poweramps

[dmbfancb]

im trying to put together a decent sound system for my band, but im unsure about power amps, i know im going to need one, but i dont know a thing about them. Especially their wattage. we want about one wedge monitor and two small mains for the time being, so say all three speakers put out 100W, would this theoretically mean i would need a pa that puts out up to 300W, what would happen if the power amp put outs more watts than speakers add up to, or vica versa. Any help would be appreciated thanx

[Screbin]

yes YES

[Dave45]

im trying to put together a decent sound system for my band, but im unsure about power amps, i know im going to need one, but i dont know a thing about them. Especially their wattage. we want about one wedge monitor and two small mains for the time being, so say all three speakers put out 100W, would this theoretically mean i would need a pa that puts out up to 300W, what would happen if the power amp put outs more watts than speakers add up to, or vica versa. Any help would be appreciated thanx


First of all... More watts than the speakers can handle is better than less than they can handle... If you buy too small an amp, there is a good chance you will be pushing the amp into clipping to get the required volume out of the speakers... and that harsh distortion can kill your tweeters, and fast. Secondly, it's also a good idea to run (at least sort-of) balanced loads on each side of the amp... so assuming you're pushing 2 mains in parallel off one side, it wouldn't be a bad idea to spend a little extra and get another monitor, just so you're not really unbalanced impedance wise. Check out your speakers ohm and wattage ratings, and see what amp more or less matches up with those numbers.

I just put together a system for my friend and I... we're sort of an acoustic duo... and i absolutely love it... 2 Yamaha S115Vs for mains, 2 SM112s for monitors, and a QSC RMX2450 amp that's pushing 750watts through each side. The sound is awesome, it's plenty loud enough, and we could probably get by with less, but unless you're going the Powered Mixer route (meh...) I would have a hard time recommending anything else. I've used QSC and Yamaha stuff with 3 different bands i've been in now... and never had any problems. JBL speakers are even nicer, for a price. As far as the numbers you threw out, I'm not sure that 100watts per speaker would really cut it in much more than a house party...

If you think you can get by with smaller speakers or a smaller amp, that's fine... But i do really recommend the QSC RMX series of amps.

Hope this helps?
-Dave

[alnoor]

dave45....i have a question as well. i know a little bit bout live sound. not much though. right now our band has a powered mixer (meh...i agree)...with dual 500W amps pushing 2 mains and 2 monitors. the sound is decent but i'm looking to upgrade our sound equipment. is it possible to still run power amps with a powered mixer?

this is the power amp i was looking at
Crown XTI 4000 Power Amplifier

we have a yamaha emx5000-12 channel 1000W mixer
2 peavey mains 400W continuous power, 800W program, and 1600W peak

what would you recommend?

[Dave45]

dave45....i have a question as well. i know a little bit bout live sound. not much though. right now our band has a powered mixer (meh...i agree)...with dual 500W amps pushing 2 mains and 2 monitors. the sound is decent but i'm looking to upgrade our sound equipment. is it possible to still run power amps with a powered mixer?

this is the power amp i was looking at
Crown XTI 4000 Power Amplifier

we have a yamaha emx5000-12 channel 1000W mixer
2 peavey mains 400W continuous power, 800W program, and 1600W peak

what would you recommend?

most powered mixers i've seen have some kind of line level output... so i guess you could split that off, even if its just RCA jacks... then run that to the crown amp... while still using the mixer's amp to drive something else. if you have a powered mixer, you might as well take advantage of it - even if it's just for the monitors, you know? you didn't really specify what you wanted to add to your system, but that crown is a damn nice amp. and assuming you're not adding any more speakers/monitors, you could then run your mains in stereo and have 2 separate monitor mixes... that'd be nice!

-Dave

[alnoor]

i really just want to add that crown amp and possibly an EQ to our system. all we have is that powered mixer, 2 mains, and 2 monitors. but yeah i was thinking we could use te built in 1000W to drive the monitors and have some bad ass mains coming out. because those peavey speakers are actually pretty good. we listened to the club series by yamaha and some JBL speakers and couldn't really tell the difference. but that's besides the point. what i'd like to do is this...


MIXER (split) 1 - internal poweramps to monitors
2 - crown amp to mains

could you explain in a little more detail how we would hook it up. our mixer has RCA outputs on it. it also has the option to split the poweramps to different channels to create a mix onboard (ex. you can turn on an AUX/MONO mode and run mains through AUX and them monitors through MONO and run completely different mixes.)

[Dave45]

i really just want to add that crown amp and possibly an EQ to our system. all we have is that powered mixer, 2 mains, and 2 monitors. but yeah i was thinking we could use te built in 1000W to drive the monitors and have some bad ass mains coming out. because those peavey speakers are actually pretty good. we listened to the club series by yamaha and some JBL speakers and couldn't really tell the difference. but that's besides the point. what i'd like to do is this...


MIXER (split) 1 - internal poweramps to monitors
2 - crown amp to mains

could you explain in a little more detail how we would hook it up. our mixer has RCA outputs on it. it also has the option to split the poweramps to different channels to create a mix onboard (ex. you can turn on an AUX/MONO mode and run mains through AUX and them monitors through MONO and run completely different mixes.)

well, it sounds like that mixer gives you alot of flexibility to do that... it would probably be a good idea to run the monitors off the AUX bus, setting up the yamaha to do that... and just power those directly. secondly, you'd run your main mix just as normal, but take the output (xlr or balanced quarter preferably, but rca, whatever will work so long as you get the right cables), and run that to your crown amp. you'll be able to control your main and monitor mixes separately then...

[alnoor]

well..i know this thread might be dead...but i'm following up anyways.

me and my buddy that is also in our band sucked it up and got the Crown XTI 2000. and jesus...it is phenomenal. i knew the power from the mixer that was going to the speakers wasn't at a nominal level but they sounded great...now with this crown amp i don't understand why we didn't get one in the first place. the sound is crystal clear...we can make it louder since our speakers are really 800W program/400W continuous.

when i compared the sound...it was just a blow out. this amp makes vocals shine through...gives us thumping lows and pristine highs

all in all...i would definitely recommend adding a power amp to your sound system...at the very least. I'm still in an amateur band with decent equipment...but damn...this amp makes our sound now. i won't play without a power amp ever again.