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December 2012 l 41
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What issues do touring companies face when choosing amplifiers?Phil Wardinvestigates current trends…
EVERY PRODUCTION needs the best tools for each job. In every territory, however, live sound faces tighter budgets for each event. So, how can you take less gear to achieve the same results? One department that might be able to help is the power supply: very powerful, highly efficient amplifiers with built-in DSP enable the pressured tour manager to lighten the load while avoiding compromise. Placing external DSP inside each amplifier reduces rack space and maybe, even, vehicle size. And the more lightweight each module is, the less fuel you use. The more efficient they are, the less venue or generator power is needed. All in all, using the right power amps is at the heart of modern industry economics, with a direct hit on profit margins all through the supply chain.
FUEL BILLS In today’s economy, the power- to-weight ratio might well turn out to be the most important decision that every PA company needs to make. Each manufacturer makes its own claims: “If we compare the industry standard MA5002VZ to
AT A GLANCE
The H2500 from Dynacord, part of the PowerH series
MC2’s E100 lightweight amp
the I-Tech 12000HD we have available today,” points out Brian Pickowitz, business segment manager at Crown Audio, “not only do you go from 3U to 2U, but the I-Tech 12000HD weighs 22.68kg less and puts out 2,725 more watts per channel.” “High power with low weight is one of the major requirements for touring amplifiers,” states Dynacord product manager Martin Traut. “Unfortunately it’s not clear to everybody what ‘high power’ stands for, other than a nice value in the spec-sheet: particularly for touring applications, the specified power needs to get delivered under any demanding condition such as low frequencies at low impedances.” “It’s definitely important,”
adds Klas Dalbjorn of
Lab.gruppen, “but there’s much more to it. Make them reliable; make sure they can handle fluctuating mains voltage; make the package compact; have easy- to-use software with fast setup and powerful grouping capacity.” XTA-MC2 brand manager
Waring Hayes expands further. “Current mantra does dictate this, but we’re always mindful of
maintaining the highest level of sound quality under all operating conditions. E-Series amplifiers are switching designs – the smaller amplifiers are hybrids of linear amplifiers and switching supplies, larger designs are switching amplifiers with switching supplies. One major design philosophy common to them all is the fact that behind great sound quality is a great power supply, and its ability to generate huge power for short durations from local storage – not pulling massive surges from the mains. “However, it shouldn’t all be
“Amplifier power has
already reached astronomical levels… This rate of power increase is unlikely to be sustainable”
Waring Hayes, MC2
about power. Maybe we should consider less power used more efficiently? Switching amps are significantly better than linear amps at transferring more of what goes in the mains inlet to the speakers, which is great, but do we need a sledgehammer to crack a nut all the time? Being able to use a lower-power amp results in savings – running costs are becoming a greater consideration these days, even in the touring market.”
Crown I-Tech HD4 stack
Powersoft’s K20 with up to 18,000W in a single rack space
A CERTAIN RATIO So has the industry reached a plateau in the ratio of power to weight? Some are sceptical of unlimited advances: “To go much beyond the PLM 20000Q in a single phase will be very challenging,” admits Dalbjorn. At MC2, Hayes is also cautious. “Amplifier power has already reached astronomical levels,” he says, “with several manufacturers now producing designs that appear to be a factor of 10 over what would have been available only 10 years ago. This rate of power increase is unlikely to be sustainable. There may be small, incremental changes in power output, but until we reach a point where engineers are happy to
connect all their subs to a single amplifier the output power levels we have currently reached will probably flatten out. “The major factors that stop modern amplifiers becoming more powerful are how effectively they can draw power from the mains supply and how hard they can drive loudspeakers without damaging them. XTA processing goes a long way towards this: RMS limiting keeps the voice coil temperatures down and peak limiting controls over-exertion. As for advances in weight reduction, these will come naturally as the switching devices available become ever faster and more efficient. This will allow reduction of heat sinks and the size and weight of magnetic components.” Others are very confident that no such limit exists. “Absolutely not,” asserts Brian Pickowitz. “We just launched our I-Tech 4X3500HD four-channel amplifier which puts 2,400W per channel at 4 ohms, all channels driven. It’s part of our DriveCore Series, with proprietary technology that allows us to continue to push the envelope when it comes to power density and weight. Basically, if you look at one of our two- channel I-Tech HD amplifiers, one-third of it is power supply and two-thirds is two channels’ worth of amplification. DriveCore technology allows us to shrink parts counts within the amplifier and produce better power density in smaller packages. Reducing the size and weight of Crown amplifiers will only continue into the future.” Powersoft’s Luca Giorgi
agrees. “The power-to-size ratio will always improve, because it’s related to advances in electronics integration. But there’s another question that could have an impact on the direction of the
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