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Proline 3000 - People blowing drivers or Amp
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Sonic the hedge View Drop Down
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    Posted: 19 May 2020 at 2:10am
Originally posted by Tonskulus Tonskulus wrote:

no idea if the build quality is something like proline 3000 has but they were mostly medicore. Lots of soldering issues but great amps for the price

Tbh I have never actually seen the inside of a Proline for real Tongue

But from what I have seen/read online the assembly quality is ok/average. The basic drive, output & PSU design is quite similar to some of the classics, the main difference seems to be the components are speced much closer to the wind, whereas the old school heavies were usually massively overbuilt,120v caps for 80v etc. which is why they go on forever. Crest used to do a 24hr, 100% output burn in test, for every new amp built!

The Proline should  do the business, but not so sure how long it will last! 

Originally posted by Tonskulus Tonskulus wrote:

Anyway, its kind of nice that even today, some big iron amps are still manufactured. Mostly chinese things tho.. but as example QSC RMX 4050/5050 are very good.

Crown's last heavy w. amp was XLS 5000? 

Agree with that, but also can't really knock that China has made many things more affordable for all. 

RMX are China manufacture too I think, but yes 4050/5050 has v good reputation. I guess that shows China can build quality too, when that's what's ordered.

No idea about last heavy Crown, TBH I'm a bit out of touch, I used to play with Crest/Amcron/C-audio/Hill/Citronic etc when they were new Wink



Edited by Sonic the hedge - 19 May 2020 at 2:31am
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I have had some Tamp 1400's,  no idea if the build quality is something like proline 3000 has but they were mostly medicore. Lots of soldering issues but great amps for the price (except for sub duty, great for kick/mid/highs). 

Anyway, its kind of nice that even today, some big iron amps are still manufactured. Mostly chinese things tho.. but as example QSC RMX 4050/5050 are very good.

Crown's last heavy w. amp was XLS 5000? 
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Originally posted by Fred_dibna Fred_dibna wrote:

But if you modded it then wouldn't the hassle not be worth it? Wouldn't you be better off just buying a used Crest CA18 or maybe Crown MA5002VZ or maybe even what I have QSC RMX4050HD. I just don't see how a Proline 3000 could make yours subs THAT much better that it'd be worth it.

Probably, those are all excellent amps, but if buying second hand the Proline would be cheaper. l guess in terms of mods it's fine if you can DIY but certainly not worth paying someone to do it, when you can pick up better amps for perhaps £100-£200 more. But the Proline is still a solid amp for the money.

Originally posted by Fred_dibna Fred_dibna wrote:

 Here's a thought that's maybe or maybe not worth considering, just a random thought out of the blue have any of you very well educated guys ever thought of maybe contacting these cheap Chinese amp companies and asking if you can work with them to provide them with the knowledge of how to make their amps more reliable and witrh quality clip limiters?  

I'm not very well educated at all lol school dropout me LOL

The Chinese OEMs are often perfectly capable by themselves of producing good designs and good build quality. But they build down to a price point, so they have to cut a few corners to get there.

You have to bear in mind, those old school heavies like Crown Crest etc. were very expensive when new, perhaps 3 or 4 times the price of the Proline, and that's ignoring 15-20 years of inflation. Price wise it's like comparing a 20 year old Mercedes to a brand new Kia. But the Proline (and indeed some other Chinese amps) are actually a lot closer to Crown/Crest etc in build quality, than that car example. So in terms of value for money, they are not so bad.



Edited by Sonic the hedge - 18 May 2020 at 8:13pm
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Originally posted by Sonic the hedge Sonic the hedge wrote:

Originally posted by levyte357- levyte357- wrote:

You get what you pay for...

Apart from, when you get even less..

Agreed 

But to be fair to the Proline,, despite the obvious shortcomings it's still a lot of amp for the money.

A couple of cheap mods could make it into a perfectly good amp, one that would put many much more expensive to shame. 


Fully agree.

My comment was regarding the Thomann TA2400, Ok amp on Mids, but would not use for sub.

The Proline 2700/3000, was a whole lot of amp for the money, back in the day.

Proper transformer, huge amount of output devices per channel, exceptional cooling/air flow strategy.

I mentioned years ago, I ran a 2700 in 4 ohm bridge all night, and when party was done, amp was cool to the touch.

Only problem with these amps, was the clip handling, which is why I always said, these are great bridge monsters, but who wants to walk around with 5.5 stones of amp, per pair of 18s.
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Originally posted by Sonic the hedge Sonic the hedge wrote:

Originally posted by levyte357- levyte357- wrote:

You get what you pay for...

Apart from, when you get even less..

Agreed 

But to be fair to the Proline,, despite the obvious shortcomings it's still a lot of amp for the money.

A couple of cheap mods could make it into a perfectly good amp, one that would put many much more expensive to shame. 


