The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I need a new power amplifier, as the Hafler 1600 I have is broken, and I don't want to get another. But I have no idea what to look for, which brands are better/more reliable, or even what makes one better than another (besides the ability to be louder). A little help?

i've got an old (maybe 5 years old anyways) Yamaha 600 watt 8 channel PA/mixer that has proven itself to be a serious workhorse. One of the nicer features to it is that it has 3 200 watt amps that can be used to power the left and right speakers in addition to a stage monitor.

never had a problem with it and it is still being used by a friend with a studio in San Francisco that gigs regularly. I think i paid about $500 for it. But i would recommend the yamaha or mackie PA mixers.

Is that for live sound? I just need a 2 channel one for my studio.

There really isn't any difference between an amp used for live applications and one that you would use for powering your monitors. The principle of amplification is the same no matter how you slice it. Really technical people in the know who are much smarter than me would tell you what makes one amp better than another is the compnents used to build it, the transistors, resistors, tranformers, etc. Me, I'm lucky if I can plug a lamp into the wall without getting shocked, so I say what makes one better than another is reliability. Crown, QSC and Yamaha all have good reputations in that area. If memory serves me (ever watch Iron Chef?), you have a pair of Yamaha NS 10's. The specs on those show 60 watts program and 120 watts peak power handling. The specs on this seem have that covered and then some. What you don't want to use is some sort of home stereo amplifier as it will color the sound.

Pasted From Another Thread:

Puce wrote:I'm in the middle of moving, and I just unpacked and set-up my monitors and power amp (Alesis RA-100) and... nothing. No sound, no power light, amp doesn't turn on. The fuses are intact, and when I power it up it has that distinct hum of electricity, but no sound.

I'm taking it apart tomorrow, and in the mean time I'm scoping out prices on a replacement. Boo.

Yeah, I'm in the same position as C Hack. You have my sympathies. Still haven't taken mine apart, but I'll probably soon be looking for something that is cheap above all else.

Puce wrote:Pasted From Another Thread:

Puce wrote:I'm in the middle of moving, and I just unpacked and set-up my monitors and power amp (Alesis RA-100) and... nothing. No sound, no power light, amp doesn't turn on. The fuses are intact, and when I power it up it has that distinct hum of electricity, but no sound.

I'm taking it apart tomorrow, and in the mean time I'm scoping out prices on a replacement. Boo.

Yeah, I'm in the same position as C Hack. You have my sympathies. Still haven't taken mine apart, but I'll probably soon be looking for something that is cheap above all else.

Puce my advice would be to save your money and wait until you can afford something better than "cheap above all else". Otherwise I'm betting you're probably going to be looking at the same issue in a short span of time.

Do you need just an amp, or a powered head?

If an amp is what you need, peavey is cheap and reliable. crown and qsc are great, but a little more money. the PV1500 is a great deal.

If a powered head is what you need, I'd say yamaha is the way to go. peavey's aren't bad either. the yamaha emx series is good stuff.

What's the difference between an amp and a powered head? Basically, I've got a pair of Yamaha NS-10's, and no way to get a signal to them.

I just called Guitar Center and they said they don't carry Yamaha's, the cheapest QSC is $650, and the cheapest Crown is $270, so I'll probably be going with the Crown. Or I could order the Yamaha, but at $100 more, when I have no idea why it might be better than the Crown, it sounds like the Crown is the way to go. What do you guys think?

Crown is good. You need an amp for your monitors. A powered head is a PA combo mixer/amp.

Before you buy whatever GC has, do a search for "amplifier for Yamaha ns-10s" People have some very specific suggestions as to what amps work best for these monitors.

Ken

C Hack, the first thing I came up with on Ken's suggestion about researching the monitors themselves, didn't prove positive

Now I have to admit I've never used the NS-10's myself in real life applications and I can't give you any solid advice about whether they're really worth keeping. What I can tell you is they easily go for $500 to $750 or more a pair on Ebay. Either a lot of people believe they sound great, and despite the snobs on the page I gave you the link to, they are well respected monitors from everything I've read and the people I've spoken to who have used them, maybe you're just ready to make the jump to powered monitors. My point is if you can get rid of the current monitors for say $650 or so, you would be well on your way to owning something very nice self powered and hopefully not be taking to much of a beating on what you laid out for the Yamaha's.

