lostinvegas Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 I am after some of your thoughts on the following. I have 2 x boxes. each box contains 2 x 18" subs. The speakers are 8ohms each wired in parallel giving an overall load of 4ohms. Each speaker is 900watts RAMS. The total power for each box is 1800 watts RMS at 4 ohms. Currently I have the following amplifiers I could use to run them. 2 x C-Audio 30011 x C-Audio 40012 x DAP Palladium P-2000 The DAP amps are 1000 watts a side at 4 ohms, they will do 2000 watts bridged but only at 8 ohms, they will not run at 4 ohms bridged. I am not 100% sure on the C-Audios but I know the 3001's are 625watts a side at 4ohms and will run at 1400 watts bridged at 8ohms. AFAIK they will not run at 2ohms a side or at 4 ohms bridged. The RA 4001 is 1000 watts a side and can also be bridged. Normally I would run the whole lot in Mono at 2ohms from a suitable amplifier but this particular rig is being built on a budget of 0 to help a friend out, so I have to do the best I can with what I have got. I just want to try and get the best out of what I currently have available. I have the mids, highs and crossovers etc.. all sorted out. I have thought of a few different ways of solving this problem but I am interested to know some of your thoughts. Thanks in advance. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Just to clarify.... you are saying you have 2 sub cabinets which have 2 drivers in each making each cab 4ohms? The title is slightly confusing... it implies you have 4 cabs, normally you would refer to cabs in the singular i.e. I have one sub (regardless of how many drivers are in each) if you follow!!! :P If that's the case, without spending money, you simply need to drive the pair of cabs with the most powerful of the amps. Caveat: don't drive the amps in to clipping, even though you might think the speakers will take it!!! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_Beech Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Sell all 5 amps, buy 2 Proline 3000's at £500 a piece and run 1 driver per channel or 1 amp per box 4ohm bridged if you must. That would be using what you have, you can swap your 5 amps for about £1250 and come out ontop. To use your current amps however then I'd stick to the same amps. Powering one side with 1 amp and the other side with a completely different amp that has different power ratings and a completely different output stage is not really recommended. I'd use the 2 DAP amps which are the larger powered ones that you have enough of and just run a driver per channel and take a hit on the power loss. Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinvegas Posted February 4, 2009 Author Share Posted February 4, 2009 Sell all 5 amps, buy 2 Proline 3000's at £500 a piece and run 1 driver per channel or 1 amp per box 4ohm bridged if you must. That would be using what you have, you can swap your 5 amps for about £1250 and come out ontop. To use your current amps however then I'd stick to the same amps. Powering one side with 1 amp and the other side with a completely different amp that has different power ratings and a completely different output stage is not really recommended. I'd use the 2 DAP amps which are the larger powered ones that you have enough of and just run a driver per channel and take a hit on the power loss. Rob Thanks Rob, the above is what I am thinking of doing. You have sort of confirmed my thoughts on selling the amps, was just seeing if I had missed another way of doing things. sleah sorry about the title its not great, thats why I tried to explain myself in the first line. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sleah Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 Sell all 5 amps, buy 2 Proline 3000's at £500 a piece and run 1 driver per channel or 1 amp per box 4ohm bridged if you must. That would be using what you have, you can swap your 5 amps for about £1250 and come out ontop. To use your current amps however then I'd stick to the same amps. Powering one side with 1 amp and the other side with a completely different amp that has different power ratings and a completely different output stage is not really recommended. I'd use the 2 DAP amps which are the larger powered ones that you have enough of and just run a driver per channel and take a hit on the power loss. Rob Thanks Rob, the above is what I am thinking of doing. You have sort of confirmed my thoughts on selling the amps, was just seeing if I had missed another way of doing things. sleah sorry about the title its not great, thats why I tried to explain myself in the first line. Chris I suppose in theory you could put two separate connectors on the back of the cabs connected to the drivers, i.e. so each driver has it's own socket. That would give interesting flexibilty.You wouldn't want to be mixing and matching amps though :P so probably not the best idea, although it would enable you to change from series to parallel using adaptors :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tall_phill Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 What is the application? Do you need to drive the speakers to maximum potential? If you do, well take the advice and go get some other amps. If not, well, there is no law against using underpowered amps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob_Beech Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 You wouldn't need 2 connectors on the subs. Just 1 NL4 connector and 4 core cable. Depending on whether your amp supports the "2 channels on 1" feature would depend on whether you'd need a bit of jiggery pokery at the amp rack end. Simple enough to do, it just requires a patch panel. You would of course need to internally wire the subs so that 1 pair from the speakon ran to one driver and the other pair ran to the other. With a high power double pole switch you could switch them to work in shunt should you ever need to run them from 1 amp. but be advised, don't do this whilst it's connected to 2 amp channels. Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lostinvegas Posted February 4, 2009 Author Share Posted February 4, 2009 I have plenty of 4 core cable, I need to put a patch bay anyway because I don't want to have to go round the back of the amp rack everytime I want to plug everything in. Sounds like this is going to be the best solution. Thanks for all the input. I will probably try it with the Palladiums and see what the performance is like. I don't really want to sell all the amps as they are usefull for other applications (having the fexibility is nice). I have a garage full of stuff I need to get rid of, so they will have to go on the long list if I do decide to sell. Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kevin Ross Posted February 4, 2009 Share Posted February 4, 2009 How’s this for an interesting solution. Run the top driver in each cab off a bridged c audio 3001 each thus giving them 1400w Run the bottom driver in each cab off either a bridged P-2000 each or a single channel of a 4001 each, giving them 2000w or about 750w A bit more wiring granted but each side would then be even. If you took the 2nd option for the bottom drivers you would then have a spare 2 amp channels to run another part of your system. But as has been said before your best option is to get some bigger amps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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