Can you recommend a reliable amplifier?

[aznwonderboy]

I am installing some speakers onto 2 stages (indoor and outdoor) for my youth group's church.

Indoor: 6 PAIRS of small speakers, from 50 to 100Watts @ 8ohm each.
-I plan to use speaker selector with 6 pairs of outputs to divide the power to them.

Outdoor: 3 PAIRS of large speakers.
-1 Pair is 250Watts @ 8 ohm each.
-1 Pair is 300Watts @ 4 ohm each.
-1 Pair is 200Watts @ 6 ohm each.


Now, we only have a small budget just enough to buy ONE amplifier at $300 eBay's used price, which translates to $500 retail price.

Which amplifier is versatile and powerful enough for us to use with the indoor and the outdoor stages (either one or the other; we won't use both stages' speakers at the same time) based on the kinds of speakers I have? Just suggest an ideal amplifier, and I'll try to search for my ideal price.

Thanks for your inputs.

 

[Farview]

Hafler P3000. I've had mine on 24/7 for 7 years (not counting power outages and such) with no problem ever.

 

[sdelsolray]

Hafler P3000. I've had mine on 24/7 for 7 years (not counting power outages and such) with no problem ever.

Ditto on the P3000. I have two, one running the studio monitors (2 sets, with a passive switch - kinda what you're wanting to do I think), and the other in my gigging rig.

 

[aznwonderboy]

I read on the Hafler P3000. It can only put out 150Watts/Channel @ 8 ohm, when I need at least 250watts/channel for one of my speaker pairs.
In mono, the P3000 can do 400watts/channel @ 8 ohm. Is "mono" a good thing?

 

[Farview]

mono isn't bad, but that would bring you down to 4 ohms. I'm sure hafler makes bigger stuff that is just as reliable.

 

[mshilarious]

I read on the Hafler P3000. It can only put out 150Watts/Channel @ 8 ohm, when I need at least 250watts/channel for one of my speaker pairs.

You are confusing two different but related specs--max power handling of the speakers and max power output of the amp. 150W driving a single speaker is gonna be loud. Driving 3 or 6 speakers, less so. However don't assume you need an amp that can put out the max combined rating of your outdoor speakers of 750W just based on the speaker rating. You don't necessarily need at least that, on the contrary you don't want to exceed that limit driving the speaker--although it's helpful to have a bit of extra power rating on the amp.

You also have a potential problem with impedance if you connect that many speakers to a single amp. I don't know exactly how you intend to use the speaker selector, but if you run 6 8 ohm speakers per channel at a time, that's 1.3 ohms, which will do unkind things to most power amps. If you really need that many speakers at a time, you need to consider getting 16 ohm speakers and two power amps just for indoors.

I think you will probably need 1000W per channel amp outdoors and two 500W per channel amps indoors, and I wouldn't try to share the amps for indoor/outdoor or some genius will eventually think it's a good idea to run both at the same time.

Those are just wild guesses though, without knowing the space, audience, use, etc. If you don't have any experience installing systems, you should really seek some more advice. I don't see how you're gonna do it for $300 though.

 

[boingoman]

On the outside set-up, you get 1.85 ohms/channel. Without more info, it's hard to say, but if these speakers are for live music, and are all going to be on the stage, I'd take a pair from your outside set-up and put them inside, and skip all those small speakers.