Does the debate over class D vs. AB and "slam" carry over to PA amps too?

[Jim C]

Not looking for an argument here.
Some of us feel that the old school integrated bass heads handle low freqs differently than the new feather weights.
It's an opinion that some share.

Do those of you that agree with this thinking find the same to be true with power amps like the Crown XLS Drive Core 2 series or the Crest ProLite gear?

I'm thinking that my Ampeg SVTII pre should be out making music and wondering if I can get the same "heft, slam, punch" with the new stuff as compared to my old power amps.
TIA

 

[agedhorse]

Considering that the entire (real) pro audio market shifted to class D over 5 years ago, and some use the same class D sections as we are using in bass amps, I don't think there's any mindset in the pro audio market that class AB/G/H amps are "superior".

I'm talking about the market where the cost is secondary to performance.

There will always be guys lamenting the good 'ol days, but generally their minds are quite closed to anything new. Same arguments apply to digital consoles versus analog consoles.

 

[bucephylus]

Not looking for an argument here.
Some of us feel that the old school integrated bass heads handle low freqs differently than the new feather weights.
It's an opinion that some share.

Do those of you that agree with this thinking find the same to be true with power amps like the Crown XLS Drive Core 2 series or the Crest ProLite gear?

I'm thinking that my Ampeg SVTII pre should be out making music and wondering if I can get the same "heft, slam, punch" with the new stuff as compared to my old power amps.
TIA

Yes, there continue to be threads with this debate topic here on TB. But, several of us have been making the point Andy summarized above; which is that FOH went Class D for a while now.

Which means that irrespective of your preference, your FOH sound is Class D. Which is what the audience hears. So, you can obfuscate the whole thing, and continue dragging your SVT around; but the audience will only hear it in non-FOH clubs. Which is fine as far as it goes. Yes, I like the SVT.

But, meanwhile, it’s pretty clearly worth it to learn how to get the most out of your sound with Class D. And, newsflash, all Class D amps do not sound the same. Talking about them all lumped under the category is uninformed.

Anyhow, it’s not an argument worth fighting. FOH owns the house. Adapt.

 

[Jim C]

I'm with you on the pro quality, pro audio market gear; I can't tell the difference.
I didn't realize that some of the top dog pro audio shared similar components and design as the better Class D bass amps.

I was indirectly referring to the economy gear like the Crown XLS and the Crest ProLite.
Based on the "there's no free lunch", do manufacturers have to back off on sonic quality to get to this price point?
I'm assuming that the design and construction are not nearly as robust considering the really low cost.

I really do think that some of the Class D MI amps were / are not so great sounding (to me).
Not just pre-amp voicing but the overall performance felt flat and uninspiring.

 

[Jim C]

Anyhow, it’s not an argument worth fighting. FOH owns the house.

Maybe
I believe that 75% of us no longer play (or never had played) big clubs / outdoor stages, where a bass amp is used in FoH applications. And if it is, it's just for fill and not primary reinforcement.

The Fabulous Thunderbirds played a local gig at a sold out club that seats 500 in a really nice room with decent acoustics.
A guy I know was running sound (very qualified) and I respectfully informed him that in my area the bass was WAY TOO LOUD. I would have wanted that input from him so not snarky.

He motioned to the console where the bass fader was off.
Said he couldn't get the message through during sound check and was unhappy that it reflected on him.

It's only as good as the weakest link.

 

[Red Planet]

Not looking for an argument here.
Some of us feel that the old school integrated bass heads handle low freqs differently than the new feather weights.
It's an opinion that some share.

Do those of you that agree with this thinking find the same to be true with power amps like the Crown XLS Drive Core 2 series or the Crest ProLite gear?

I'm thinking that my Ampeg SVTII pre should be out making music and wondering if I can get the same "heft, slam, punch" with the new stuff as compared to my old power amps.
TIA

IMO there is something to the difference of the low end tightness and heft from a simple amp like the GK 700RB as compared to any lightweight 500 watt Class D amp that I have owned, including MarkBass, Genz Benz, GK, etc.... In a head to head comparison there is a heft difference no doubt about it.

That being said a good power amp IMO is the PLX2 series. If I understand these correctly the PLX 2 is a sort of Hybrid. It has a SMPS power supply and the output section is Class H. I own the PLX1804 and I can tell you if you get it a hot signal it will slam, and that's 1800 watts of slam. It doesn't have a goosed input sensitivity like the old Crest CA9 so if you feed it a weak signal it will not slam IMO.

