"The LMS-54K's are dual 2 ohm, so you would most likely have an 8 ohm nominal load per enclosure" Why not 2 ohms for 3X the power?
Four woofers each with dual 2 ohm voice coils can be wired;
1. Each woofer can be 1 ohm or 4 ohms.
2. Two woofers can be wired for 1/2 ohm, 2 ohms or 8 ohms.
3. Four woofers can be wired for 1/4 ohm, 1 ohm, 4 ohm or 16 ohms.
If you use option 2 @ 2 ohms *and* your subwoofer design is modeled
for 2500w each, then you need 5000w into a 2 ohm load so each woofer gets
2500w. The common proamp is not rated for 1ohm/ch or 2 ohms bridged, so that rules out bridged mode if you want to drive two woofers with a final load of 2 ohms. But you can drive those two woofers in stereo or parallel mode on
one channel and drive the other proamp channel for the second set of woofers,
or drive all four woofers using option 3 @ 4 ohms and run the proamp in bridged
mode. Both methods work. All you need one 10kw proamp to drive all four
woofers. Or use two proamps, but you don't get optimal wiring and you lose
1/2 the power. One proamp bridged per 4ohm LMS {like Jai's rig}, or one
monster proamp for all four. Two proamps don't fit well in this situation.
There's a lot more copper in the 5400's VC, but I remember Dan Wiggins saying that 1 kW fed to a 15" Tumult would raise the VC temp to 200 C in a couple of sec.
Different woofer, different situation, and Adire is history, lol..
If two 5400's were fed 5 kW continuously (picture four toasters with many feet of resistance wire glowing red)) inside a sealed and insulated wooden box, I'd be worried about the box bursting intoi flames, let alone the VC's cooking.
We can only trust the claims.
http://www.tcsounds.com/lms5400.htm"2500 watts continuous power (8000 watts peak) "
Just like anything else, the word 'continous' is misleading. In amplifier testing,
they also use that 'continous' word. I have issues with this too.
Continous as in 1 second or 3 weeks ? You get the idea. The time element
is important and those variables are never told. Other variables are ambient
temp when testing. Did you test the woofer/amp in the cold winter at -10 degrees
or did you go and test the woofer/amp in the desert with 110 degree temp?
There is alot of comedy with amp and driver ratings.
It may seem like I'm harping on this issue, but you keep making arguments based on max continuous power levels, which have no bearing on real world usage conditions. The average power in use is more like in the tens of W, if that much.
Woofers are more demanding than midranges and tweeters are the least
demaning of all. That's why we get so many different perceptions on bass
authority and people don't understand the root cause. They assume it's
damping factor, they assume amplifier specs are reality, they assume it's
some magic circuit design topology, the list goes on. The reaility is this
and it will shock people. The reason why some audio systems are perceived
to have stronger bass when amp swapping is because one of those
amplifiers offered more power than the other in spite of what the published
specs say, bottom line, amps need to be tested to see what they really do.
Even after they get tested, everyone has a different AC line loss scenario which
can reduce power.
The only reason I harp on the power issue is because people assume their
EP2500 can do 2400w because the specs say so. Chuck tested that amp
at 2kw with a variac to hold the AC line at 120VAC. Per Chuck's comments,
the amp will run into thermal protect in a minute. Even with playing music
and not a test tone, you will go into thermal protect eventually.
Most people don't install variacs on their power amps so they may experience
severe AC line sag. I couldn't even test my simple PLX3402 on the common
garage 20A circuit because the AC line dropped under 100VAC and the amp
just turned off. lol .. But I can operate two of those PLX's running tweeters
and midranges because the load is easy. If I do subwoofer duty, I'd have to
dedicate a 20A line to that amp. Bottom line, that EP2500 that Chuck tested
seems to correlate with Binks J2500 test {another cloned amp} and from
these two tests we can figure out a worse case scenario of ~1200w - 1400w.
That is not very close to the published spec of 2400w. hehehe
The other issue music. We know that music is lower in duty cycle but
*what if* you come across a sustaining low frequency note? For simplicity,
what if your audio source {music, movies, etc} had a continuous tone for
a few seconds. Do you want your subwoofer to get the power level as you
modeled or do you want that tone to cause a 50% loss of power that drives
your sub? and/or, do you want to reset your house breaker everytime a
demanding situation manifests?
Overkill is good for a hassle free audio system. Jai's install is a perfect
example. While everyone is suggesting the typical amplifier pathway,
EP2500, I harped on him to get a CE4000 as it seems to be a perfect fit
for one LMS woofer. I've heard other people clip their EP2500's, PLX's
on a good subwoofer design using lesser woofers, but he said he hasn't
clipped this CE4000 yet. He has excellent headroom, who wants clipping
on a demanding situation?
Why settle for good when you can be great.
