• TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
    Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
    Join free Log in
    Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.

Peavey IPR-3000 experience/opinions?

#41
FYI folks, something about IPR amps is that they do not heat up, so you can slam the soft-clipping limiters all night then cool your hands off with the IPR's fan at the end of the set. However the rated power handling of bass cabinets is about twice what they can actually handle in the bottom octave.

So assuming you're using a preamp that cuts out subsonics <30Hz (which bass guitar cabinets can't reproduce effectively anyway) then your cabinet should be rated for twice what your IPR amp puts out at the given impedance.

For example I'm using an Ampeg SVPCL preamp into an IPR 1600 delivering up to 500W into a 4-ohm SWR Goliath III 4x10 rated at 750W RMS. That means the IPR is capable of melting the speaker coils if I drive the bottom end hard for probably about half an hour straight. It also means it can drive four such cabinets to tears all night, probably not fry them, but definitely deteriorate them over time.

The yellow protection light comes on at about half-power, and the limiter keeps the signal clean as it stops it from overloading the amp. For bass it's quite usable at full output, though the dynamics will be squashed, much like railing a tube amp. Older solid state amps like the Traynor Mono Blocks have output transistors that can handle much more than the rated output, but they're limited to what the transistors can sustain long-term. So an IPR 1600 does keep up with a 300W Mono Block II, which does keep up with a 300W SVT, which does keep up with a ~750W Hartke.

I mix bands using powered PA speakers with class-D amps and soft limiters in them a lot so I encounter this all the time, and I recognize what's going on with my bass rig. I'm not at all afraid of my protection light coming on a lot as I play, I'm only afraid of it not turning off. I've driven some pretty big stages with just the 4x10, still sounds great, if I ever need more I can always add more cabs.

Moral of the story: you probably don't need an IPR 3000, you need more cab for your IPR 1600.
 
#42
u84six said:
Is it easy to bridge the two? I know some require some kind of modification.

Also, how do you like your sound? Can you get good chest pounding, or is it more low and subtle? How would you describe it? The reason I ask is because my plan is getting very close to your setup. I know you can pump a lot of power into those lightweight fEARful cabs, and that's what I like.

And the last question, if I wanted to add a fEARful sub 115 (along with the 15/6), would I have to do anything special (crossover, etc)?
Click to expand...

No mods to the amp, just a special speakon cable.

The fEARfuls, which are displacement limited to 800 something watts are more chest pounding than any amp out there when provided this much power. The 15/sub has a passive low pass filter to work with the other cabs, no additional crossover needed.
 
#43
Tuned said:
FYI folks, something about IPR amps is that they do not heat up, so you can slam the soft-clipping limiters all night then cool your hands off with the IPR's fan at the end of the set. However the rated power handling of bass cabinets is about twice what they can actually handle in the bottom octave.

So assuming you're using a preamp that cuts out subsonics <30Hz (which bass guitar cabinets can't reproduce effectively anyway) then your cabinet should be rated for twice what your IPR amp puts out at the given impedance.

For example I'm using an Ampeg SVPCL preamp into an IPR 1600 delivering up to 500W into a 4-ohm SWR Goliath III 4x10 rated at 750W RMS. That means the IPR is capable of melting the speaker coils if I drive the bottom end hard for probably about half an hour straight. It also means it can drive four such cabinets to tears all night, probably not fry them, but definitely deteriorate them over time.

The yellow protection light comes on at about half-power, and the limiter keeps the signal clean as it stops it from overloading the amp. For bass it's quite usable at full output, though the dynamics will be squashed, much like railing a tube amp. Older solid state amps like the Traynor Mono Blocks have output transistors that can handle much more than the rated output, but they're limited to what the transistors can sustain long-term. So an IPR 1600 does keep up with a 300W Mono Block II, which does keep up with a 300W SVT, which does keep up with a ~750W Hartke.

I mix bands using powered PA speakers with class-D amps and soft limiters in them a lot so I encounter this all the time, and I recognize what's going on with my bass rig. I'm not at all afraid of my protection light coming on a lot as I play, I'm only afraid of it not turning off. I've driven some pretty big stages with just the 4x10, still sounds great, if I ever need more I can always add more cabs.

Moral of the story: you probably don't need an IPR 3000, you need more cab for your IPR 1600.
Click to expand...

I've never gone into limiting, but I can say that after 3 hours of playing in 80 degree temperatures the IPR3K does blow warm air.
 
#44
BurningSkies said:
No mods to the amp, just a special speakon cable.

The fEARfuls, which are displacement limited to 800 something watts are more chest pounding than any amp out there when provided this much power. The 15/sub has a passive low pass filter to work with the other cabs, no additional crossover needed.
Click to expand...

More questions. Sorry! :D

So, this special speakon cable, is this something you can order and it just works, or do you have to mod the cable?

Also, why did you go for the Peavy and not other known brands like Crown, QSC, or Crest?

Thanks, you're helping a lot!
 
#45
Cable for Bridging:

Invalid Link Removed

Cable:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Speakons:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

Shrink Tubing:
[Invalid or Expired Link Removed]

The directions to make the cable can be found here on TB...if you search through the IPR threads, you'll find one where a Peavey engineer explains how to exactly make the cable.

For the price point, I felt the Peavey offered the biggest bang for the lowest dollar count, with the lightest amp...from a company that's made solid gear with a serious track record.
 
#46
u84six said:
More questions. Sorry! :D

So, this special speakon cable, is this something you can order and it just works, or do you have to mod the cable?

Also, why did you go for the Peavy and not other known brands like Crown, QSC, or Crest?

Thanks, you're helping a lot!
Click to expand...