Anyway a very good and very light power amp to use for bass is the PLX1804.
It doesn't have a myriad of features but it's very powerful and it only weighs 13 pounds and is shallow too.

 

[Wisebass]

Hi Jim

Some of us feel that the old school integrated bass heads handle low freqs differently than the new feather weights.

We are bassplayers! We are strong!

FOH guys are sissys! (sorry I am kiding)

The band I played in for over 25 years, we had our own P.A.

Analog consoles (two of course, one for monitors) solid state monster amps (three) and cabs...

Well I will stop here… Oh no, there was also the rack! Limiter, compressor, reverb………………….

Heavy as hell!

We had to rent a truck!

Today you can rent a van! You will have the same power! And a better sound!

It's only as good as the weakest link.

Somethings will never change.



That' s just the way it is! (but don 't you believe them)


greetings

Wise(b)ass

That said: Nothing beats an SVT and a fridge (but that' s lightweight gear compared to P.A. )

 

[agedhorse]

I'm with you on the pro quality, pro audio market gear; I can't tell the difference.
I didn't realize that some of the top dog pro audio shared similar components and design as the better Class D bass amps.

I was indirectly referring to the economy gear like the Crown XLS and the Crest ProLite.
Based on the "there's no free lunch", do manufacturers have to back off on sonic quality to get to this price point?
I'm assuming that the design and construction are not nearly as robust considering the really low cost.

I really do think that some of the Class D MI amps were / are not so great sounding (to me).
Not just pre-amp voicing but the overall performance felt flat and uninspiring.

Yes, there are differences between the higher end and lower end models. The differences are mostly centered around electrical and mechanical robustness (operating margins too), I/O features, programmability, network connectivity and control, processing, power management and packaging.

 

[Jim C]

For the record, our drummer just sold his PA company but is staying on as a consultant.
He started the business about 30 years ago and built it up to a 8 man company with lots of work.
He sold it to his biggest customer who was the interface for corporate and college gigs
Pretty big outfit with lots of quality gear and 4 trucks.

Anybody looking for any 40 input Soundcraft boards with flight cases and spare power supplies?
He kept a lot of his old school gear because you can't give the stuff away; at least not for $300.

We use digital gear and powered mains and monitors
Very happy with QSC gear although every once in awhile it's out on a job
Imagine my surprise to see a bunch of old un powered EV cabinets and monitors at the last gig and I was part of the load out crew; horrible although the gear sounded good.

Looks like I will have to borrow a cheapy PA amp and experiment for myself on this one as the specs say they are all the same.
I wonder if that old flame thrower Phase Linear is still under the work bench....

 

[agedhorse]

For the record, our drummer just sold his PA company but is staying on as a consultant.
He started the business about 30 years ago and built it up to a 8 man company with lots of work.
He sold it to his biggest customer who was the interface for corporate and college gigs
Pretty big outfit with lots of quality gear and 4 trucks.

Anybody looking for any 40 input Soundcraft boards with flight cases and spare power supplies?
He kept a lot of his old school gear because you can't give the stuff away; at least not for $300.

We use digital gear and powered mains and monitors
Very happy with QSC gear although every once in awhile it's out on a job
Imagine my surprise to see a bunch of old un powered EV cabinets and monitors at the last gig and I was part of the load out crew; horrible although the gear sounded good.

Looks like I will have to borrow a cheapy PA amp and experiment for myself on this one as the specs say they are all the same.
I wonder if that old flame thrower Phase Linear is still under the work bench....

I have some large frame Yamaha consoles I can't give away either.

So, there are "cheapie" PA amps that are rated in peak power, not the conventional RMS metrics, so I would expect that the do not sound like (or as big as) those rated differently.

This discussion has been more around mid level and higher gear, there is plenty of off-shore gear that doesn't perform as expected because it's not rated as expected. You can't expect a $199 amp to compare to a $1000 amp, that would be both unrealistic and unreasonable.

 

[Red Planet]

One thing that has me a little concerned (though perhaps its just the brand) is powered PA tops. We seem to be able to kill them fairly easy. I have lost count of the powered EVs we have killed to a DOA state. The last ones were brand new top of the line new EVs (EV15ETX IIRC) and we fried the amp somehow. Rather than fixing them they shipped us new units. Before that, we had the older ones (ZLX maybe all these X numbers confuse me) and we killed three of those at one time. Its the ones that are a little bigger than the ones now. The fact that we keep blowing these things is making me have second thoughts about the newer gear. I just purchased some new Passive Mains and a PLX2 and put on the band trailer just in case. We normally run 4 of the powered tops as mains and four of them as monitors and we use the powered EV subs with the mains too. They sound great and are very powerful, they have the new smart electronics where you just tell them what you are doing and they decide how to setup. I like them but I'm started to get a little cautious about them.

