AMPS FOR NEXO PS-15

[drowner77]

I originall posted this on the other Nexo string. Apologies if people are reading this for the second or third time.

 

Hello everyone.

 

After shopping around and spec-ing Meyer UPA-1P's and the USW-1p

 

An enormous FBT pro system

 

And the NEXO PS-15 with two LS-1200's, I finally decided, hands down that the NEXO was the best. I liked the Meyers, but they were very sterile sounding, whereas the NEXO's sounded WOW!

 

But here is my question and I hope you lot can help put my mind at ease.

 

I bought the system -2 PS 15's and 2 LS 1200's and Controller used from a reputable sound company. However, I wanted to buy 2 CAMCO vortex 6 amps, but even used they were about £1400 each. I just could not stretch/

 

However, the company that sold me the system originally had Crowns in the bargain, but they are just toooooo heavy for travelling as it is just me and my wife.

 

They then told me about the YAMAHA PC 9500, which they were selling new at £1000 each. I bought two of them and I cannot say that I am happy with the choice.

 

I have increased the output on the back of the controller and this has made the system crank a bit more.

 

My question is are the YAMAHA's just as good as the CAMCO, LAB GRUPPEN for running my system or is my unhappiness all in my head?

 

 

P.S. when I spec-ed the NEXO's I used FBT amps, which sounded we thought sounded grat, but it has been so long ago that I don't know if these sound just as good, or if I am imagining things.

 

Thanks for listening and sorry for being long winded.

[BlueShift]

I personally would have ranked the crowns far above the yamaha. We run our nexo rig (8xps15, 2xps10, 4xls1200) off of crown macrotech amps (2x5000vz, 2x3600vz, 1x1600) withe excellent results. now these are a little heavy, but no heavier than 2 ps15's in a flightcase and 2 x ls1200s.

It wouldnt surprise me if the yamaha does sound worse than the crowns.

 

personally, if I wanted something lighter I would have looked at the QSC PLX range

[paulears]

Best guess is that the quality difference may well be in your head.

 

The only thing that strikes me is that the Camco's are half as much again more powerful - so if you run the system loud, the Yamaha's may well run out of steam - once you get to this level of drive, the sound always tends to squash a little. Most high quality, high output systems need a fair bit of drive.

 

I've only realised after years, that the efficiency is that different. I was using a hefty mid/hi top the other day as a side fill, and couldn't work out why even with 300W input (AT RED LIGHT LEVEL!) it was so quiet. Convinced something was wrong, I swapped it for an EV300 - earshatteringly loud. Normally driven by 1K+ amps I've never noticed how poor the efficiency actually was.

 

Can you swap out the amps for something a little more powerful?

[drowner77]

The company that sold us the Yamahas said that they were switching to them becasue of weight and price and said that the sound difference was negligible.

 

I am not so sure.

[drowner77]

Paul, I am not sure. I have not asked if I can switch. The Yamahas are not even a month old.

 

A Vortex 6 runs a 1350w @ 8ohms while the Yamaha is 950w @ 8ohms.

 

Will that power difference be noticable?

 

Lastly, I have not yet seen the amps strain. The problem is the sound. They don't seem to have to oompf that I remember. Perhaps it;s me and I need to play with it more.

 

 

If I did want to swap them out, is that something that companies will readily do after they have sold you the amps?

[drowner77]

Blueshift, your system must kick butt.

[neil_engineerofsound]

yamaha, not normally known for doing the best amps known to man but they do the job for a small fee and the weight, the cmco are amazing things the comapny I work for , we have loads of them for powering our vertec, hous ebuilt systems, and nexo alpha systems, they are superb but they are very expensive, but what im about to tell u will probbely make you laugh, but a couple of months ago the college is some times work for bought a behringer amp, a euro power 1500, and the power out of it is beyond belife, it sounds better than most of our amps, and we are packed with, yamaha, crown, c audio, and lab gruppen, and extremmely low price, get a nice eq, and you would be amazed, at the moment it is powering 2 jbl m pro dual 15's rated at 1500 each it is an amazing piece of rack space , just shame about the name they print on it,

I originall posted this on the other Nexo string. Apologies if people are reading this for the second or third time.

 

Hello everyone.

 

After shopping around and spec-ing Meyer UPA-1P's and the USW-1p

 

An enormous FBT pro system

 

And the NEXO PS-15 with two LS-1200's, I finally decided, hands down that the NEXO was the best. I liked the Meyers, but they were very sterile sounding, whereas the NEXO's sounded WOW!

 

But here is my question and I hope you lot can help put my mind at ease.

 

I bought the system -2 PS 15's and 2 LS 1200's and Controller used from a reputable sound company. However, I wanted to buy 2 CAMCO vortex 6 amps, but even used they were about £1400 each. I just could not stretch/

 

However, the company that sold me the system originally had Crowns in the bargain, but they are just toooooo heavy for travelling as it is just me and my wife.

 

They then told me about the YAMAHA PC 9500, which they were selling new at £1000 each. I bought two of them and I cannot say that I am happy with the choice.

 

I have increased the output on the back of the controller and this has made the system crank a bit more.

 

My question is are the YAMAHA's just as good as the CAMCO, LAB GRUPPEN for running my system or is my unhappiness all in my head?

