Hartke Owners and Tech Guru's Please Help

[ebe9]

I have a technical query regarding the following two products.

I am wanting to purchase the HA5500 Hartke Head as an upgrade to my current setup.
I am also wanting to purchase the Hartke 2.5XL Cabinet.

My reasoning for getting the HA5500 head is due to the power output capabilities, i.e. it will be more than sufficient for many years to come without having to upgrade to a more powerful unit in future, but due to transport limitations and mobility I am wanting to purchase two of the 2.5XL cabinets rather than a single 4.5XL.

I have seen that the HA5500 head puts out 500W at 4Ohms and 350W at 8Ohms. The 2.5XL cabinet is rated at 200W at 8Ohms.
I would not want to be connecting the two 2.5XL in parallel (as per the diagram in the instruction manual for the 2.5XL cabinet) and thus drop the total resistance of the cabinets to 4Ohms.

Thus what I am wanting to know is the following:

The HA5500 has two speaker out points on the back of the unit for connecting to the cabinet. Would I be able to link up the two 2.5XL cabinets independently of each other i.e. on cabinet utilizing one of the speaker outs and the other cabinet utilizing the other.

I am trying to avoid having the HA5500 head pushing 500W at 4Ohms into the two 2.5XL cabinets (should they be wired in parallel) running at 200W at 4Ohms. I would rather each 2.5XL cabinet be receiving 350W at 8Ohms from the HA5500 head respectively. Can this be done by running each cabinet to one of the speaker out points on the HA5500 (running both 2.5XL cabinets at 350W at 8Ohms from the HA5500)?

Hope that was clear enough as to what I am wanting to do.

Here are the links to the Hartke website and the respective products I am talking about.

Invalid Link Removed

Invalid Link Removed

 

[will33]

I think you're a little confused with the ohm ratings, the cabinets each are 8 ohm cabinets and each handle 200 watts of power (the cabinets ohm rating doesn't change with the amps ohm rating).

With that head and those cabs, you can hook the head to one cabinet, that being an 8 ohm cabinet, and at 8 ohms of resistance, the head puts out 350 watts which will blow out your 200 watt cabinet.

With both cabinets hooked up your total ohm load that the amplifier sees will drop to 4, it doesn't matter if you plug the cabinets into the back of the amp individually or run one cable from the amp to speaker 1 and another cable from speaker 1 to speaker 2, the end result is the same, 4 ohms.

You would now have two 200 watt cabs hooked up so together they would handle 400 watts. At a 4ohm load your amp puts out 500 watts so each cab would get 250 watts so each cab would be overpowered by 50 watts which is a pretty close match and the cabs should be fine as long as you don't crank it up to 10. The only way to get 350 watts to each cab would be to have two 5500 amps, one hooked to each cab but again, the cabs would be too overpowered and you will soon be in the market for new cabs.

Simply plugging both cabs into the back of the amp will get you the most available power for this rig without damaging anything.

 

[BassyBill]

I think you're a little confused with the ohm ratings, the cabinets each are 8 ohm cabinets and each handle 200 watts of power (the cabinets ohm rating doesn't change with the amps ohm rating).

With that head and those cabs, you can hook the head to one cabinet, that being an 8 ohm cabinet, and at 8 ohms of resistance, the head puts out 350 watts which will blow out your 200 watt cabinet.

With both cabinets hooked up your total ohm load that the amplifier sees will drop to 4, it doesn't matter if you plug the cabinets into the back of the amp individually or run one cable from the amp to speaker 1 and another cable from speaker 1 to speaker 2, the end result is the same, 4 ohms.

You would now have two 200 watt cabs hooked up so together they would handle 400 watts. At a 4ohm load your amp puts out 500 watts so each cab would get 250 watts so each cab would be overpowered by 50 watts which is a pretty close match and the cabs should be fine as long as you don't crank it up to 10. The only way to get 350 watts to each cab would be to have two 5500 amps, one hooked to each cab but again, the cabs would be too overpowered and you will soon be in the market for new cabs.

Simply plugging both cabs into the back of the amp will get you the most available power for this rig without damaging anything.

+1 to most of that.

You could actually use the amp with a single cab if you were careful, 350W into a 200W cab would maybe damage it if you were vicious with the volume control, but you'd hear the drivers complaining long before you got there. You'd just need to be careful how high you turned it up and use your ears (and also make sure the thing was turned to zero before powering on or off).

 

[ebe9]

Okay, lets try this again as my point has been somewhat missed.

As for the Wattage that the head is producing is comparison to the cabs wattage handling, I am well aware that I will not be matching them and will need to hang back on the volme and "pushing" the cabs too much.

I think best way to get this across is to ask it in the form of the following questions.

