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Stewart World 2.1 crapping the bed?

#41
charlie monroe said:
What did you blow up?
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Not a dang thing. I just don't see the need for massive amounts of power and the liberal use of the term 'headroom' to legitimize said use of bridge mode or high powered amps. Not a fan of uber high powered amps either. 10 years ago, 500w was plenty power. Why is it no longer sufficient?

Bridge mode was fine when it provided 500-600w of power. Now you have folks bridging over 1000+watts. To each his own though. While many have not blown things up, you're still playing with fire. Lastly....maybe it's a rock thing. I don't know of anyone in my area who plays r&b, funk, soul, Motown and such who's using amps with more than 500w.
 
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#42
Well, at least you are not actually bridging your amp, for that to happen you would connect from positive of channel A to positive of channel B with the switch in the (bridged) mono position.

Both things must happen before the amp actually operates in bridge mode.
 
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#43
agedhorse said:
Well, at least you are not actually bridging your amp, for that to happen you would connect from positive of channel A to positive of channel B with the switch in the (bridged) mono position.

Both things must happen before the amp actually operates in bridge mode.
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Does it hurt the amp to run it in this configuration? Right now only the A channel is turned on. Would I turn on the B channel also to run in bridged mode?

EDIT: Never mind, I read the manual that Wasnex posted (thank you) and it answered most of my questions.
 
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#44
DWBass said:
Not a dang thing. I just don't see the need for massive amounts of power and the liberal use of the term 'headroom' to legitimize said use of bridge mode or high powered amps. Not a fan of uber high powered amps either. 10 years ago, 500w was plenty power. Why is it no longer sufficient?

Bridge mode was fine when it provided 500-600w of power. Now you have folks bridging over 1000+watts. To each his own though. While many have not blown things up, you're still playing with fire. Lastly....maybe it's a rock thing. I don't know of anyone in my area who plays r&b, funk, soul, Motown and such who's using amps with more than 500w.
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I’d been using a Peavey M-3000 power amp (210 watts @ 4 ohms) to drive a 4-ohm AudioKinesis cab with four 200-watt FaitalPRO 8” drivers. In basement practices with my fairly loud rock trio, I was pushing it hard enough to light the DDT light on open strings and the lowest fretted notes on the E and A string of my 4-string passive P-type bass with chrome flats.

It sounded good to me and I think I perceived the DDT activation as audible subtle compression. I kind of liked it. But there was no more “up” to be had and as soon as we were out of the confines of the basement I felt buried.

I didn’t know if pumping more watts into my AK 4 x 8” would do the trick or if I just needed more speaker. When the $75 Crown MT600 came along it seemed like a cheap way to answer that question.

Two practices and one gig with the MT600 suggest that the extra watts available come across as more slam and clarity in the lows, even with the one little cab. I don’t perceive it as hugely louder, but I have (comparatively speaking) smoother, more massive lows and I don’t need to push the midrange honk and roll off lows to be heard without having a continuously-lit DDT light.

I’d have thought 750 watts was excessive before this, but man, it’s a hoot to have that slam available. Although now I need to worry more about blowing $200 neo drivers.
 
#45
More power may not be (much) louder because you may be hitting the steeper part of the driver's mechanical power compression resulting in no more SPL. This is generally the region that causes driver damage.
 
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#46
An additional cabinet would probably be a good idea. I haven’t heard driver distress yet, but I’d rather not get complacent about stuffing 750 watts into a theoretical 800-watt group of speakers. If I could add a cab and turn down and still be at an appropriate level, seems like that would be a much better safety margin.
 
#50
Trying to get louder by increasing power is less effective than adding speaker cabinets. To get twice as loud you'd have to increase that power by a factor of ten. You'd also need to have speaker systems capable of handling that extra power.

I've been using stereo power amps since the late Seventies. I have never felt the need to run any of them in bridge. I always run one cabinet on each side of the amp.
 
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#51
BassmanPaul said:
Trying to get louder by increasing power is less effective than adding speaker cabinets. To get twice as loud you'd have to increase that power by a factor of ten. You'd also need to have speaker systems capable of handling that extra power.

I've been using stereo power amps since the late Seventies. I have never felt the need to run any of them in bridge. I always run one cabinet on each side of the amp.
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^^^This^^^
 
#52
BassmanPaul said:
Trying to get louder by increasing power is less effective than adding speaker cabinets. To get twice as loud you'd have to increase that power by a factor of ten. You'd also need to have speaker systems capable of handling that extra power.

I've been using stereo power amps since the late Seventies. I have never felt the need to run any of them in bridge. I always run one cabinet on each side of the amp.
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I have run 2 8-ohm cabs off a single side as well - never had an issue. As I recall the Stewart, it had a 4 ohm min/ channel requirement.
 
#53
TomB said:
I have run 2 8-ohm cabs off a single side as well - never had an issue. As I recall the Stewart, it had a 4 ohm min/ channel requirement.
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Here are the World 2.1 specs
900W x 2 @ 2 ohms per channel
650W x 2 @ 4 ohms per channel
400W x 2 @ 8 ohms per channel

1800W x 1 @ 4 ohms Bridged
1300W x 1 @ 8 ohms Bridged
800W x 1 @16 ohms Bridged
 
#55
Wasnex said:
Here are the World 2.1 specs
900W x 2 @ 2 ohms per channel
650W x 2 @ 4 ohms per channel
400W x 2 @ 8 ohms per channel

1800W x 1 @ 4 ohms Bridged
1300W x 1 @ 8 ohms Bridged
800W x 1 @16 ohms Bridged
Click to expand...
IMO, WAY too much power for the OP's cabinets. The saving grace is that by hooking it up wrong the amp did not actually operate in bridge mode.
 
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#58
MassacreBass said:
I'll be running it in stereo from now on, although as Agedhorse stated, I never was running it bridged.
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If you had hooked a cabinet up to the second speaker output, that cabinet would be reverse phase to the first cabinet when in bridge mode.

This is why many amp manufacturers are putting bridge mode on a SpeakOn only, a little less likely to make a mistake unless you try hard. It's also why some manufacturers have eliminated bridge mode on some of their product lines.
 
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