Lower Driver Impedamce |
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Timebomb
Old Croc Joined: 11 October 2004 Location: Lancaster Status: Offline Points: 2717 |
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For the vast majority of amps i would stick to 4 ohms minimum.
The term "power" with speakers and amps has always been a bit of a misnomer, any speaker rated at 1000W AES nominal will be well cooked if you gave it 500W of actual power for any length of time, as impedance and therefor actual current and power is not constant as the coil gets warm. Drivers are rated in voltage, not power, so when selecting a suitable amplifier it is best to look at the peak voltage the driver can handle.
AES "power" is stated as nominal, program and peak, and is calculated biased on minimum impedance (in free air), most driver manufacturers dont state minimum impedance so i tend to work from RE to be on the safe side. So for a 21DS115 (8ohm nominal) the peak AES rating is 6800"W", 6800 x 5.1(RE) squareroot = 186Vp with 6dB crest factor pink noise (93Vrms) If RE stayed at 5.1 ohms for the duration of this test then the actual real power dissipated would be 1700W, but as RE increases dramatically as temperature rises the actual power dissipated is much less, more like 1/4 of that. This is the free air rating, so in a cabinet the cooling will normally not be as good, so i would treat it as an absolute max. Amps are pretty much always rated in RMS voltage, so 186Vp x 0.707 = 131.5Vrms, or an amp that is 2150W into 8 ohms. The advice of "go for a 2000W/8ohm amp to drive a 1000W AES driver" made more sense back when we had the old AES test method that divided by nominal impedance rather than minimum impedance (Or RE) and thus yielded a high "power" figure, if it is a modern driver rated with the newer AES method then i would select an amp somewhere between the nominal and program rating. |
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James Secker facebook.com/soundgearuk
James@soundgear.co.uk www.soundgear.co.uk |
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Elliot Thompson
Old Croc Joined: 02 April 2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 5176 |
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Actually, what I said is correct. Nominal is a ruff estimate. This is why manufactures state Nominal load on loudspeakers. The Re is the lowest load the loudspeaker will bring forth to an amplifier. This is always listed on the TS Parameters chart. Of course, how the loudspeaker will react in the enclosure will determine if indeed the speaker will dip into it's Re or not. However, unless you are going to actually measure the impedance curve of the woofer(s) in the box or boxes grouped together, it is anyone's guess where the impedance lies at the given frequency.
In addition to the above, one would need to know the actual frequencies in real time to determine when the loudspeaker impedance curves fluctuate when reproducing music. How many are willing to monitor the frequencies in real time throughout the night at their events to ensure the amplifier is not facing a stressful load?
It is almost 2020. Class D amplifiers are too inexpensive to be strapping an amplifier into 2 ohms per channel. Operating an amplifier at 4 ohms per channel, having the headrom of 2 ohms per channel as means of leeway from impedance dips of the loudspeaker(s) will bring forth a better overall performance from the amplifier than, using the amplifier at 2 ohms per channel.
Best Regards, Edited by Elliot Thompson - 06 June 2019 at 5:51pm |
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Elliot Thompson
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snowflake
Old Croc Joined: 29 December 2004 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 3122 |
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the load is always higher than Re, for efficient sepakers, significantly higher. many people do know the impedance curves of their boxes in differnt configurations, and do use real time analysis of the program material and real time measurement of speaker impedance. and your first statement "Whether you use such a configuration for Bass, Midrange or, Treble does not matter." is just wrong. the characteristics of music programme in the different bands is vastly different, as is the capability of amplifiers at the extreme ends of their operating ranges.
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callumtruds
Registered User Joined: 10 November 2015 Location: ireland/england Status: Offline Points: 46 |
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If you buy 8 ohm, run them in parallel (4 ohm nominal to amp) and stick something like a k20/E90/XE10000 on them, 2 drivers per channel
(pkn xe10000 may even be running hard for 2 drivers per channel) If you buy 4 ohm, run each driver on a single channel off some thing like k10 / PKN XE6000 / Matrix 10k / Ffa 10k (all have input/output xlrs on amp so still only need 2 dsp channels for 2 or more amps) 4 ohm nominal cabs can drop to 3.5 ohms or lower on certain frequencies (seen on stasys xv1) so definitely not ideal running at 2 ohms Also cable thickness and run length should be factored Crest do a neat table I will try upload (can't upload but find user manual for crest ca series its on pg 20) Nice drivers!! What bins are they going in?
Edited by callumtruds - 06 June 2019 at 10:49pm |
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Elliot Thompson
Old Croc Joined: 02 April 2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 5176 |
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What is actually wrong is quoting something I said partially. This is what I stated.
Surely, you do not believe you can load as many speakers as you like above the bass frequencies and pay no attention to where impedance lies from an Le standpoint at the given frequency?
