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Powersoft X4 real power

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snowflake View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote snowflake Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 August 2017 at 3:24pm
any signal that contains full amplitude sine waves for several seconds isn't music in my book. just wire your subs straight into the mains and listen to that if you want.

a very demanding amp spec would be for 6dB crest factor, 50% duty cycle with 250ms bursts.  the k10 can do that.


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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hemisphere Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 August 2017 at 3:34pm
We're not talking about full amplitude sine waves for several seconds.

The program material I used to reach some of these conclusions was actual music, combined with my not insignificant experience of music production tools and techniques (although that's going back a few years - if I had access to those waveforms they would be ideal here), which was much more of a technical experimentation experience than one of musical composition (countless hours endlessly experimenting with every possible trick under the sun to boost and extend the power and amplitude of a bass-line and lower the long-term dynamic range of a piece while remaining musical). Although it could have been music and that was always the intention - it certainly wasn't noise. Multi layered, composed, subjectively enjoyable works of electronic music.

There's probably a simple tool out there which could settle the matter conclusively. If you run a piece of music program through an analyser which will tell you the average RMS rating of that signal, and it's more than the per channel RMS capacity of the amp (approx  -10dB of it's maximum rated power), for any period of time longer than the time it would take for it to eat into it's reserves faster than it can replenish them, and remain in that state until they're entirely empty (which as suggested could be 10 minutes or more, even if it's only rated for 1 second of constant max amplitude peaks) then eventually playing that signal will cause undesirable throttling behaviour, particularly in maximum amplitude square waves, sinewaves, and/or clipped peaks in general.

Edit: Yes the K10 can do -6dB continuous (I didn't know that - though if it's producing 7500w peak per channel with 2350w RMS input then it's actually closer to -7.5dB). The discussion seems to have magically changed from the X4/X8 to the K10/K20 half way through. X4/X8 is -10dB continuous.so they're quite different beasts. Most of what I've been saying applies more to the X4/X8 than the K10/K20

There's a fair bit of talk online about 4dB dynamic range music. Will some of that exceed the long term RMS rating of-7.5dB for periods sustained enough to impact on the K10/K20? Maybe in some isolated instances. X4/X8 though? Without any doubt.


Edited by Hemisphere - 28 August 2017 at 4:06pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote simonp1100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 August 2017 at 4:08pm
I am sure that pages and pages of technical theory and hocus pocus cannot escape the fact that Powersoft amplifiers DO work in the REAL world, we can spend days putting up pages of graphs, formula's etc.  LOLLOL

The simple fact is that they work, people have purchased these amplifiers and if they were not happy with the results then surely bad reports would have filtered through most of the forums, magazine reviews etc & Powersoft would have sunk without a trace (FACT), BUT THEY HAVE NOT.

Most people would not spend a vast amount of money on these amplifiers if they were crap (FACT).


I switched from using C-Audio amps to Powersoft because someone lent me a Powersoft Q4004 and what a difference it was. My ears were hearing a better sounding punchy sound and for me it was what i was hearing that made up my mind to swap (rather than pages of graph's and technical theory) & since then purchased more Powersoft amplifiers (a few K8's & K6's). THIS MUST BE the deciding factor. Thumbs Up


Unless Powersoft made the Electro - Voice ZLX12-P (with free circuit diagram with every purchase). LOLLOLLOLLOL

This ends the lesson for today pupils, time to go home. Clap







Edited by simonp1100 - 28 August 2017 at 4:40pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hemisphere Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 August 2017 at 4:18pm
Yes that is the simple fact. No disputing it! 

As in everything in pro audio (and everything in life, really), it all comes down to compromise. All I dispute is the false idea that these amps work entirely without compromise, simply because for almost all intents and purposes, they do. 

That claim is patently false, and for people who, for whatever reasons they may have, do not wish to accept that compromise, however small and practically insignificant it may be, into their system, it's fair to highlight that, and important to call out false suggestions/insinuations of truly uncompromising performance from these amps.

An amplifier is a tool as part of a system which reproduces music. It's a proxy for instruments, and the system taken as a whole can be regarded as, and in many cases is operated with the finesse and familiarity as an artist would use an instrument. In those cases you may - and some people certainly do - make the conscious and calculated decision to exploit the potential of that instrument through holding an intimate knowledge of it's inner workings and limitations. Not unlike how a guitarist drives their amp into distortion.

