Peavey IPR class D amps - Page 2

Perhaps you should do a bit of research on the subject. You can get more power out of an amplifier than you take in for very short periods.

Hence my emphasis on the CONTINUOUS rating being bogus. I realize that caps can hold enough for the peaks.

This picture has been changed from 1600 to 6000 you can see the 6 looks suspect,
The Australian Peavey Rep looked at that pic here on AVS today and said that it is the back of the 1600 power amp, the 6000 arn't due to be released for 1-2 weeks & the UK get them first he said... He also said that there is no released pictures of the 6000 yet inc all of Peavey's web sites...

Cheers....

The proaudio folks love Labs, but upon further investigation, I don't
know why -- other than -- they work in the field.

But if you factor in the price/performance and if you do an rms test
and compare notes with marketing literature, it's massive fail. They
know the FP series was a turd hence they upgraded it.

The popular FP6400 was independently tested as a 'turd'.

Later I found some electronic geeks on the other forum whom took one
apart to reveal the flaws in its design and it explained the weak performance.

When I questioned the minions on the pro forum on why they love this
amp based on price/performance, the mods were quick to shut down my
voice. haha

It's the boombox revolution all over again, in a new package. 6kW? Let's be serious. That thing delivers a maximum of 300W RMS no matter how you look at it.

I've seen many amps with kilowatt ratings, and many people believing them. But i don't know how many people realize that if that power rating were real, your subs would explode in less than a minute. Plug your subwoofer into the wall outlet and see what happens... Even for you 120V US guys, it's still "only" 3600W into a 4 ohm speaker. Guess what happens? Plenty of vids on YouTube to show you.

What made me laugh the most was the 40V RMS fine print. I have a Romanian-made amp rated for 2*75W at 8 ohms, that feeds on +/-40V rails, thus it can deliver 40V RMS to the speaker (which btw is 100W RMS on a 4 ohm load, they also left headroom!). It actually delivers 150+wpc on 4 ohm loads; the transformer and heatsink have no trouble keeping up. It goes louder than "400W" pro amps with switching PSUs, and that output power is reached with only 3% THD, not 10% which todays' amps are rated at. Not to mention that a signal with 10% distortion is unlistenable.

True. If that's the case you already have a 4000w amp available for under $350 though.

I think we should have a buy in on one of these 8lb 6000w amps and give it to someone with other amps of similar power rating. Let them have an amplifier comparison and see what's what. I'll throw in on it. Hell I'd be more than happy to test the amp out and then give it to someone afterwards to draw their own conclusions.

I have access to a system that uses two Crown Macro-Tech MA-3600VZs (3,505w bridged @ 4Ohms). The sound system has four dual 18 Electro-Voice subs and six EV full range towers. Not quite 6kW of power though...

Send it to Chuck and see if he will test it? I wonder if he is still doing testing. I know he is active over on HTGuide.com

Don't worry, i'd bet that your Crown amps deliver at least double what the Peaveys do.

As in 3dB more

Wow, stop the presses

"But if you factor in the price/performance and if you do an rms test
and compare notes with marketing literature, it's massive fail. "

Only by your criterion.

You may judge everything by rms, but the vast majority of users don't need, don't want to lift, and don't want to pay for continuous output capability.

Then we can be happy with the 10000W PMPO boomboxes.

Not naive, just experienced.

I said the same thing you did a while back, that was until I actually used amps on a 15A line. Sure, play a sine wave at full power and that breaker will trip; but with music, where the bass has dynamics, it works. With 6db peaks, the RMS power would be 1/4 the peak.

That's because the breakers don't blow the instant the line draws more than 15A, as in when a vacuum is turned on. It takes it a few seconds.

That's true, but still, i wouldn't buy an amplifier with the power rating given at a peak 1 millisecond in length. It's like buying a "no-name" power supply for your computer.

@ penngray, double the power is 6dB.

Most people are

Did anyone test these amps out yet?

Nope,

Double the Watts means an increase of 3dB

Yes, my bad. I was thinking voltage. Double the voltage means 6dB, but double the voltage on the same output impedance means double the amps as well, so it would be 4x more power.

Regardless, 40v RMS is quite far from being 6000W, no matter how "peaky". Even with a 2-ohm speaker, it would take a voltage swing of 109v to produce 6kW of peak power. The capacitors inside the amp can hold spare current, but they cannot magically generate an extra voltage potential that is above the power supply rails.

I say speculation isnt worth our time...someone needs to buy and just test

IMO, I do not need even 1000W so I do not really care about more. If it still does 1000W, I think its a good product for its size and $$$.

"The capacitors inside the amp can hold spare current, but they cannot magically generate an extra voltage potential that is above the power supply rails."

I wonder if the IPR's storage caps are at much higher potential than the rails, which would allow them to store a lot more energy (goes with V^2).

Well, they can't be. They'd be breaking the laws of physics otherwise. Let's say you have an extra power supply of higher voltage but lower current charging those caps. If that, the whole thing (output transistors, resistors and main power supply) will tend to rise to this voltage, thus draw current from the secondary power supply. Result? Secondary power supply blows up. Now let's say we put a current limiter so it doesn't blow up. Result? The overall voltage drops to the level of the main power supply and stays there. So our secondary supply is useless.

It's the same reason why they don't recommend mixing used and new batteries in remote controls and such. The fresh battery tends to charge the used battery (which has both lower voltage and lower current). If the difference is high enough, the used battery will burst and leak acid.

But still, we aren't clear about what model is the one with the back pictured on the previous page. Because all my calculations are based on that. It does say IPR 6000, but if that's the actual IPR 6000 then it's a big fat lie. Even their fine print says 800W.

Edit: On their site it says it's the IPR 1600, with 800wpc at 2 ohms, the other ones aren't pictured yet. It still doesn't add up with that 400W mains consumption if you ask me.

"Well, they can't be. They'd be breaking the laws of physics otherwise. Let's say you have an extra power supply..."

Let's not.

I believe it's not uncommon for switch mode PS's to do as I described.

Hmm. I'm really not into switchmode supplies (as i don't have a scope thus i can't build a SMPS), but i'll do some research.

In SMPS land, diodes and switches keep current going one way or the other as desired. Actually, even "linear" diode-bridge-to-cap supplies have to hold up to some degree when the wall basically goes to 0V at 120Hz.

Thanks for the clarification, you learn something new every day.

Continous for how long ?

Storage caps aka rail caps won't be higher in potential than the rails themselves

Doesn't "continuous" generally mean continuous? As in 24 hours of continuous power? I am confused as to how continuous can have any other meaning when it comes to amplifier power...

"Continous for how long ?"

You're the one who cares.

"Storage caps aka rail caps won't be higher in potential than the rails themselves "

But those rails can be at higher potential than is ever delivered to the speaker terminal.

In principle you could have the storage caps at 1000 V PWM'ing a lower voltage audio signal through a filter cap to the speakers.

Meh, i'd just mail Peavey and ask them the true RMS power. Or, when i get a scope, i promise i'll buy the latest and greatest in pro audio tech (as long as it's $300 ), and test it for you.

I went to an audio store today to ask for a subwoofer amp for a friend's car. I said i wanted about 150 RMS in bridged mode, the sales guy recommended me a Magnat amp, 75wpc, 150 bridged he said. While the amp had "600 Watts" written on it. At least he was honest.

I ended up only buying a sub, since i'd found a similar amp for sale online for a better price.