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csg View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote csg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 November 2022 at 12:35pm
Have you had a play with the Powersoft T902 Lev?
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote levyte357- Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 November 2022 at 1:36pm
Originally posted by csg csg wrote:

Have you had a play with the Powersoft T902 Lev?


No mate, in current financial climate, not enought gigs to splurge on state of the art Powersoft.

At the moment, I'm just trying to power 4x 4 ohm drivers.

Even considering a K10, but last time I heard one, hated the sub sound out of it, wondered if it was down to processing.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote csg Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 November 2022 at 1:47pm
K series always sounded somewhat dry to me on sub, but in class D terms it is ancient history now.

To my ears at least current powersoft sounds much warmer, and that sound is shared between X, T and the install specific line

If you are only looking at a few gigs a year then surely hiring a suitable amplifier or rack of amplifiers, even complete with suitable speaker cable etc is surely the way to go, you get the latest technology, tailored for every event, all the reliability, none of the depreciation or outlay. If you are playing out more than once a month it may be worth owning, but even then its marginal. Any less frequent you are far better off renting.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Randy Bohannon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16 November 2022 at 7:45pm
What do you guys think about adding in some 2nd harmonic distortion via some sort of processing, say a valve voltage follower stage using a Korg nutube, in between the crossover and the sub amps to "warm up" the sound?

I think a lot of the warmth of subwoofer comes from how exactly it is being overdriven, in one way or another. 

I have a very low distortion sub for my main hifi and people often complain that the bass isn't warm or loud enough whereas measurements show that it is just as loud as a sub that distorts more in the 2nd harmonic.




Edited by Randy Bohannon - 16 November 2022 at 7:46pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote levyte357- Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 November 2022 at 10:03am
Powersoft X4/X4L,X8,QSC PL380 and many other quality lightweights, sound plenty warm as standard, so I would forgo the argument that "all warmth" is distortion.

May accept, that some amplifiers "omit" certain fundamentals, or suffer premature sub note rolloff, due to lack of output devices, or lack of PSU ability, to extract sufficient current from the supply, or lack smoothing storage, when 40hz bass note hits,  thereby sounding cold.


Edited by levyte357- - 17 November 2022 at 10:38am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote paulus Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 17 November 2022 at 10:30am
fair few reggae sounds using tl audio units between xover and bass amps to get desired sound :)

Edited by paulus - 17 November 2022 at 10:30am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Randy Bohannon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2022 at 2:29pm
As I understand "warmth" in terms of sound it is a matter of the amount of distortion and relative proportions of the harmonics in that distortion of the signal. I don't mean clipping, as all amplifiers, speakers, etc add an unavoidable amount of distortion to the signal they are reproducing at every volume level.

A "Warm" sound in this context to me would sound like a good valve amp or a cap coupled 70s receiver, a high end modern solid state power amp sounds "clean" and "accurate" in comparison to my ears. I prefer the former for music like 70s soul music but the latter for classical, different speakers too.

The reason, I think, is because valves have different transfer characteristics, must necessarily be cap coupled, have very low damping factors, much looser power supplies, etc, etc.

So I think warmth is something that can be added to a clean signal chain, I think Korg's nutube technology: https://www.korgnutube.com/en

All the benefits (:D) of tubes and few of the downsides. :)




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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2022 at 7:55pm
Originally posted by Randy Bohannon Randy Bohannon wrote:

So I think warmth is something that can be added to a clean signal chain, I think Korg's nutube technology: https://www.korgnutube.com/en

All the benefits (:D) of tubes and few of the downsides. :)







You're absolutely correct. The real soundman lusts after a few of these though:
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Randy Bohannon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 November 2022 at 10:49pm
There is a rather unkind prank you can play on an audiophile to make a modern, fast, clean solid state power amp sound like a valve amp and all it needs are two resistors… :D

You put a 1-2.2 ohm power resistor in line with the speaker positives and another of the same sort of value in line with the feed from the rectifiers to the main filter caps.

Voila, same gently rising predominately second harmonic distortion character from a solid state amp, not sure how big the resistor would need to be for PA use though… :D
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote levyte357- Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 November 2022 at 1:51pm
As I said previously, there are plenty of modern lightweights I have heard, especially the MC2 E90, sound plenty warm out of the box, without "added" distortion unit.

So if some are saying, it is distortion "added" by the likes of the X4, X4L, E90, Crown ITECH8, QSC PL380, that gives them superior bass tones over "cold" sounding amplifiers, so be it.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Randy Bohannon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20 November 2022 at 6:17pm
No buddy, the idea isn't that an amp adds distortion as a matter of course, well unless it's a valve amp, but that it's bass response governed by the design of it's powersupply before it is overdriven and how it responds to being overdriven after that point.

It is therefore not a coincidence that the amps you list are all quality amps from quality manufacturers and are probably well behaved as they are overdriven.

Here's an example of a waveform from an amp that doesn't clip gracefully overlaid on one that does, which do you think sounds better when pushed? Wink



This is quite apart from the fact that Crown, Cloud, etc have very sophisticated, fast acting and sonically unobtrusive clipping protection. This means these amps don't hard clip like an ordinary solid state amp, more like a valve amp in fact.




When you have soft clipping, as you would get from a high end PA amp like the one's you listed, the harmonics generated are much less objectionable, being low order and of a falling characteristic with frequency, and can actually be the warmth one is after, in the case of guitar amps and cabs for example.

The explanation is a bit techincal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourier_transform

but in short, any sound wave can described as being a composite of any number of harmonics of the fundamental, therefore a square wave is like a sine wave of the same frequency but with every harmonic superimposed on top; you don't get much less "warm" than squarewaves.

Valve amps soft clip like that by design, but they also have less linear transfer characteristics in the first place and therefore suit things like compressors and limiters very well when you want a bit of warmth in an otherwise clinical signal chain,
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