 

[agedhorse]

Perhaps your experiences with a single brand might not apply to the industry as a whole. Either that, or you are extraordinarily hard on gear, or even more remotely a very unlucky guy.
This is not at all the norm for even mid level pro audio gear.

 

[JimmyM]

The benefits are obvious with the smaller stuff. Less money on trucking, more money on dancers and costumes. But I've talked to quite a few sound techs who aren't as happy about 10 lb 2000w amps as they used to be. Seems to be mostly about the subs. Honestly, without a direct comparison, I think the lightweight gear sounds absolutely fine and is perfectly usable for sound AND for bass. But I've always felt it was a different vibe in bass amps, and apparently some sound techs do in PA amps, too.

 

[somebrains]

Yes, get on CL and check for clubs or bars upgrading their setups so you can talk to the guy responsible for the upgrade.

Somehow they are selling a ton of old QSC or Crest firepower for new whatever yet the place has the same capacity limit.

I could feel bass in my chest across the street before with the front patio open, now I can feel it with everything closed up. Gotta love bar wars in the summer.

 

[Red Planet]

The benefits are obvious with the smaller stuff. Less money on trucking, more money on dancers and costumes. But I've talked to quite a few sound techs who aren't as happy about 10 lb 2000w amps as they used to be. Seems to be mostly about the subs. Honestly, without a direct comparison, I think the lightweight gear sounds absolutely fine and is perfectly usable for sound AND for bass. But I've always felt it was a different vibe in bass amps, and apparently some sound techs do in PA amps, too.

I want to say I've seen a fair amount of Class D amps reported failures due to issues with power, it seems some of the designs didn't like poor power conditions. Which out here in the real world exist. And I have seen some of the newer designers stating these newer designs are less susceptible to low power situations.

 

[callofcthulhu]

One time I used the power section of my SVT to drive a couple PA speakers at an improvised gig (only vocals had mics).

Sounded creeeeaaaamy.

 

[somebrains]

I want to say I've seen a fair amount of Class D amps reported failures due to issues with power, it seems some of the designs didn't like poor power conditions. Which out here in the real world exist. And I have seen some of the newer designers stating these newer designs are less susceptible to low power situations.

Even my local bars have 4-6 power amps in their racks. Gear is cheap. Have standby amps. Speakers are expensive.

Same as it ever was.

 

[agedhorse]

I want to say I've seen a fair amount of Class D amps reported failures due to issues with power, it seems some of the designs didn't like poor power conditions. Which out here in the real world exist. And I have seen some of the newer designers stating these newer designs are less susceptible to low power situations.

I don't see this with ANY of the quality class D products, just like I didn't see it with any of the quality SMPS or class AB/G/H products. This applies to the Bass market as well as the pro audio market.
As a practical example, I had ~24 QSC PLX (original) amps in my systems, I haven't had a single failure in almost 20 years. These are amps that were doing over 100 shows a year, though now down to 5 weeks of work but operating virtually 24/7 during that time. I can't begin to describe the number of guys who told me all the same reasons why a light weigh amp couldn't possibly deliver low end, wouldn't last more than a couple of years, were nothing but toys, would be failing all the time. In actuality, none of these thoughts proved true in even the slightest way and there's a deja vu going on with the newer class D products. Sure there were low quality SMPS based power amps that were unreliable, that didn't last, but my example is with a quality (yet hardly esoteric) SMPS amp, just like my comments apply equally to quality class D amps.

 

[Chad Michael]

...I have some large frame Yamaha consoles I can't give away either....

aged, if it were 90 miles rather than 900, I'd buy one (I think you already know that)

 

[Red Planet]

Even my local bars have 4-6 power amps in their racks. Gear is cheap. Have standby amps. Speakers are expensive.

Same as it ever was.

We carry/keep our live gear in a band trailer and though we have tons of gear I do get tired of crawling over it so recently I demanded we remove the huge rack full of power amps that we never use and must weigh 300 pounds. Of course right after that we blew a set of brand new EVs.
I do not keep my bass gear in the band trailer, it travels in the quad cab Silverado.

Just like anything made by mankind and especially electronics they do fail, even "quality" electronics.