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Powersoft X4 real power

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Sonic the hedge View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sonic the hedge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 October 2021 at 7:29am
Originally posted by BigSoundNorthWest BigSoundNorthWest wrote:

to nutshell this thread then..

Folks: "powersoft does / doesnt do these things... and are pants"

kyle / kutty / etc: "we own mountains of em, a: they do /don't and b: theyre effing great"

folks: "naaaaaaah, we've seen a test on a bench, and some figures, what the F**k do you lot know"

obviously, is a bit more nuanced and less black n white than that, but.... 


+1!

But personally I love these SP spats, there is a veritable treasure trove of useful technical explanations in the back and fourth...gets you thinking deeper about how it all fits together.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 October 2021 at 9:19am
Did a stage for some 3000+ people in the round the other week at WaterWorks Festival using a pair of X8. 11 hours run-time over 12 subs, four bi-amp mains, with a 32 amp average single-phase current draw on each amp, cruising along at ~65 degrees C internal temperature.

There were peaks of up to 90 amp draw on kick drums and rolling bass lines, because that’s music for you. So <5,000 W average with 35 kW peak. Which is a crest factor of a touch over 7, which is around 17 dB - which fits the analysis of most music done in all sorts of research, including the (soon to be AES standard) Meyer M-Noise test signal.

It's mad how proper science and good design work out
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sonic the hedge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 October 2021 at 9:23pm
Duplicate post...






Edited by Sonic the hedge - 08 October 2021 at 9:31pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Sonic the hedge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 October 2021 at 9:30pm
Originally posted by Elliot Thompson Elliot Thompson wrote:

The common mistake that many assume is the loudspeaker is immune to damage due to offering a limiter. If the user forces a stronger signal into the limiter, the limiter will just reduce the peaks further until it offers a similar output level as the RMS.

It's not always a mistake though...

Some people do various things, a bit like this, with great care and attention to levels, and a full understanding, of what it is they are doing Wink

For some reason, these people seem to prefer sub amplifiers, that can effortlessly deliver, sustained RMS output....


Edited by Sonic the hedge - 08 October 2021 at 9:33pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 08 October 2021 at 10:02pm
Originally posted by Sonic the hedge Sonic the hedge wrote:

Originally posted by Elliot Thompson Elliot Thompson wrote:

The common mistake that many assume is the loudspeaker is immune
to damage due to offering a limiter. If the user forces a stronger signal into
the limiter, the limiter will just reduce the peaks further until it offers a similar
output level as the RMS
.

It's not always a mistake though...

Some people do various things, a bit like this, with great care and attention to levels, and a full understanding, of what it is they are doing Wink

For some reason, these people seem to prefer sub amplifiers, that can effortlessly deliver, sustained RMS output....




Some people also do actual science and measurements, and use amplifiers that offer multiple types of limiters - configured correctly based on data.

The first step in that process is recognising that "RMS Watts" is an utterly bull shit term
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Sonic the hedge Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09 October 2021 at 5:18pm
Originally posted by toastyghost toastyghost wrote:

Originally posted by Sonic the hedge Sonic the hedge wrote:

Originally posted by Elliot Thompson Elliot Thompson wrote:

The common mistake that many assume is the loudspeaker is immune
to damage due to offering a limiter. If the user forces a stronger signal into
the limiter, the limiter will just reduce the peaks further until it offers a similar
output level as the RMS
.

It's not always a mistake though...

Some people do various things, a bit like this, with great care and attention to levels, and a full understanding, of what it is they are doing Wink

For some reason, these people seem to prefer sub amplifiers, that can effortlessly deliver, sustained RMS output....




Some people also do actual science and measurements, and use amplifiers that offer multiple types of limiters - configured correctly based on data.
 

Fully agree - but I think you missed my point, sorry if it wasn't clear. I wasn't really talking about limiters.