If that sort of performance is something you're in the business of doing, then what's being discussed here is entirely relevant and non-trivial, particularly with regards to the X4/X8 and their -10dB RMS rating. That's just 10% of peak power! 

Toastyghost is a slightly different case, at least as far as I'm aware he hires out a system but doesn't produce the music that plays through it and doesn't necessarily have the degree of integrated connection with the music that plays through it as a musician does with their guitar and their amplifier - admittedly that's just an assumption though, and quite a hefty one which I would gladly retract.

I'm not suggesting he doesn't have a connection and intimate understanding and skill of operating the system that parallels the skill of a musician with their instrument, but that the main weakness comes about for the operator that runs their design process through the entire signal chain through production, to performance, to reproduction, and in that process employs the art of driving a system heavily against and past it's limits in a way that retains pleasing musicality, and as an aspect of that process also relies on the long term peak capacity of a torroidal amplifier (or higher specified reserve power amp like the K10/K20, or something even more capable still than those models using the same topology). That's part of the familiarity or synergy that I mentioned in an earlier post.

We all know the optimal solution for an amplifier that is insufficient to power a system to the level desired by the operator is to specify it with more headroom to begin with, but we also understand that in the real world such headroom is not typically available especially to smaller independent sound systems. The desire to run an amp up to it's limits is unavoidable, and the ability to do so skillfully and tastefully is admirable.

Powersoft are trying to do something very big and very bold with their X series. The tagline "Redefining Power Amplification" leaves no room for uncertainty in that. A -10dB RMS figure is not acceptable for an amplifier that wishes to redefine amplification, because in doing so (at least in the theoretical outcome that their attempt to redefine amplification succeeds and these standards catch on and become the new standard), then they're also redefining the limits of music production and performance. And that's just not on.


Edited by Hemisphere - 28 August 2017 at 4:46pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote simonp1100 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 August 2017 at 4:47pm
Originally posted by Hemisphere Hemisphere wrote:

Yes that is the simple fact. No disputing it! 

As in everything in pro audio (and everything in life, really), it all comes down to compromise. All I dispute is the false idea that these amps work entirely without compromise, simply because for almost all intents and purposes, they do. 

That claim is patently false, and for people who, for whatever reasons they may have, do not wish to accept that compromise, however small and practically insignificant it may be, into their system, it's fair to highlight that, and important to call out false suggestions/insinuations of truly uncompromising performance from these amps.

An amplifier is a tool as part of a system which reproduces music. It's a proxy for instruments, and the system taken as a whole can be regarded as, and in many cases is operated with the finesse and familiarity as an artist would use an instrument. In those cases you may - and some people certainly do - make the conscious and calculated decision to exploit the potential of that instrument through holding an intimate knowledge of it's inner workings and limitations. Not unlike how a guitarist drives their amp into distortion.

If that sort of performance is something you're in the business of doing, then what's being discussed here is entirely relevant and non-trivial, particularly with regards to the X4/X8 and their -10dB RMS rating. That's just 10% of peak power! 

Toastyghost is a slightly different case, at least as far as I'm aware he hires out a system but doesn't produce the music that plays through it and doesn't necessarily have the degree of integrated connection with the music that plays through it as a musician does with their guitar and their amplifier - admittedly that's just an assumption though, and quite a hefty one which I would gladly retract.

I'm not suggesting he doesn't have a connection and intimate understanding and skill of operating the system that parallels the skill of a musician with their instrument, but that the main weakness comes about for the operator that runs their design process through the entire signal chain through production, to performance, to reproduction, and in that process employs the art of driving a system heavily against and past it's limits in a way that retains pleasing musicality, and as an aspect of that process also relies on the long term peak capacity of a torroidal amplifier (or higher specified reserve power amp like the K10/K20, or something even more capable still than those models using the same topology). That's part of the familiarity or synergy that I mentioned in an earlier post.

Powersoft are trying to do something very big and very bold with their X series. The tagline "Redefining Power Amplification" leaves no room for uncertainty in that. A -10dB RMS figure is not acceptable for an amplifier that wishes to redefine amplification, because in doing so (at least in the theoretical outcome that their attempt to redefine amplification succeeds and these standards catch on and become the new standard), then they're also redefining the limits of music production and performance. And that's just not on.


