Genz Benz Shuttle 9.0 question

[jjl5590]

Hi guys,

I am now the proud owner of a Shuttle 9.0, but I have a couple of questions about it.

Since it has a valve preamp, do I need to let it warm up or can I dive straight in at full power?

The amp tends to get pretty hot pretty quickly on the right hand side, where the fan is. The fan also gets up to top speed about 10 minutes into playing. Is this normal?

At 900W, it feels a little underpowered. My GK 1001RB, at 700W, felt more powerful. To Genz Benz overrate their watts?


Thanks for any help given

[mcr23]

Originally Posted by jjl5590

Hi guys,

I am now the proud owner of a Shuttle 9.0, but I have a couple of questions about it.

Since it has a valve preamp, do I need to let it warm up or can I dive straight in at full power?

preamp tubes don't need time to warm up like power tubes do.

[kaiser_sosea]

Originally Posted by jjl5590

Hi guys,



At 900W, it feels a little underpowered. My GK 1001RB, at 700W, felt more powerful. To Genz Benz overrate their watts?


Thanks for any help given

It probably has to do a lot with how you EQ. What are your settings @? The Shuttle amps seem to benefit from a boost in the low mids which might attribute as to why you think it sounds less powerful as I think GK has that boost built into their EQ (could be wrong)

[svtb15]

What cabs are you using? and how loud are you running it. and are you using alot of EQ?
You really dont have to let it warm up per say.. But if you just turn it on, it will take about 20 seconds for the tube to warm enough to actually work.. Just like any other amp that has a tube in it... It needs a few seconds to start to do its thing...
Other wise you really dont need to warm it up.
But if you had it outside in a cold car overnight, you may want to let it get closer to room temp before you slam it hard..

Now the weird thing to me is that you say it puts Hot air out the side where that fan is.. that would be normal.. I have never been able to get mine to run HOT though... and i play pretty loud!
I run mine almost everyday into a 4 ohm load pretty loud.. to where at times i wil hit the yellow limit light on occasion.. and the amp still blows only slightly warm air.. but never hot.. I have never felt Hot air coming out.. just slightly warm after running it for a bout 20 minutes,.
In fact. I was breaking in a new speaker cab the other day before taking it on a gig.. I used a 20hz Test tone into the Shuttle 9 then into the cab and ran the amp to where the speaker was getting some real nice movement. Ran that for 2 hours straight and the amp was not running hot ,only warm.

[kaiser_sosea]

+1, mine is never hot to the touch, nor have any of my Genz amps been. Perhaps there is an issue?

[babebambi]

+2, "hot" is not normal on Genz's SMPS amps
how hot is "hot" to you? can you quantify?

[agedhorse]

The amp should not be hot on the fan side (right side facing the amp), the fan draws air into the chassis.

Is this after playing hard into a 4 ohm load for a long time, output limiter light on a lot?

Please PM me, I have some more questions regarding the cabinets youy are using.

The amp delivers over 900 watts RMS at rated output.

[jjl5590]

Thanks for the replies. When I say it seems quieter than my previous GK, all other things are still equal - cab, bass, effects etc.

The EQ on the Genz is a LOT more responsive than on the GK, I think it sounds great.

Maybe I'm making an issue of this heat thing when really there is no problem, it doesn't get HOT hot, but it does get pretty warm on the fan side, playing at 8ohms after about 10 minutes at low volume, not clipping the pre or power amp.

[John Bigboote]

Originally Posted by jjl5590

Maybe I'm making an issue of this heat thing when really there is no problem, it doesn't get HOT hot, but it does get pretty warm on the fan side, playing at 8ohms after about 10 minutes at low volume, not clipping the pre or power amp.

From my own experience, playing like that, I would think it shouldn't get much warmer than warm-exhale-into-cupped-hand warm, if that. If it's more like blow-drier hot, it sounds like you've got a problem. The left-side vent isn't blocked, is it?

-jb

[agedhorse]

Originally Posted by jjl5590

Thanks for the replies. When I say it seems quieter than my previous GK, all other things are still equal - cab, bass, effects etc.

The EQ on the Genz is a LOT more responsive than on the GK, I think it sounds great.

Maybe I'm making an issue of this heat thing when really there is no problem, it doesn't get HOT hot, but it does get pretty warm on the fan side, playing at 8ohms after about 10 minutes at low volume, not clipping the pre or power amp.

Is the fan spinning? It should be relatively slow when you turn it on and speed up under extended high output. The fan should such in from the right (looking at the front) and exhaust at the left. At 8 ohms low volume it should be more or less cool, not really warm. Please PM me or give Scott a call at the factory and we will get this figured out for you.

[bassnyc1]

Originally Posted by svtb15

Now the weird thing to me is that you say it puts Hot air out the side where that fan is.. that would be normal.. I have never been able to get mine to run HOT though... and i play pretty loud!

+1

I have used my 9.0 several times where it was on for 3 hours or so and mine never even gets warm. IMO, something's not right with your particular amp. PM agedhorse if you haven't already. GB has the best customer service ANYWHERE and they'll sort it out for you.

[jjl5590]

agedhorse you have a PM

I took a temp reading using an infrared temp gauge and it read 97F on the fan side.

[agedhorse]

This was bothering me so I went out to the shop this morning and did some testing. First of all, I was thinking 6.0 and not 9.0 (I had been doing some testing on a 6.0 a couple days ago and had that on the brain) and for the 9.0, the fan blows out the right side, the 6.0 sucks in, so that may be part of the confusion which was my fault.

The temperature rise that I measured running the 9.0 at roughly 1/3 power into 8 ohms was about 20 deg. F. so your measurement of 97 deg. looks pretty close. As the power levels increase, the fan sppeds up increasing air flow while the temperature of the discharge air will increase slightly. The reason why it doesn't keep getting proportionally hotter is that the increased velocity removes more BTU's spread out with more air.

When I was thinking of your description of "hot", typical class AB amps, which will operate at 130-150 deg. F which is way hotter than a class D amp, that's why I was concerned. Looks like you are fine as is.

[jjl5590]

Ah cool, thanks for your help. Can I just ask, the Shuttle 6.0 and 9.0 are practically the same amp, right, so how comes the 9.0 has a different cooling technique? Wouldn't it be more efficient to blow cold air into the amp rather than try and remove the hot air?

[agedhorse]

The preamp is essentially the same but the power amp is quite different. Based on the same platform, it's highly ruggedized to achieve the power density that it does.

Cooling efficiency depends on removing heat from critical components. This is analyzed on a component by component basis and is carefully analyzed to insure adequate airflow and turbulance everywhere it's needed. In the case of the 6.0, airflow into the chassis was the best solution, but for the 9.0 with it's higher power density and architecture, drawing air out of the chassis achieved the necessary cooling criteria. There's a lot more to this of course, but rest assured many hours of thermo-analysis went into the development of the Shuttles and ShuttleMax's. Between Scott and myself, we know a lot more about designing with this amplifier technology than any person has a right to

[jjl5590]

haha awesome, well it is a truly amazing amp. I love it 10 times more than the GK1001RB I sold to get it!

[agedhorse]

Originally Posted by jjl5590

haha awesome, well it is a truly amazing amp. I love it 10 times more than the GK1001RB I sold to get it!

Enjoy it, especially the carrying it to the gig part!