My point is, some people consciously and deliberately raise the RMS of the envelope, to achieve a desired outcome. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote D_S Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11 October 2021 at 10:26pm
Are there any tests done on the X4L? I saw the one on the X4.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Line Array Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 April 2022 at 11:04pm
the morons at production partner should have tested the X8 too

their excuse for their laziness to test only X4 was that X8 uses same amp modules

yes but the FANS on the X8 have five times the airflow ...

did it not occur to those morons that airflow may affect cooling and that cooling may affect thermal throttling of the amplifier ?

it also did not occur to anybody in this thread, not even Viktor who kept whining about small heatsinks which are actually quite big because they wrap around as a C-channel on the bottom of the amp module ...

he kept whining about small heatsinks, fuses etc when clearly the most undersized part of X4 amp are the fans ...

and the reason is clear too - the X4 shares both the modules and the overall length with the X8 so they couldn't use blower style fans like in K20 or it would get too long ...

the X4 is a compromised design because between exterior and amp module dimensions and XLR plugs on the back they couldn't find the space for bigger fans ... so they did it the VolksWagen dieselgate style and simply handled the situation in software ... by reducing power, but not the ratings.

my guess is the X8 should be capable of higher power per channel in the long term than the X4 based on having 5 times the airflow with only 2 times the channel count.

my guess is the long term power output of the X4 is entirely a function of those tiny fans while all the other aspects of the design only endow it with peak and burst power and dynamic or "music" power.


Edited by Line Array - 04 April 2022 at 12:12am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote VECTORDJ Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 03 April 2022 at 11:35pm
The Great D-Class Amp Power FRAUD......Watts is AC Volts x AC Volts divide by the Woofers Ohms.....Very easy to measure with any Volt Meter. I like to use Pink Noise run through a Compressor to get Average Power......Old Amps like Peavey CS-1000 measure very close to the Ratings.......Cheap Brands like Behringer are total FRAUDS. Nuke 6000(Joke). Keep Rock Alive!!!!  VECTORSONICS
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote smitske96 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 April 2022 at 8:28am
If measurement criteria are met, I do not see how it is fraudulent.
They do exactly as they say, and many many experienced users achieve great results with them (amps like Inuke aside).
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 April 2022 at 9:14am
Originally posted by smitske96 smitske96 wrote:

If measurement criteria are met, I do not see how it is fraudulent.
They do exactly as they say, and many many experienced users achieve great results with them (amps like Inuke aside).


Yup. The ratings on the spec sheet are clearly labelled with the standard used to determine them. You also get the maximum unclipped peak voltage and peak current per channel, all channels driven - something that's missing on several other spec sheets. The exact same test of compressed pink noise is one of the ways the amp was tested by Production Partner, into a resistive load.



Since a loudspeaker is not a resistor, and all loudspeakers are acoustic high-pass filters, the real-world output will be higher than this. Simply adding a second-order high pass to a compressed 6dB crest factor signal is enough to convert tit back to nearer 12dB CF. A second-order high-pass behaviour is what you get with a driver in a sealed box, without an electronic high pass.



So here's the more useful data. 12dB signal with typical broadband content shaping which is representative of most music. Yellow curve here, taken from https://www.doctorproaudio.com/content.php?2260-loudpeaker-power-handling&langid=1


Power output for 6 minutes looks pretty good to me.

It's funny that 'music power' is considered a slight against a device that is designed to play music

Edited by toastyghost - 04 April 2022 at 9:21am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Line Array Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 April 2022 at 6:33pm
Originally posted by toastyghost toastyghost wrote:

 It's funny that 'music power' is considered a slight against a device that is designed to play music

no doubt at all that only a fool would rather have an amp designed to play sinewaves into a resistor than one designed to play music into a speaker, that is not the point ...

my contention is that X4 is really an afterthought, a waste by-product of the X8

the amp modules that are shared by X4 and X8 were ingeniously designed to fit horizontally in a 1RU chassis or vertically in 2RU chassis ... but in typical powersoft fashion they are quite deep ...

it is not an issue for normal axial fans which are shallow but it does prevent the use of blower fans such as used in K20 as that would make the amp too deep ...

they probably should have used four of those tiny fans instead of two but the XLRs took up all the room on the back panel ...

as a result the X8 is a no-compromise amplifier while the X4 is crippled by the fact that it really wants to use blower fans like K20 but can't because they won't fit and is instead stuck with smaller fans that cap its long-term thermal power.

X4 and X8 are rated for same power per channel because modules are the same and in the short term can deliver the same power, but in the long term the cooling capacity of the two amps is different ...

i may be wrong but i doubt it.

in other words powersoft's competence isn't in question here - what is in question is whether X4 is suitable to drive subwoofers playing dubstep.  the answer is probably not.  the X8 can probably do it, but not the X4.  somebody should have tested the X4 vs X8 and production partner missed this opportunity, which just makes me angry.


Edited by Line Array - 04 April 2022 at 6:56pm
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