A loudspeaker's impedance curve varies greater than you might imagine from 20 – 20 kHz from driver to driver.
Possibly many like to operate their amplifiers ragged. Maybe it is the whole “Look at how many speakers I have running on one amplifier.” that tickles one's fancy. Those days left me decades ago. Class D amplifiers are inexpensive compared to the days of Class H more so Class A/B amplifiers of yesteryear. This is why there are so many Class D Amplifiers available at very low prices. It is also the reason why there is such a surge in powered speakers. So I don't see the logic of operating amplifiers at 2 ohms per channel in this day an age as all amplifiers perform better with a lighter load than a heavy load.
Best Regards,
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Elliot Thompson
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toastyghost
The 10,000 Points Club Joined: 09 January 2007 Location: Manchester Status: Offline Points: 10919 |
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All speakers and amplifiers, except those explicitly designed to work in such a way with properly matched DSP and amplifier platforms, including things such as the 1 Ohm nominal iPAL platform...
You can’t speak in absolutes on this subject, frankly. With improvements to class D, voltage has become readily available. Which is great, because voltage is what really drives speakers. Music is dynamic, and many people seem to struggle with the adaptation of the industry to that fact. |
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snowflake
Old Croc Joined: 29 December 2004 Location: Bristol Status: Offline Points: 3122 |
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yes but for a specific amplifier, what might be an okay nominal load at midrange may not be an okay nominal load at bass or high "Surely, you do not
believe you can load as many speakers as you like above the bass
frequencies and pay no attention to where impedance lies from an Le
standpoint at the given frequency?" no, I surely do not believe anything so ridiculous (though I'm not sure what you mean by "Le standpoint") - so why mention it? "all
amplifiers perform better with a lighter load than a heavy load."
another sweeping statement. once you are within thermal and current capabilities of an amp, a lighter load just means less max SPL and worse S/N ratio. |
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Elliot Thompson
Old Croc Joined: 02 April 2004 Location: United States Status: Offline Points: 5176 |
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Once you operate an amplifier within its voltage and current limitations you will achieve maximum performance. This is what 4 ohms per channel brings forth. It delivers maximum voltage and maximum current without, any consequences such as premature clipping, cutting back the output power periodically and/or sporadically shutting down into protection mode. The Signal to Noise Ratio relates more to wards gain staging than the output load the amplifier endures. Feel free to Bench test an amplifier with a dummy load and you will see the signal to noise ratio is not the culprit of performance derogation from the output load of the amplifier shown on your oscilloscope at maximum output before clipping. You will need to increase the sensitivity of your oscilloscope to view the idle noise which, is minuscule compared to the sine wave signal passing through the amplifier.
High sensitivity compression drivers and/or tweeters will always present some means noise while idling when using multiples even when the input gain controls on the amplifier is reduced to not pass any signal at times. However the percentage is very low compared to the output signal the compression drivers/tweeters emit when reproducing music. Best Regards,
Edited by Elliot Thompson - 08 June 2019 at 1:29pm |
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Elliot Thompson
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IanD
Registered User Joined: 17 January 2009 Location: London Status: Offline Points: 400 |
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"Voltage is what really drives speakers" makes no sense; for starters it all depends on the impedance of the driver, and it's the current that actually provides the driving force. If you double the impedance of the driver by changing the coil wire diameter and drive with 1.4x the voltage and 0.7x the current (same power rating amp at 2x rated impedance) the results are identical. A low impedance driver like the Ipal needs less voltage and more current than a driver with a higher impedance coil. If it has huge impedance peaks because of the high BL product (big back EMF) then you do need more voltage, because these often coincide with a dip in the response. This is why B&C/Powersoft dropped the Ipal impedance to 1 ohm, to avoid the need for very high voltages. And actually with class D it's easy to get as much current as you want, and unless you want to use exotic (expensive) components like SiC MOSFETS this is an easier way to get high power than raising the voltage. However if you want really stupidly high power (kilowatts and up) then the best way nowadays is to use the expensive components like 600V SiC, which are perfectly happy to provide hundreds of volts output -- this is what people like Powersoft and PKN do in their mega-amps.
Edited by IanD - 08 June 2019 at 2:24pm |
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logsquared1
Registered User Joined: 09 February 2017 Location: USA Status: Offline Points: 115 |
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Not trying to be argumentative but, voltage is what drives speakers. You cant get the current into the high BL driver without the high voltage. That is what we are talking about here, high BL modern drivers.
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Risc_Terilia
Young Croc Joined: 15 December 2007 Status: Offline Points: 699 |
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gen0me
Young Croc Joined: 20 February 2016 Location: UK Status: Offline Points: 999 |
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Look at the voltage drop of an amp. On spec comparing 4 ohm bridge vs 2ohm bridge. If Wattage on 2 ohms is far from 2* 4 ohm Wattage than avoid it.
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