American Audio V6001 Plus ???

RosscoPico wrote: Tekasis - I'm afraid we've sold both of those V6001's which I'd listed and we are keeping the other 2 we have for now.  Having said that, we are changing over our bass amps to Matrix as the weight saving is a big benefit to us, mainly because the loading capacity of our Luton van is an issue we regularly have to consider!  So a couple more used ones will be available at some point in the future... As it happens though, we've got a special offer on the V-6001plus at the moment..so you can tell your friend that I can sell this amp now for £650 brand new inc. shipping - that's not a bad price for 5kW of amp power I recon![/url]

Hi RosscoPico, no disrespect intended, but after looking at these pics again, I find it very, very hard to accept, that this amp will exceed the power output of CA18 on sub, 35Hz-80Hz,  as specifications suggest. They just don't seem to have enough output devices.

levyte357 wrote: Hi RosscoPico, no disrespect intended, but after looking at these pics again, I find it very, very hard to accept, that this amp will exceed the power output of CA18 on sub, 35Hz-80Hz,  as specifications suggest. They just don't seem to have enough output devices. Might be interesting to compare the V6001 with Audiocenter DA12.2 which have similar specs, but proven 4 ohm performer.

Hi Levyte, 

I think we are going round again in circles here, as you've still not successfully explained to me why the V-6001 amplifier won't manage to live up to it's quoted specification figures as I think you are suggesting?

Please let me explain why I have this opinion....

Firstly, you have claimed that the V-6001 is supposed to be able to exceed the CA18 on sub.  If we look at the specifications below, you will notice that this is an untrue statement;

Crest CA18 (taken from the PDF manual for this amp)

1kHz, 0.03% THD+N

8 ohm Stereo - 1000W
4 ohm Stereo - 1800W
2 ohm Stereo - 2500W
8 ohm Bridged Mono Power - 3600W
4 ohm Bridged Mono Power - 5000W

American Audio (taken from the PDF manual for this amp)

1kHz, 0.1% THD+N

8 ohm Stereo - 1100W
4 ohm Stereo - 1800W
2 ohm Stereo - 2500W
8 ohm Bridged Mono Power - 3600W
4 ohm Bridged Mono Power - 5000W

From this you can deduce that in 4 out of the 5 measured ratings they are the same (with the exception of 8ohm stereo) for each amplifier with one important difference - the American Audio figures are measured at 0.1% THD+N which is a higher amount of distortion than the Crest's figures which are measured at 0.03% THD+N.

From this we can establish that the Crest actually has better output figures, as they can deliver the same wattage output but at a lower measured distortion figures.  If the Crest had been measured at 0.1% THD+N (the same as the V-6001) then the output figures would have actually been slightly higher than the American Audio!  

This might explain also why the 8 ohm stereo figure is 100w more per channel than the CA18.

The circuity is a massive contributing factor which determines the actual sustained power output of an amplifier.  It's not a simple as how many transistors are utilised in an amplifier design...

As I have explained to you before a couple of times, the Void Infinite 8 has the same number (and type - i.e. Toshiba) of output transistors as the V-6001 but at the same time the Infinite 8 can deliver 3112 wpc into 2ohms continuous @0.4% THD (see Abletronics test results: http://www.abeltronics.co.uk/amptesting.php?z=Void_Infinite_8_mk2

That's 6224 watts continuous from an amplifier which only has 32 x 150w transistors (i.e. 4800W), so when you tell me again that " They just don't seem to have enough output devices. " when you are looking at a V-6001, then surely you would be saying the same thing about the Infinite 8?!

The CA18 retails for £2899 so it's far more expensive, seeing I can offer to sell 4x new V-6001 amps for the price of just a single CA18!  I wouldn't disagree that Crest is a better brand to buy (if they can afford it), and I'd happily sell someone a new CA18 over a V-6001 if that's what a customer preferred.  Of course there's also the benefit of a 5yr warranty which is preferable!

And seeing as we are now authorised dealers now for Crown, Crest, Lab Gruppen, Matrix, QSC, Yamaha as well as a few other well known brands, I'd actually be much happier to sell any of these to our potential customers as we would make higher margins on them and also I'd prefer to sell "British made" amps where possible.

No disrespect to you either Levyte, but I thought if I explained this then you'd be aware that I'm not actually trying to "push" sales of the V-6001, but I'd still say that it has it's place in the market for customers who want to buy new and at a very cost effective price.  Maybe we will discover one day that this amp is 100-200w underpowered at 40Hz but does this really matter much at this price?!

Until we have got around to having one tested by Mr.Abel then I don't think there's anything to suggest that they are overrated in their specs (IMHO).  All I know is that they've done us fine for bass duty on our own system.  I do appreciate that you've had more experience with different amplifier brands than me, so you can still let me know if you think I'm missing a trick here...

As for Naphon, I noticed that you posted on their forum a while back;

http://www.naphon.hk/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16

You said "Lots of Sound systems over here want the HI-1400 amp, but there are no distributors !!!"

So who is the UK distributor for Naphon or doesn't one exist still?

I'd agree that the Audiocenter DA12.2 looks like a good amp, how much do they cost new in the UK?

levyte357 wrote: Maybe someday soon, someone will organise 5K torroidial amp test..

Haha yes, maybe that's the only way we'll eventually see eye to eye on these matters then..