1. What will happen if I use both speaker outs on the Head itself, one connecting to each cab?

2. If I do the above is each cabinet going to receive 350W at 8 Ohms or are they still going to be wired in parallel and thus the head will be pushing out 500W at 4 Ohms?

3. Is it possible to have each cab receiving 350W at 8 Ohms from the head or would I need a 2 channel amp?

Basically I would rather have each cab receiving 350W at 8 Ohms than having them wired in parallel and receiving 500W at 4 Ohms.

Maybe that better explains what I am trying to find out with regards to this particular head (Hartke HA5500) as there is no mention of using both the speaker outs at the back of the head and what this actually achieves in the manual.

Thanks

 

[murphy]

The Hartke head will put out 5oo watts into both speakers if you plug into each output on the back of the head.
They are not seperate channels, but combine the load in parallel.
It sounds like a good match for the speaker cabinets you are considering.
But....you might want to consider some tougher speakers than the aluminum hartkes.

 

[DWBass]

The amp will see a 4 ohm load no matter how you hook up both speakers! Secondly, you will NOT blow up your speakers unless you set your volume and bass all the way to the max! Just because an amp is rated at 500w doesn't mean the speakers are getting a full 500w of sound pushed into them! If you want lower watts pushed into your cabs, get either a 2 channel amp or a lower wattage single channel amp! That amp pushes 330w into 8ohms (not 350 but what's 20w?) I know, I own one!

 

[BassyBill]

The Hartke head will put out 5oo watts into both speakers if you plug into each output on the back of the head.
They are not seperate channels, but combine the load in parallel.
It sounds like a good match for the speaker cabinets you are considering.
But....you might want to consider some tougher speakers than the aluminum hartkes.

If you plug both cabs in you will get a total load of 4 ohms and 500 W output (that's 250 W to each cab).

No, you can't get 350 W to each cab unless you buy another amp.

Hartke ali drivers handle power well in my experience, although I have heard some people talk of loose dust caps being an issue after a while - never troubled me though.

 

[DWBass]

In addition, with 2 8ohm cabs hooked up, the 500w is distributed equally between both cabs in a sense it's sort of sending 250w per so it's actually a safer setup than you think! Again, unless you are maxing your volume and bass, your cabs are not receiving the full wattage! If you can't be heard with these 2 cabs and 500w, your band is way too loud!

 

[DWBass]

The Hartke head will put out 5oo watts into both speakers if you plug into each output on the back of the head.
They are not seperate channels, but combine the load in parallel.
It sounds like a good match for the speaker cabinets you are considering.
But....you might want to consider some tougher speakers than the aluminum hartkes.

I agree! Look into Avatar speakers if price is an issue for you!

 

[ebe9]

Thanks guys, thats what I was wanting to know.

What I am wanting to do at this point is use a 2.5XL as my main practice cab as well as a monitor for shows as we will be PA ed. But in the future I wold like to add another to "flesh" it out a bit (plus setting up a stereo like effect with 1 cab on either side of the stage is appealing) and also provide the drummer with a monitor of sorts would be great too.

I just want to clarify one final thing, I read in one of the posts that whould I be running to two 2.5XL cabs in parallel that they would each only be getting 250W of the total 500W power that the head is producing?

I always thought that in a parallel setup that each cabinet was drawing the same wattage i.e. 500W @ 4 Ohms Head providing 500W @ 4 Ohms to each of the cabinets not 250W @ 4 Ohms to each.

I always thought that was the advantage of running cabs in parallel, they get the same amount of wattage not share it 50/50.

Oh, and on the cost side, these are gving me the tone I want plus the fact that avatar is not available in South Africa to the best of my knowledge.

 

[DWBass]

Both cabs are sharing the wattage which in simple terms means each would get 250w which is not really correct but both cabs will distribute the total 500w. Just think of it in terms of one huge cabinet instead of 2 separate cabs. You are adding wattage by adding the extra cab and lowering the resistance but you are not doubling the wattage amount to each cab (now 500w to each cab)! Unless you are using 1 single 4ohm cab would it be receiving the whole 500w! I think I said that correctly!

 

[BassyBill]

250W each IS correct and power (wattage) IS shared between the cabs when they are running in parallel. Trust me on this, I'm a physics teacher.

 

[DWBass]

Hmmmm...........I think I'd rather have Bob Lee, the GK or GB guy confirm that for me. My thinking is it's a mono amp that looks at a single resistance. Unless there is a computer inside the amp that says oh, I see there are 2 speakers connected to me, let me distribute evenly 250w to speaker A and 250w to speaker B(cabs of the same ohmage), I'll have a hard time believing that! Secondly, if you connect the second speaker via the first speaker, is the amp seeing 2 speakers or just the single resistant load? But I don't know physics nor am I an electrical/electronics expert. Just my way of thinking.

