Stand Alone Power Amplifiers

DaveT · October 2, 2020, 7:01pm

For exactly the same price you can have recent technology, mint condition and 900W . . .

T_dub · October 2, 2020, 7:08pm

Just options, thats all, thought he might like to see everything.

eric.kiser · October 3, 2020, 11:34am

Thanks guys. I appreciate all the extra information and incite.

itsratso · October 4, 2020, 5:58pm

I’m absolutely certain I know the answer to this question
But… A power amp is a power amp, right? Whether it’s made for guitar, PA, bass, stereo… I mean, yes it might have different ins/outs, etc. But a 500w 4 ohm bass amp or PA amp is the same, right?

DaveT · October 4, 2020, 6:32pm

The simple answer is yes.

Consumer gear isn’t hardened, doesn’t have the same protections and likely won’t stand up to PA or instrument use. You could very easily connect a bass preamp into stereo gear and if not careful immediately send it into self-protect.

Class D amps originally handled low frequencies better and were unusable for full range PA speakers. That changed as technology developed. It’s possible to find an amp built into a bass rig that wouldn’t be acceptable for other uses.

PA amp design criteria are biased more toward high power output, ruggedness and may not perform as well in a studio monitor setting.

I have an A-tier studio monitor subwoofer that has the same ice power module as many of the current bass amp heads. In self-powered PA speakers the Powersoft amp module is a pretty common engine. I’ve seen a blind A/B test by some golden ears between the Powersoft rackmount PA amps and a studio reference amp on very high-end PA speakers and they couldn’t find a difference.

DaveT · October 4, 2020, 6:33pm

It even goes beyond that! Crown Audio originated from Techron, a maker of power supplies for medical imaging.

howard · October 4, 2020, 6:46pm

We pretty much shredded our homemade subwoofers and stereo speakers we were using as PA by sending my synth and my friends’ guitar through them, via a mixer into our stereo amp line ins.

Worked great but the raw synth square and triangle waves just ate the speakers up.

howard · October 10, 2020, 5:35pm

Here’s another one:

Paul · September 5, 2021, 8:17pm

Thread revival but Hartke amps are really good value for the price imo.

DaveT · January 27, 2022, 5:31pm

In case any EEs here want to design amps . . .

wellbi · January 27, 2022, 7:19pm

I am really looking to my (well, my father’s) Tesla (Tesla was Czechoslovakian audio manufacturer … I would compare them with for example Denon, the same kind of philosophy) amplifier. It had really rudimentary 3 band eq with fixed frequency points (I remember that bosting cutting lows/mids/highs sounded (sorry for the cliche) musically. What’s the best thing about it however, is that it has it has a couple “presets” (movie, voice, music, classical … ) which are actually built on one coil and the signal going through the amp is just left to spin a moment around this coil which is in various configurations to introduce the “warm” electromagnetic interference with passing bye electrons of audio signal.

Amplifier with quite mindblowing saturator and EQ. I am missing 2 internal pieces, but it’s more of a plan for a future. In a new flat with studio room, this will be a great hw alternative to Decapitator from Sound Toys and also, finaly I will have an amp to feed my pair of Tesla Hi-Fi speakers. Which are in my humble opinion better alternative to NS10s for mixing.

So much GEAR to explore, so little time.

Alterationx10 · February 14, 2022, 9:05pm

@eric.kiser thanks for outlining these! I’ve been trying to find something exactly like this. I ended up ordering a GSS baby sumo - just got it in today. The pre-amps in my active basses have enough signal to use it directly (for practicing), but I’m mainly hoping to use it with modelers/plugins for going into my cab when not using headphones.

eric.kiser · February 15, 2022, 1:28pm

@Alterationx10 Very cool to hear somebody got one! How is the build construction on it?

Alterationx10 · February 16, 2022, 3:02am

I’d say it’s top notch. Arrived just like the pictures show with the black steel/aluminum. Giant volume knob turns smooth, solid power switch in the back, and no issues with the speakon connector. No noise/popping when powering on/off.

I’m really liking it, and very happy with the purchase. Despite my current amp head having a pretty clean power amp portion, and using it the with 4-cable method with some gear, the baby sumo just feels different. I much prefer “the one cable method” now .

I have/had too much amp for a home set up, and I was thinking about downsizing power-wise (Alpha-Omega 900 head + DG 410 cab). I ended up going for that, because it was basically the same price as a 500W set up, and I could always “turn the volume down”… I feel like 2 is too loud for a small practice space, and that’s before any overdrive/distortion. Can’t play at night, because the kids are asleep and with my wife working from home now due to covid, can’t play at random times of the day because she’s in meetings. I was looking at something like an Aguilar SL 112, and maybe a Tone Hammer 350/500, but all that is basically as expensive as my current set up, not sure I’d even like it, and kind of hate the thought of breaking even on a smaller set up.

But with the 600W baby sumo, I have a lot more give in the volume setting. I’m in love with my cab again, which is good, because it’d probably be a loss to try and sell that thing. With my modeler/plugins, even my guitar sounds good through it now! Feels nice to have one less thing to fight and “route around”.

Not really a ton of videos/reviews on it out there that I could find (but the ones I did were all pretty positive), so happy to ramble on about any other questions you have about it.