I think the peavey IPR & the Behringer iNukes are the 1st to go sub 10 lbs with those kinda watts? If you have others, let me know
 
#47
*also for the record, the speaker cable I linked to is quad core. The bridging cable only uses 2 of the four, but I wanted to have more substantial and firm physical connections to the speakon hardware and wanted each of the 'legs' to be a bit more substantial than having only one 'core' piece for each.
 
#48
BurningSkies said:
*also for the record, the speaker cable I linked to is quad core. The bridging cable only uses 2 of the four, but I wanted to have more substantial and firm physical connections to the speakon hardware and wanted each of the 'legs' to be a bit more substantial than having only one 'core' piece for each.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the INFO!!
 
#49
I'm glad many of you have had a good experience with this power amp. I, unfortunately can't say the same. I hate to say that; as a former TNT & TKO owner I picked this power amp because Peavy was indistructable. I wanted to swap out the Carvin DTM 2000 with the Peavy unit to make my rig easier to transport. Within 20 minutes of playing it it stopped producing sound. The lights were still on, but the fan stopped turning. I called the place I bought it and they sent me another. This time I used it in a PA application and this time it fried, smoke and all. I emailed Peavy and they surprisingly said that they had earlier versions that I must have gotten that had issues. I returned them both and put the Carvin back. I bought a Genz STM 900 as my travel rig and used the rack system for larger gigs. If it helps, my rack setup is an Alembic F1X biamped into a dual channel compressor into each channel of the power amp.
 
#50
DLaunder said:
I'm glad many of you have had a good experience with this power amp. I, unfortunately can't say the same. I hate to say that; as a former TNT & TKO owner I picked this power amp because Peavy was indistructable. I wanted to swap out the Carvin DTM 2000 with the Peavy unit to make my rig easier to transport. Within 20 minutes of playing it it stopped producing sound. The lights were still on, but the fan stopped turning. I called the place I bought it and they sent me another. This time I used it in a PA application and this time it fried, smoke and all. I emailed Peavy and they surprisingly said that they had earlier versions that I must have gotten that had issues. I returned them both and put the Carvin back. I bought a Genz STM 900 as my travel rig and used the rack system for larger gigs. If it helps, my rack setup is an Alembic F1X biamped into a dual channel compressor into each channel of the power amp.
Click to expand...

The 1st production runs didn't go well, thats well documented, maybe not as bad as your stories but they have had many mods to them since. The field testing must have been quick to try to beat out Behringer, QSC Crown etc on these.
 
#51
I didnt know about those issues, but considering this just happened this past May I would have thought all those first generation units would have been recalled. That's about the time I discovered TalkBass and how valuable it can be!
 
#52
DLaunder said:
I didnt know about those issues, but considering this just happened this past May I would have thought all those first generation units would have been recalled. That's about the time I discovered TalkBass and how valuable it can be!
Click to expand...

You raise a great point...
its my understanding that they cut open all the boxes & did a mod to them... many people getting new ones even in June says it looks like their box was already opened.

So they should have recalled em if there was a known problem vs just wait for it to break & send out a new unit. I'm waiting to see if these issues are ironed out as it seems it was recently modded. Hopefully they have a whole new run of amps that come sealed correctly.
 
#53
I don't think they actually recalled the units, just made modifications to the units that hadn't been shipped. Is it possible the place you got these from had some really old stock on their hands?

One of our fellow TBers has used IPRs for PA at 100+ degree outdoor gigs without problem.
A guy on the PV Power Amp forum has been running 1600s for a year and 1/2 and 3000s for about a year without any problems. Even after they got wet from rain.
 
#55
So with a $100 GC coupon I decided to pick up a IPR3000. I was actually pretty close to pulling the trigger on the Carvin 1540L cause it appears to have better specs and I'm hesitant when it comes to brand new lines of equipment.

Anyway, have played it for a couple of hours at home with a Peavey Max pre in front of it. No issues so far (I'll figure out a way to defeat the "blue menace") and it sounds like it should. I'll be gigging it this weekend to see how it performs in a 3+ hour outdoor setting. Its all about the reliability in my book so stay tuned......
 
#56
dogbass said:
So with a $100 GC coupon I decided to pick up a IPR3000. I was actually pretty close to pulling the trigger on the Carvin 1540L cause it appears to have better specs and I'm hesitant when it comes to brand new lines of equipment.

Anyway, have played it for a couple of hours at home with a Peavey Max pre in front of it. No issues so far (I'll figure out a way to defeat the "blue menace") and it sounds like it should. I'll be gigging it this weekend to see how it performs in a 3+ hour outdoor setting. Its all about the reliability in my book so stay tuned......
Click to expand...

Awesome, looking forward to the review. Did your box look Factory sealed?
 
#58
dogbass said:
The box looked factory sealed...everything appears new and untouched. Tonight I just played for about an hour then left it on to "burn in" for 3 hours. Came back and played some more. No issues. Looking forward to gigging with it.
Click to expand...

Good luck man, I'm seeing all the prices jump to $450, kinda pricey. $389 was the norm just a little while ago. I don't want to grab old stock at the old price though before the mods. Hmm
 
#60
Just to chime in a bit late. I bought and sold and IPR1600 that I was using my my Navigator. I was honestly just getting away from the separates rig. However mid-way though I have now come to my senses! I kept the Navigator and am going to buy another IPR1600 probably over the weekend. Mine worked without incident and I'm regretful I sold it.

The bridging cable is very simple to make. However if/when you buy the Speakon connectors be sure to get the NL-4's and NOT the NL-2's. Look at BurningSkies cable he has the NL-4's - they have the silver locking mechanism release slider thingy. The NL-2's have a retracting collar and they work find but the problem is putting the raw cable into the NL-2's is very difficult actually I've found it down right frustrating. Whereas the NL-4's are very easy. It probably only saves you a couple of bucks a connector.
 

Latest posts

Top Bottom
Back