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Underpowered?

Precision345

Precision345

Feb 19, 2013
438
3
#1
So I've been using my traynor dynabass 400 to power an ampeg 4x10 and 1x15. I am also using it to slave a traynor ts50. Last night at a gig, my traynor shut off midway thru our set and I think it was overheated and so it shut down. Could it be because I'm powering too much gear with it?

I'm still pretty green to a lot of this stuff so any insight would be very helpful.

Cheers
 
#2
If the impedance of the speaker stack wasn't lower than the minimum for the amp, it should ok, though still could've went to thermal shutdown if you had it cranked way up or cooling vents were blocked, fan failed, etc.
 
#4
Both cabinets are 8 ohms and the tarynor 400 is minimum 4ohm. I went thru the owners manual of my traynor 400 and it looks like it doesn't even have a cooling system. Just some exhaust ports on the side :/
It gets quite warm at gigs and at practice. Not really sure what to do.
 
#6
Bassmec said:
Just try brutally cutting low frequency out of it, see if it makes a decent mid projector if it can't live with the bigger Traynor and cab, don't make the little one do more than it can.:)
Click to expand...

I was running the traynor ts50 at 10 in the mids and 3 at everything else. I will show a picture of how I had everything set up
 

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#9
Jimmy rig 1 or 2 computer fans up to the sides, or wherever theres an airway or two. One that blows in, and one that pulls out. I used to do that with my old peavy 300 max head, and it worked great. I made a little metal bracket that fit over it like a set of headphones, for lack of a better term, and cut out two square holes on the sides and fastened the two fans to each side, wired them both up to a toggle switch and presto! Ahh the good old days!
 
#11
Bassmec said:
Looking at your pictures you are not using the power amp of the TS fifty but are using it to substitute for the other pre amp?.
Click to expand...
Yes, that's exactly what I'm doing. The TS50 acts as the tone portion of the setup while the dynabass is the power. So essentially I'm only using the dynabass for its power section while bypassing the preamp so I can use the TS50 as the tone.
 
#12
I can understand that in a way, because quite a few studios have used that amp for its rather nice pre amp design all full of Mullard fish caps and resolved transistors and only the one chip for the drive which is a sort of simplified tube screamer circuit.
As a minimalist solid state pre amp design with drive it's actually rather brilliant.:)
PS I thought you where using it as a dirty box driving a speaker, leaving the 400 to provide the clean in my first post but then, how you are running it is fun, bet it's got some serious snap in it. You might try one of those Fdeck filter thingamy bob in the line output because there is nothing stopping that pre amp from outputting 15Hz at level.:-(
 
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#13
Bassmec said:
I can understand that in a way, because quite a few studios have used that amp for its rather nice pre amp design all full of Mullard fish caps and resolved transistors and only the one chip for the drive which is a sort of simplified tube screamer circuit.
As a minimalist solid state pre amp design with drive it's actually rather brilliant.:)
PS I thought you where using it as a dirty box driving a speaker, leaving the 400 to provide the clean in my first post but then, how you are running it is fun, bet it's got some serious snap in it. You might try one of those Fdeck filter thingamy bob in the line output because there is nothing stopping that pre amp from outputting 15Hz at level.:-(
Click to expand...

I googled the filter thing you spoke of and it sounds like it could be useful for me. I don't know anything about Hz though which will take some learning. Can you elaborate on the filter a bit?
 
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#14
Well the bass guitar contains a lot of harmonics and a fundemental note some times with lower strings it's more important to amplify the harmonic, as the fundemental is fairly inaudible anyway in the best conditions:-) and that it consumes an enourmose amount of the amplifiers power to produce because the speaker has not got the ability to reproduce it at any level.
So the Fdeck stops your amp having to make a lot of power that nobody will ever actually hear, that power is, I believe switching your power amp into overheat so if you put an Fdeck in circuit it removes the frequencies that the loudspeaker can't effectively audibly make.
Saves on speaker damage and wear and actually makes you speaker louder because it's running colder.:-)
 
#15
Bassmec said:
Well the bass guitar contains a lot of harmonics and a fundemental note some times with lower strings it's more important to amplify the harmonic, as the fundemental is fairly inaudible anyway in the best conditions:) and that it consumes an enourmose amount of the amplifiers power to produce because the speaker has not got the ability to reproduce it at any level.
So the Fdeck stops your amp having to make a lot of power that nobody will ever actually hear, that power is, I believe switching your power amp into overheat so if you put an Fdeck in circuit it removes the frequencies that the loudspeaker can't effectively audibly make.
Saves on speaker damage and wear and actually makes you speaker louder because it's running colder.:)
Click to expand...
ahhhh! I see now! Sounds great. I definitely would like to get one.

