Speaker Questions, please help

[Harlequin Man]

I kno this is live sound..

but some of you should know sometin about live..

I have 2 8ohm speakers

im going to hook them up in parell

they are each rated 250 program 500 max

i have a power amp PV2600

that runs at 900w at 4 ohm

so hooking them up in parell will make then 4 ohm...

which will be 900w from the power amp..

i wont blow anything right?

thanks,

Ethan

[cshannon1077]

you won't blow anything if you don't crank it up to full power.
Figure your speakers at 250 program (that's what your normal level is) and that is probably at 8 ohms. So if it is, your power rating will be slightly higher at 4 ohms. But it aint gonna get up to 900. So bottom line is you can NOT crank it, or you might blow them.
Either you gotta have more specs, or you gotta be an engineer that can remember the formulas, if you wanna cover your butt.
My suggestion is you can use it in a smaller room at partial power, but forget about a large room and having to crank it.
If you doubled the number of speakers, that would help spread the load out, and help you use more of that power.
When all else fails, use commons sense, and your ears.
Good luck.
Chris

[xstatic]

What you are looking to do sounds just about right to me. Using a smaller amp would probably increase your chances of blowing your speakers by overloading your amp. What a lot of people do not realize is that when an amp says 900 watts, it is not necessarily that easy to get it to actually output 900 watts. In order to do so in the specific case above, you would have to give the amp 100% input (full spectrum) with a 100% output rating. If everything was really compressed and you pegged the amp, you might be able to do that. If your speakers however are rated at 250 watts peak, you might have an issue because they are probably actually rated for about 150 watts program (approximately). 900 available watts seems like too much for 150 watts program, but just about right for 2 speakers rated at 250 watts program. 900 may still be a little much, but not a whole lot. By having a bigger amp though, it will simplify things. Now you only have to listen to the speakers to see if they are fatiguing at all instead of wondering whether it is the speakers or the amp

[Thatupstateguy]

Much much better to run 500 watts of speaker capacity
with an amp that is rated for less than that.....

say 250 watt amp

that way if you have any spikes in the output,....( HIGH POSSIBILITY)

you will not burn up your voice coils, or shred a cone......


If you want distorted sound, you can get all the volume you need from a smaller combo with effects in front.....


If you are a bass player with that setup, the same basic rule applies,.... smaller watts to drive a higher watt load.....

otherwise, the risk is shelling out bucks for replacements.....


Steve

Stand Amplification

[xstatic]

There is a reason when dealing with PA's that nearly every professional company double to triple powers their speakers. If you have an undersized amplifier than you are more likely to clip the input. The resulting square wave is much more likely to shred a speaker than having an amp that is too big. So, for a 250 watt speaker, hit it with a 500 - 750 watt amp. If you try and power a 250 watt speaker with a 125 watt amp, you will constantly be pushing for volume. You would mostly likely clip the amplifier and then send a nasty nasty clipped and amplified signal to your speaker. The best way to blow a speaker is typically through underpowering and not through over powering.

[altitude909]

The best way to blow a speaker is typically through underpowering and not through over powering.

Yep exactly right. At no point should the amps be all the way up so you should be OK

[xstatic]

Actually, my amps run wide open almost all the time. One thing to wathc for is whether or not the dial on an amplifier is for inout or output. Some amps are made differently