Hey everyone, I am the owner of a couple great Studio 100s, Studio 20 surrounds, and a CC-470, all running through a NAD T773 but I am thinking of buying a seperate amp for the Studio 100s. Does anyone have words of wisdom about choosing a less expensive pro amp vs. one meant for home use?
Ideally I'd like to back up both channels with 300W each so my alternative to a Crown or a Alesis etc. would be 2 NAD C272s or a Bryston tub, both much more expensive. Any reccomendations?
Pro sound is seldom concerned with the same aspects of sound quality that you concentrate on with consumer gear. If you want to try a pro amplifier find on that is biased in class A operation for at least the first ten watts. This usually means a pro amp that is more often used as a monitor amplifier and not a reinforcement amplifier. Then listen in comparison to the consumer amps and let your ears and your wallet decide.
I have a Behringer EP2500 that I use for outdoor and indoor parties. It is also perfectly good for indoor home speaker usage. It can be gotten at $300 at various professional sound sites and is rated at 2 channels: 2 ohms @ 1200 watts/channel, 4 ohms @ 600 watts/channel, and 8 ohms @ 300 watts/channel. It also has balanced outputs and is undoubtedly one of the biggest steals in amplification. They sell a zillion of these things to the professional community.
Geez, Laweez, does that Behringer need a dedicated 20 amp circuit or what? Gregory, is the amp any good for focal point listening, or mainly stripper stuff?
The amps have dual 1/4 jack inputs, Dual speakon, Dual binding posts, and dual banana outputs. The amp also has banana jacks, just pull out the plastic stoppers and there they are. I love the dip switch set up with 50hz cut, 30hz cut, or no cut switches. It saves your speakers from sounding muddy or overdriven if you are outside, or if you use them with a subwoofer. You can also set it up so that the amp runs in mono via the dip switches, this also makes channel 2 a line level output to run to another amp or device. Perfect for setting up large speaker matrixes or arrays of speakers all driven from the same signal. OR set the switches to run in bridged mode for 1200 watts of pure power.
If you need an amp with oodles of power and don't mind that the amp isn't fancy and candy-coated like a Krell or Aragon, it can't be beat. I've driven big arrays of speakers outdoors with 3 of these things and they never quit or got hot. It has a fan, but I view that as a small price to pay for an amp this powerful.
The measurements of the Behringer EP2500 are not quite as good as those of any number of more expensive solid-state amplifiers, but they are more than good enough to meet all the criteria for transparent sound. I can't hear a diffference between these puppies and my Aragon amp when hooked up with my home speakers. There is no better deal on a basic high powered amp than these. But I imagine the biggest market for these are for DJ's and outdoor performances with large speaker arrays. But for anyone with inefficient and hard to drive speakers or for the "Tim Allen" in any of us, the EP2500 is a steal. For the price it is definitely worth the tryout.
Nuck - Gregory forgot to mention he doesn't/can't hear a difference between any two "well designed" amplifiers. What's the remote like on these Behringers, Greg?
Jan, I have come to realize that my hearing has left me unable to distinguish between the finest of equipment and something that is ok. It really is a darn shame, but the budget gets smaller as I go along, hehe.
I think the appreciation for the finer things audio will be left to other, more deserving folks here, and I will just yell with Joe Walsh.
True--I have never met anyone that can audibly differentiate between two well-designed solid state amps of similar power (with the volume within 0.1 dbs of each other)driving the same speakers in a double blind test. For that matter I have never met anyone that can differentiate two solid state amps of different power driving the same speakers (as long as the amps aren't clipping. Obviously, speakers that require a lot of power will sound worse (or better, if you happen to like the distortion) if powered by amps that clip.
If one wants to believe otherwise, so be it.
Sure, if an amp is poorly made and has elevated distortion levels, clips the upper frequencies, or has an abnormal output impedance--that will effect the sound.
That's funny. I recall the clear difference between the old Marantz 125 and 200W monoblocks eight years ago when I bought them (the 200W). Powering sensitive speakers at modest volume, WELL below the clipping threshold of either amp, the big amp's improved dynamics and bass tightness were indeed audible in a DOUBLE-BLIND test.
Jeez, did I kick over an ant hill? With all apologies, Gregory, I can still pick a Marshall out of a crowd, but those amps are quite a bit away from the topic at hand. I really must back away from the quality of impression bit here, admittadly underqualified.
Jan, thanks for asking. As my hearing degrades, my vocals have improved, so much so that I have a pickup band for odd weekends. As the aurotory abilities degrade in one department, others pick up. Yet another pro-human quality, beyond the opposable thumbs. Really, the vocals are cooking right now, and I am doing fine. Thanks again.
I can absolutely SMOKE 'heart of the matter' by Henly, Hotel California is a request which I fulfill, and Sylvia's mother I rip my guts and lungs out on. All is absolutely well, and Helen likes the sound I have right now. I need a better band.
Sorry, that REALLY types out as being as pompous as Bono. But I also smoke 'where the streets have no name'. A little shameless self promotion, even if meaningless, is a good ego booster.
amps definately have different personalities. have you never visited a "low end" hi-fi store, set the EQs flat on say all of the 50wpc recievers, set their volumes to equal then A/B them directly?
last time i did (years ago), sony was the most treble rolled off and harmon kardon the most extended and detailed with jvc, pioneer, nad, and yamaha in between.
my panasonic class-d reciever is better than both my onkyo and nad in every way. the lush, relaxed midrange is most noticeable, but the treble speed and extension that makes metallic percussion sound more metallic and tighter, wider imaging is obvious too. i like my onkyo's treble extension and speed much more than the NAD, but the NAD goes deeper in the bass. i'm running the panny on satellites, so i don't know how deep the bass is, but it has twice the power as the other 2, so it wouldn't be a fair comparison.
the differences between amps are alot smaller than speakers, but they are real.
when someone does a double blind test on amps that aren't clipping (and having another person doing the switching) with both volumes within 0.1 dbs of each other, then I'll believe the anecdotal comments of hearing a difference--when the person gets it right 80% of the time with 20 listenings. Who matches the volumes exactly when comparing 2 receivers or amps? If you already know which amp or receiver is playing it is impossible to do a reliable test.
I do agree with the above. The difference between most amps that aren't clipping is very small, but the difference in the sound of loudspeakers can be rather large.
I can't let his one pass. When you consider the utter simplicity of creating sound from electrical energy, it seems the accomplishments of Marconi, or Bell or the Great Pumpkin pale in comparison to the engineers(and others) who created mainstream electronics, specialized electronics and mega electronics.
However, discounting Heddy LaMarr, suddenly found discoveries are rare.
The dedicated massaging of current materials, so dutifally admistered, have produced some of the most beloved(and revered) audio componants of the last 50 years.
That said, the Mosfet array changed the solid state scene for good.(and no Heddy LaMarr).
All amps are different.
Either soothed or smoothed, toughed up or mommy-coddled, every amp has a distinctive sound and feel. Pick your flavour.