But if you modded it then wouldn't the hassle not be worth it? Wouldn't you be better off just buying a used Crest CA18 or maybe Crown MA5002VZ or maybe even what I have QSC RMX4050HD. I just don't see how a Proline 3000 could make yours subs THAT much better that it'd be worth it. Here's a thought that's maybe or maybe not worth considering, just a random thought out of the blue have any of you very well educated guys ever thought of maybe contacting these cheap Chinese amp companies and asking if you can work with them to provide them with the knowledge of how to make their amps more reliable and witrh quality clip limiters?

I know i've heard how good many Chinese amps are for subs but i've also heard the reason more people don't buy them is reliability. Maybe you guys could get in touch with them and inform them how to make them more reliable and transform the Chinese amp world and make it a definite viable option for UK people.
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Originally posted by Sonic the hedge Sonic the hedge wrote:

Originally posted by Fred_dibna Fred_dibna wrote:

how do you set full system gain structure if you can't rely on the amp clip lights? Would you use an oscilloscope? 

Well ideally you would use a scope to find the clip point, that's how you measure the maximum unclipped output of an amp, it's the point just before the voltage peaks start to square off.

Guess instead you could measure the rail voltage and peak output voltage with a DMM and just keep turning it up until the voltages are the same. But that still needs a dummy load.

Failing that just make sure you don't put more than 770mv into the input, since that's the level for rated output. There are plenty threads explaining how to calculate gain & limiter settings back from there.

 Or using your test tone push a signal until it's hitting your limiter then use a DMM on AC volts RMS to measure the amp input voltage and adjust the gain until it's 770mv, then back it off a bit like you say. That would be running the amp flat out though, so only do it if your speakers can handle it.







I guess in a way it'd not be worth buying a Proline 300 and testing it, for what it's worth it'd be better to stick with what I have. Thanks for your help.
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Originally posted by levyte357- levyte357- wrote:

You get what you pay for...

Apart from, when you get even less..

Agreed 

But to be fair to the Proline,, despite the obvious shortcomings it's still a lot of amp for the money.

A couple of cheap mods could make it into a perfectly good amp, one that would put many much more expensive to shame. 


Edited by Sonic the hedge - 15 May 2020 at 1:38am
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Originally posted by Fred_dibna Fred_dibna wrote:

how do you set full system gain structure if you can't rely on the amp clip lights? Would you use an oscilloscope? 

Well ideally you would use a scope to find the clip point, that's how you measure the maximum unclipped output of an amp, it's the point just before the voltage peaks start to square off.

Guess instead you could measure the rail voltage and peak output voltage with a DMM and just keep turning it up until the voltages are the same. But that still needs a dummy load.

Failing that just make sure you don't put more than 770mv into the input, since that's the level for rated output. There are plenty threads explaining how to calculate gain & limiter settings back from there.

 Or using your test tone push a signal until it's hitting your limiter then use a DMM on AC volts RMS to measure the amp input voltage and adjust the gain until it's 770mv, then back it off a bit like you say. That would be running the amp flat out though, so only do it if your speakers can handle it.







Edited by Sonic the hedge - 15 May 2020 at 3:28am
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Originally posted by Tonskulus Tonskulus wrote:

Why did they do it? Its not much more complex to make a "real" clip indicator.


Exactly, it's not even really a cost issue just bad design.  I guess good design costs money too, but why would a manufacturer care, people still buy them anyway.

It's a shame, because otherwise it looks like a perfectly good amp. There are certainly a lot worse about.


Edited by Sonic the hedge - 15 May 2020 at 1:02am
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Originally posted by Sonic the hedge Sonic the hedge wrote:

As others have mentioned the obvious problem with the Proline is that the clip lights are inaccurate. 

Therefore with certain loads it's pretty much a given that the Amp will be well into clipping before the clip lights come on. 

However, this should not be a problem for anyone who knows how to set up a proper gain structure and uses an external limiter. The inrush circuit is another known issue but otherwise there is nothing fundimentaly wrong with the amp as far as I can see.




Ok two things, first what the hell made them make the amp like that without properly accurate clip lights? To me that's dumb because surely as the word gets round that the amp kills your drivers when only just clipping whereas most decent amps don't sales will go down. Secondly how do you set full system gain structure if you can't rely on the amp clip lights? I know how to set gain structure with a 400hz sinewave and a piezo all down the line but I always then turn up the amp's attentuators until the amp's clip lights flicker then turn them down a tad just below clipping. Would you use an oscilloscope? I have no idea how to use one.
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Originally posted by levyte357- levyte357- wrote:

Originally posted by Tonskulus Tonskulus wrote:



I also hated the optical limiter in some Tamp TA-series. They worked very well for 8ohm/ch but not at all @ 4ohms / ch because output voltage was not enough to activate the limiter circuit. 


You get what you pay for...

Apart from, when you get even less..

Thats the way it is indeed. 

However, T.Amps has very good price/performance. As well as Some Behringers.
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Originally posted by Tonskulus Tonskulus wrote:



I also hated the optical limiter in some Tamp TA-series. They worked very well for 8ohm/ch but not at all @ 4ohms / ch because output voltage was not enough to activate the limiter circuit. 


You get what you pay for...

Apart from, when you get even less..
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