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The 4000 Watt Question is.....

#27
Mobile audio amps aren't going to keep up with SR amps. The specs tend to be lets' say relaxed on them, and then there's the issue of proper connectors, power supply others have mentioned, repacking if you plan to gig, etc. PITA*

Fun while it lasts, but get a serious SR amp if you actually want to aspire to Kingofthehillness.



*Pain In The Ass
 
#28
mollin man said:
nope.. it's actually a car stereo amp that somebody at my work found in the parking lot and gave to me. surprisingly it sounds great. now i just have to figure out a way to mount it in a rack with some cooling fans and i'm all set!

P.S. anybody know of any reliability issues i may have down the road with using a car amp? thanks
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You're serious, right? Is it December fools already?? I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that he needs to run a 12v mobile amp from a 120v source. Noise will be a big factor if you actually did this, where you need to change the voltage. I have been around car audio and electronics for a long time, competed in many car audio competitions, member of IASCA and all that stuff, so I know a little about mobile audio. Noise would also be an issue if you used RCA to 1/4 inch jack converters in order to power your cabinets. Also, if its a true mono design (as most higher powered mobile sub amps are) it will probably not be a full range amp (20-20k) but limited to a frequency range from, say 10-200hz or so. Unless it's an "all-in-one" amp with 2,3,4 or more distinct channels. What kind of amp is it? What make? If it's a good amp (which is highly doubtfull if it was found in the parking lot) then you are better off selling it and buying a real SR bass amp.
 
#29
correct me if im wrong, but don't the specs suggest that if you put an 8 ohm cab on each channel you will yield 425w per channel? if you put all four cabs on one channel you yield only 1000w into 2 ohms?? this doesn't seem so crazy if he has four very different cabs and needs gain control on each...
 
#31
Vic Winters said:
Watts are watts.
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Cheap car stereos are generally rated in short peak bursts, so yes, while that amp MIGHT be capable of supplying 4000 watts in a millisecond burst at 1kHz while connected to an extremely large regulated power supply, chances are it's probably barely good for 100 watts of real audio off of a 12v battery.

He's better off taking the car amp to a pawn shop and trading it for an old Peavey TNT combo, if he can get that much out of it.
 
#34
Rattman said:
Maybe he took one of the cabs, removed the drivers then installed a 12VDC battery (or two..) and a 'trickle charger' to keep the battery charged up? :smug: .. :rolleyes:
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We can call that "Plan Q".

"Plan A" might be what Psycho Bass Guy says:

Psycho Bass Guy said:
He's better off taking the car amp to a pawn shop and trading it for an old Peavey TNT combo, if he can get that much out of it.
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#35
Well, to address some concerns here, i already have a step-down transformer to power it, and i'm building a grounded metal case to shield it and make it rack mountable. and about power, i'm currently running one channel (1000 watts) into a 1x15 cab (500 handling) and i have to be very careful about turning my master on my pre up past 9 'o clock. so it seems to have plenty of juice. i was merely wondering about any reliability issues concerning vibration and so on. but i would immagine it would take it.. those cars rattle my windows going by at 3 in the morning so i can only immagine how bad the vibes would be inside the car!

thanks for all the replies.
Mollin man
 
#37
A 4000W amplifier running off a nominal 12 volt supply will require that power supply to crank out 333 amps. That is with a 100% efficient amplifier, which doesn't exist. That's a TON of current. If you have 1 meter of 4 gauge cabling (pretty big), that has a resistance of .0003 ohms per foot (.001 ohms per meter). The power dissipated by that power cable (I^2*R = 333^2*.001 = 111W) is quite significant too.

What I'm saying is, alongside the comments regarding exaggerated specifications within car audio, it is not an easy thing to power a 4000W amplifier. Besides - what happens at a gig when your wall source can provide at best 15 amps at 120V (about 1800 watts)?
 
#40
BassIan said:
They're underneath your stack of CD stabilizing weights and acoustic room rocks.
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Naw. It appears they've tunneled back to their universe and I haven't bought them yet here. But to the good side, my bank account is again $12,393.42 up.

Good to see you here again, Ian! {though that may be a Confucian curse of sorts ; }
 

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