My wish list even after getting these, which I think sound pretty good for the $330 (including shipping) I paid would certainly include the following.

Dynaudio
Mackie
KRK
Genelec

Those aren't in any particular order or based on much personal use except the Mackie's which I have used and sometimes found to be a bit mid-rangy. I'm going by mostly reputation, what I've read and with the Dynaudio's which I personally heard compared to the KRK V8's @ GC, they rocked. But again I've never worked with these, so you're best bet may be to weigh the options I've laid out. The easist road would appear to be to buy the amp. Again, vintage Crown stuff can be had at a price on Ebay, but my personal experiiece with the older stuff is that it's built like a tank and sounds great.

EDIT: I also believe the $400 Yamaha I linked to earlier would not only kick that Hafler straight in the nuts, but probably would spit on it on the way out the door for you too!

c hack wrote:What's the difference between an amp and a powered head?

I didn't really answer your question earlier, or make your choices any easier with the rant about powered monitors, but here we go again. An amp, a powered head, and a powered mixer go into a bar. Nevermind, it not that funny.

An amp is just an amplifier only. It can be anything as small as the headphone amp on your computer to a 2500 watt monster capable of making the ears bleed. You run a sound source to it (generally a single sound source) and from there run the amplified souce to an output like speakers. Your Hafler is, or rather was before it took the easy way out (my condolences by the way), an amp.

A powered head is an amp and a mixer combined. It's basically something that allows you to input several sound sources at one time and output them again, to something like speakers. Powered heads are generally used for small gig convenience. You can plug a couple of mics and guitars into them and they will put out enough sound for a coffee shop or really small venue. Some can get louder than that, but then you run into the issue of having enough power, but not enough inputs.

A powered mixer is a mixer with sliders and not volume knobs like the powered head. However like the powered head, it has an amp built into it. It makes it really convenient for gigs like the powered head but also offers you the versatility of a greater number of inputs. That way the you can mic everything if you need to, and you actually end up plugging less stuff in because you don't have to worry about an outboard amp.

Most newer powered mixers and heads also offer adequate built in EQ's and Effects which again means a lot less stuff to plug in. At a gig. But your monitors are in your home, not a gig.

So you want an amp.

Or those powered monitors I mentioned earlier.

Confused?

Ain't music fun?

ns-10s are the best (read: most accurate) monitors going...do whatever it takes to keep them going.

I got the NS-10s because every single picture I see of some super-famous musician/producer in the studio always has a pair somewhere in the background. If they sound crappy (I don't think they sound bad) but sound like an average of all home speakers, well, that's what they're for. That's so weird they go for that much on ebay. I got them for about $150 each at guitar center like 5 years ago.

Welp, everything I looked at was made for live applications and had cooling fans -- no good for studio work. At least, bedroom studio work. So it turned out my only option was the Alesis RS300, which seems to be working out great so far.

Well, it's working out great when I plug my iPod into it. Anything else, I get a lot of ground hum. Any suggestions?

I'm guessing the reason you're not getting the hum on the iPod is because it's DC and won't pick up the hum that's apparently running through your AC line. It could also be the cords you're using, I'm assuming you had to pick up a new attachment for the iPod, so it's obviously a good cord. You'll have to back route anything else that may be attached if you have multiple things running like a seperate board, outboard effects, recorder, and check all those lines. If you're running straight from a sound card it should be a simpler process.

Also, is there another electrical outlet you could try? Do you have a surge suppessor / line conditioner / voltage regulatorrunning in between the outlet and your other equipment? You might try another DC ran source like a CD player or tape deck that's plugged into whatever your recorder source is plugged into and see if it produces the same results. If it does you might need the conditioner or an electrician.

Sorry man. On the upside I have heard good things about the Alesis, so you got that going for you.