 

[BassyBill]

Hmmmm...........I think I'd rather have Bob Lee, the GK or GB guy confirm that for me. My thinking is it's a mono amp that looks at a single resistance. Unless there is a computer inside the amp that says oh, I see there are 2 speakers connected to me, let me distribute evenly 250w to speaker A and 250w to speaker B(cabs of the same ohmage), I'll have a hard time believing that! Secondly, if you connect the second speaker via the first speaker, is the amp seeing 2 speakers or just the single resistant load? But I don't know physics nor am I an electrical/electronics expert. Just my way of thinking.

I'll say it again....

250W each IS correct and power (wattage) IS shared between the cabs when they are running in parallel...

and add...

as long as the cabs are the same impedance. Think about putting two identical bulbs in a light fitting (another example of parallel wiring). Equally bright, yes? Same amount of power dissipated in each.

Or think of a queue of people splitting in two to go through two turnstiles into a sports ground - if all factors are equal, can you see any reason why the queue would move faster through one turnstile than through the other?

BTW, physics works the same regardless of whom you happen to work for.

EDIT - I should point out that you're not connecting the second speaker via the first, whether you use two sockets on the amp or run a lead from cab to cab. It may look like you are, but both arrangements are parallel wiring the speakers and are electrically identical (if you ignore the very, very small contribution to impedance from the actual leads). You actually hit the nail right on the head when you said "cabs of the same ohmage". For a more musical and amusing analogy for current flow though two identical parallel resistances, think of the old joke about a drummer on a level drum riser drooling equally from both sides of his mouth. The spittle doesn't need to "know" anything about the path it takes, it just does that becuase there's nothing to make it flow any differently.

 

[BassIan]

Hmmmm...........I think I'd rather have Bob Lee, the GK or GB guy confirm that for me. My thinking is it's a mono amp that looks at a single resistance. Unless there is a computer inside the amp that says oh, I see there are 2 speakers connected to me, let me distribute evenly 250w to speaker A and 250w to speaker B(cabs of the same ohmage), I'll have a hard time believing that! Secondly, if you connect the second speaker via the first speaker, is the amp seeing 2 speakers or just the single resistant load? But I don't know physics nor am I an electrical/electronics expert. Just my way of thinking.

The amplifier is connected to a single impedance no matter how many cabinets you use. In your case, the two 8 ohm cabinets in parallel make a 4 ohm impedance. Your amplifier presents a voltage to this impedance. The amplifier must supply a certain amount of current to maintain this voltage across the impedance. That current splits evenly between the two parallelled speaker cabinets (think of a river that starts as one stream then splits into two evenly. Each of the two new streams now carries half the water in given period of time that the single stream did).

If you need more confirmation than that, you're probably going to have to learn it for yourself rather than simply decide who you trust on a forum.

 

[DWBass]

Cool!

 

[oldfclefer]

My experience is that a cab rated at 200 watts can handle 400 watt bursts. If you're running maximum wattage to each cab out of the HA5500 the largest burst the cabs will have to handle is 250 watts each. At half volume, which is really loud, each cab with be running around 150 watts continuous which they will handle easily.

I have an HA5500. I'm really happy with it

 

[acexxxoasis]

ummm I had that setup and I hated it I had nothing but problems with the setup and its not going to blow the stuff up if youre easy on it my suggestion is to run it 4 ohms thats when the hartke sounds its best but! my suggestion to you is to get 2 2x10XLs not 2 2.5 the "Tweeter" sucks and it is always powered and it is always VERY harsh and it does not have a crossover worth dealing with and it ALWAYS ends up with lows in the high range speaker and it farts. do yourself a favor if going hartke just get the 2x10 no high range the speakers can get the high clarity out and they sound nice

 

[BassyBill]

ummm I had that setup and I hated it I had nothing but problems with the setup and its not going to blow the stuff up if youre easy on it my suggestion is to run it 4 ohms thats when the hartke sounds its best but! my suggestion to you is to get 2 2x10XLs not 2 2.5 the "Tweeter" sucks and it is always powered and it is always VERY harsh and it does not have a crossover worth dealing with and it ALWAYS ends up with lows in the high range speaker and it farts. do yourself a favor if going hartke just get the 2x10 no high range the speakers can get the high clarity out and they sound nice

He has no choice but to run it in 4 ohms if he wants to use both cabs. I suppose it's lucky for him that "thats when the hartke sounds its best".

BTW the 2.5xl is a ported full range cab, the 210xl is not.

 

[acexxxoasis]

that very well be then get a 2.5 and a 210 xl all I know is that if they had a better crossover in the 2.5 I would still own it but the crossover in it sucks and lets frequencies that are too low get into the "horn" and makes the horn useless it starts to fart out