Mats Bladelius designed for the japaneze market?

I saw this amp at a fair here in Sweden. The weight was around 200-400 kg (400-800 lbs) and the size was also big. The amp was feed from 3-phase and the power supply was capable of "welding". The output power was only 300 W in 8 ohms but infinite in lower impedances.
 
What about Krell MRA? 218 output devices.;)
 

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