 

 

P.S. when I spec-ed the NEXO's I used FBT amps, which sounded we thought sounded grat, but it has been so long ago that I don't know if these sound just as good, or if I am imagining things.

 

Thanks for listening and sorry for being long winded.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[BlueShift]

Blueshift, your system must kick butt.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

It does, on occasion, thrust its mighty SPL in that direction, yes :P

 

seriously though, it is good - but we have a big room to cover. If we were to just use a pair, and a pair of subs, the results off of one 3600vz and one 5000vz would be great. On the same note though, it would be excellent off of a QSC PLX

[johnhuson]

I think it may be the controller that is at fault rather than the amp. A customer of ours has a Nexo PS15/LS1200 rig, he also had the Nexo PS15 controller. He bought the system into our warehouse as he wasn't that happy with it like yourself, to see if there was anything we could do for it.

 

We tried running it with some of our Camco's and the system didn't really improve. We then put an XTA DP-224 in, instead of the PS15 controller and the system came alive. Were still not sure exactly what the Nexo controller was doing (think partly is over limiting), but he chopped in his PS15 controller against an XTA and he's a happy man!

 

Hope this is of some help.

[2Loud]

The XTA will certainly make a big difference to the overall sonic quality when comparing it to the TD15 controller as the TD15 is analogue and has quite a bit of signal control going on.

When I first started playing with the PS15's they came specced with Crown 2400 which just didn't do the trick at all, later on these were replaced with 3600's which is about what you need however to get them to sound really good use two VZ5K's and you’re smiling.

AS for the Camco's they are really stunning, I have found a noticeable difference between them and the crowns, maybe not such a noticeable difference between the Labs and the Camco. So I have been fortunate to work extensively with the same PS rigs powered with Crowns, Labs and Camco’s and the Camcos won in the end.

However back to your problem, if you can’t afford to fork out the extra spend just yet on new amps then try and pick up a second hand XTA dpa226 from one of the rental companies but you’ll need to replace the amps some day to get the most out of your rig, cause it’s not in your head the difference is in the specs of the amps.

[drowner77]

John, I have had my suspicions about the controller. When we first got the sysstem the overlap/crossover button made a crackling noise whenever it was pushed. Also one of the LED lights was out. My audio shop sorted those probelms/

 

Also, we increased the gain on the back of the TD-15 to +9db. While this has made some difference, the system is not giving the WOW factor that I know it is capable of.

 

The frustrating thing is being in Cornwall (Peavey Land), which is essentially like being in 1953, when dealing with these types of issues for something like a NEXO.

 

Is the XTA DP-224 hard to configure? I have decent ears, but am not that technical.

 

2loud, if my girlfriend had her way 2loud would be my name too. I originally wanted the Camcos becasue that is what Nexo themselves reccomended. I am now kicking myself for saving the money. I should have stretched.

 

I am on to the guy that sold us the system and I am hoping that he will do the right thing/

 

He seems like a nice chap, but we'll see.

[2Loud]

The XTA will need to be loaded with Nexo's own patch, The TD controller is not simply a xover, it also has a bit of EQ but more importantly the sens inputs from the amps control the limiters and restrict the user from blowing the system up. I really doubt that the TD is kaput it is either gonna work or not, the only thing I have had with them is the two little white pots marked amp or sens can be brocken if not adjusted with care, now thinking about this you could be limiting the system to early and from memory if that pot is broken off the pc board ie. open circuit then the controller is in max portect mode.

What you should do as a test is disconnect the sens wires that come from the amp into the controller then listen to the system but remeber to becarefull becuase you will not have any limit protection and don;t let your amps clip.

[Simon Lewis]

A Vortex 6 runs a 1350w @ 8ohms while the Yamaha is 950w @ 8ohms.

Will that power difference be noticable?

 

10log(1350/950) = 1.53dB, so no - it's not a great difference.

 

however, other factors such as slew rate, output characteristics when at full power, power supply stiffness etc. can alter how an amplifier performs and sounds.

 

Can you ask your supplier to run a input sensitivity matched comparison of the two amps? If the difference is indeed neglible, your mind will be set at rest. If not, it's time to save up for that big amplifier:-)

 

Simon

[johnhuson]

XTA's are pretty striaght forward to setup, as 2Loud says it would be best to load Nexo presets into it, but a quick look at the Nexo website there doesn't seem to be any.

 

We managed to configure the XTA for our customer without the preset, using our ears and making sure that the limiters were setup well, this requires some skill and being a lampy more than a noise boy I'm not the best person to ask!

[Bad_Rock]

Oh well I thought that buying cheap amps for great speakers were only a problem that ppl from the third world like me would have. But as the law of the jungle we always need to manage to get things working even with no budget so I had to touch my magic ball and get an idea to rock my ps 15's. The outcome is some chinese amp that still didnt get to my hands ( I bought it already but didnt get to my country yet ). It works at 1950w at 4omhs. It's just a magic trik that we need for the first 4 prolly 6 months while we get our money back to reinforce wallet and then come up with "the real deal" ( labs fp 6400 ).

 

I'll tell ya'll as soon as I put my hands on it.

 

Peace!!!

 

And good luck and I hope your PS 15's will survive :())