Power amps (studio)

[Gear_Junky]

I'm considering bying studio monitors. I already have a power amp - Samson s1000, which is something like 340Wt @ 8 Ohm and 500Wt @ 4 Ohm per side. I really like the Event 20/20 monitors, but I'm wondering if this amp is good enough for studio monitoring. Could someone (who knows what they're talking about) please explain the dif. between "live" or "reinforcement" amps VS. studio amps?

Because if this amp isn't good enough, I might have to consider the powered Event Tria (with a sub). Thanks.

[bvaleria]

Typical amps used in studios are Hafler and Crown... but as long as the amp is clean and powerful, you should be ok... the danger is underpowering your monitors, and you need a lot of power/high current capability for clean transients and clean low-end response.

Bruce Valeriani
Blue Bear Sound

[Gear_Junky]

Does it sound like my amp will underpower Events 20/20? Events are rated at 150Wt @ 4 Ohm per cab and my amp is 500 Wt @ 4 Ohm per side. Should I also worry about overpowering? There are 2 knobs on the amp, I usually max them out with my live speakers, but how should I set them for studio mon-s? Thanks.

P.S. How do I know if it's "clean" enough? A Sam Ash salesman told me that it "wouldn't be as clean" as studio amps. Why not? Are there any more technical explanations, can I tell by the specs? I can't seem to find answers that make sense.

[Gear_Junky]

I just did a little specs comparison. Samson's "Servo" studio amps go up higher in frequency response - they're from 20 Hz up to 50-85 kHz with Total Harmonic Distortion "less than 0.03%", whereas mine goes down lower, it's 10Hz - 20 kHz with THD = 0.04%. Can someone explain to me this "total harmonic distortion" deal, how much is too much, etc.? How important is it for a studio amp to go up beyond 20 kHz? The speakers are rated at 50 Hz - 20 kHz.

Thanks again.

[bvaleria]

GJ,

Overpowering is not a problem - your ears will likely give out on you before the monitors do... unless your control room level control is WAY up there!

Your Samson should be fine... I'm not sure exactly what the deal with Samson amps are - most people downgrade 'em pretty quick - could be poor transient response - I'm not sure...

THD - is not critical if you're buying good gear - amp specs from the various pro-level manufacturers are very similar.... look for high-power and high current capability instead. THD lower than 0.1% is quite good, and you won't find pro-level gear with a level anywhere as high as that... THD for car audio can be around 1% - consumer gear from WalMart - 2% to 10%!

In general, don't worry about specs as much - trust your ears more...

Bruce

[Gear_Junky]

So you're saying that if I drive 150 Wt cabs with 500 Wt amps at max, it should be ok (no clipping), unless I push the master volume of the source (8-track) too hard?

[JC Lives]

Keeping it at reasable volume shoud be ok. One word of caution, If you pump 500 watts into a 150 watt driver at loud volumes, regardless of how clean the amp is, you could damage the speakers.

[bvaleria]

Originally posted by Gear_Junky
So you're saying that if I drive 150 Wt cabs with 500 Wt amps at max, it should be ok (no clipping), unless I push the master volume of the source (8-track) too hard?

Er... not quite - you still don't want to overpower the monitors to the point of PHYSICALLY SENDING THE DRIVERS ACROSS THE ROOM!!!

BUT - most speaker damage occurs when you try to get more volume out of an underpowered amp, causing it to clip - sending all kinds of distorted sounds to your monitor's drivers (especially tweeters) - they don't like dealing with sawtooth waveforms too much. In other words, it's easier to damage speakers by using a low-powered amp (and driving it hard) than by using a high-power amp on low-power speakers.

A good example would be when using a Hafler to drive Yamaha NS-10s....

Hope this helps...
Bruce