Back to my original question. Is the traynor dynabass 400 enough to power both cabinets and the ts50? Or am I underpowered? I was thinking of getting one of these http://traynoramps.com/bass/dynabass/product/dynabass_800h/

Not sure if it is the correct ohm to use both my 8 ohm cabinets though...
 
#16
Precision345 said:
ahhhh! I see now! Sounds great. I definitely would like to get one.

Back to my original question. Is the traynor dynabass 400 enough to power both cabinets and the ts50? Or am I underpowered? I was thinking of getting one of these http://traynoramps.com/bass/dynabass/product/dynabass_800h/

Not sure if it is the correct ohm to use both my 8 ohm cabinets though...
Click to expand...
Well I think if you go up in power by that much, you will then probably blow up your 15" cab next.
Just make sure there is enough air flow going to your current amp and get the Fdeck you should have no further problems.
Getting great tone out of that rig as it's rigged up no doubt, the jump up to twice the power will result in half that increase being used up in speaker compression, additional heat and anyway twice the power without taking into account the losses described earlier is actually only an increase of 3dB where twice as loud is +10dB.
I think you would be less than impressed about what double the watts does, if you are using distortion and FX in your music twice the power, usually just contributes to blowing poopie up.
 
#17
Bassmec said:
Well I think if you go up in power by that much, you will then probably blow up your 15" cab next.
Just make sure there is enough air flow going to your current amp and get the Fdeck you should have no further problems.
Getting great tone out of that rig as it's rigged up no doubt, the jump up to twice the power will result in half that increase being used up in speaker compression, additional heat and anyway twice the power without taking into account the losses described earlier is actually only an increase of 3dB where twice as loud is +10dB.
I think you would be less than impressed about what double the watts does, if you are using distortion and FX in your music twice the power, usually just contributes to blowing **** up.
Click to expand...

Ok, so I'm fine where I stand. Thanks for all your knowledge and insight. Much appreciated.
 
#18
Precision345 said:
ahhhh! I see now! Sounds great. I definitely would like to get one.

Back to my original question. Is the traynor dynabass 400 enough to power both cabinets and the ts50? Or am I underpowered? I was thinking of getting one of these http://traynoramps.com/bass/dynabass/product/dynabass_800h/

Not sure if it is the correct ohm to use both my 8 ohm cabinets though...
Click to expand...

I am by no means particularly knowledgeable about this sort of thing, however, I'm sure Bassmec or others can correct me if I don't quite get it...

P-345, Sorry if I'm stating the obvious, but you said yourself you're green to this stuff and in the post quoted above, the bolded text made it sound like you thought your DB400 was powering the TS-50. I don't know whether you've just poorly worded your post or if you are indeed misguided that your Dynabass is powering the TS-50 — it is not.

The DB400 powers the speakers, that is all it powers.

My own novice-level of understanding signal flow is thus: the vibrating string causes a weak inductance in the coils of your bass' pickup –> pre-amplifier brings this weak signal up to a more usable level (TS-50) —> The signal is stepped up yet again by the power amp (DB-400) to a level... —> ... which is capable of driving the speakers' coil-magnetics —> moving the speaker's diaphragm (cone) which finally equals boom in the room.

What hasn't been mentioned is how many watts your cabs are rated for. Even if each cab is 8 Ohms for the correct 4 Ohm total load on the amp, if the speakers (for the sake of argument) are only rated at 200w each and you were to crank a Dynabass 800 through them, as Bassmec said, you'd be blowing **** up.

Again, sorry if I'm just being a pedantic putz, but thought to err for sake of clarification.
 
#19
Zos Kia Cultus said:
Jimmy rig 1 or 2 computer fans up to the sides, or wherever theres an airway or two. One that blows in, and one that pulls out. I used to do that with my old peavy 300 max head, and it worked great. I made a little metal bracket that fit over it like a set of headphones, for lack of a better term, and cut out two square holes on the sides and fastened the two fans to each side, wired them both up to a toggle switch and presto! Ahh the good old days!
Click to expand...

Any photo's or further insight on this ? Definitely thinking of rigging up some fans for this sort of thing
 

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