There are a few amplifier manufactures that also claim there amplifiers can do X watts per channel RMS but in fact do not, so i think proof is in the pudding and REAL ROAD TESTING is the TRUE way of finding out the good from the bad & not pages of graphs & technical theory.  Thumbs Up


Edited by simonp1100 - 28 August 2017 at 4:59pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hemisphere Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 28 August 2017 at 5:26pm
Quote REAL ROAD TESTING is the TRUE way of finding out the good from the bad
It's one way. And it's an essential part of selecting an amp no matter what other methods you use. Whether you need to consider graphs and theory all depends on you, and what you're setting out to achieve. 

Essentially what you're advocating for, (and I'm not saying it's wrong to do this, only that it's wrong to assume it's the only worthwhile way of doing it), is discarding the requirement for the operator to master the production/reproduction tools in the second to last stage in the signal chain (the final stage amplifier - last stage being the speakers themselves...or perhaps the last stage is the listening environment. It's near to the end anyway!)

The basic argument is that the amp is 'good enough', or more inappropriately, 'uncompromising/perfect', and that it's limitations, such as they are, accordingly don't need to be considered, provided it stands up to 'road testing. But what constitutes road testing varies by individual.

Of course road testing (by just observing performance and being satisfied) is a part of that process of becoming familiar with and mastering those limitations, and that alone can be good enough for the bulk of applications, but to do it optimally requires graphs and theory as well. 

In the best case scenario, which we should surely strive for, the producer spends months optimising their sounds to get everything just right (building on a lifetime of experience with the tools and theory), the mastering engineer spends a lifetime accumulating the skills, experience, and equipment necessary to squeeze every last ounce of quality out of the finished tracks, the loudspeaker designer spends a lifetime honing their skills and experience with box design and assembly processes to squeeze every last Hz and dB out of each litre of space without unacceptably compromising quality or costs, and the amp designers and manufacturers are the same. In the best case scenario, everything is fine tuned masterfully and with intense care and attention to detail. Of course the best case scenario doesn't exist, but we can strive for it.

Of course the system operator (ie Toasty - sorry to keep using you as an example!), may also master their skill in the same way, and part of that is selecting the best amp for the job, so it's not for me to question that, but there's a big difference between 'the best amp for the sum of all jobs', and 'the best amp for every job'. It might be the first but it certainly isn't the second.

It's my view that you can't optimally achieve that same process of mastery at the amplification stage with the X4/X8 amplifiers and to a lesser but somewhat more trivial extent, the K10/K20 amplifiers, even if subjectively the overall quality of their sound is superlative. There's no question that the best performers in the torroidal amp categories are also (subjectively) capable of equally, (some would say moreso) superlative sound quality, but there is question that the X4/X8 amps are capable of playing to equally uncompromising standards in their long term RMS signal reproduction. 

Getting a bigger amp is always possible in the hunt for perfection, but when the ticket price is 5-10 grand it's not always practical, and it still isn't optimal. You could just as well say to anyone who builds a high efficiency bass section that they should just have built more reflex boxes. Which is not bad advice it's just not the only way.


Edited by Hemisphere - 28 August 2017 at 5:48pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 September 2017 at 10:08pm
Just a small thing. This is Mungo’s. In Croatia. No noise limits and strictly heavy bass tunes - note the K20 is OFF. 8 Scoops on the X4 and it sounds heavier than ever.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote gen0me Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 September 2017 at 10:35pm
Its 4ohms load(3kw on specification on every 2 scoops) What speakers are inside?

Edited by gen0me - 03 September 2017 at 12:39am
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 September 2017 at 6:10pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote spongebob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 September 2017 at 6:23pm
So if the K20 was the "before", does that mean they've shifted from 2R loads to 4R?

Not to poo poo the X4 at all, but I wonder how much difference has been seen with the 2R->4R change
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote toastyghost Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 September 2017 at 6:29pm
Its 4 channels of 4 ohm instead of 2 channels of 2 ohm in principle yes, but scoops do not average to 8 ohm loads even loaded with an 8 ohm nominal driver.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote spongebob Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 September 2017 at 6:38pm
Fair point, but it's still gonna be double the resistance with the new amp by definition
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