Dear HT sifus..

i'm looking for power amplifiers to help drive my current (& future) axiom speakers..

min10w/max400w 4 ohm fronts (priority)
min10w/max400w 6 ohm surround (secondary)
min10w/max400w 6 ohm centre (can let AVR drive it)
min10w/max200w 8 ohm rear (can let AVR drive it)

earlier wanted to get the emotiva xpa-5 as its cheap considering its features BUT the speaker manufacturer advises against it due to previous problems emotiva had driving axiom speakers..

i was recommended by the speaker manufacturer the following brand power amplifiers;
- NAD
- Outlaw audio
- Crown
- Behringer

however he highlighted that Crown & Behringer uses fan-based cooling system which can be slightly noisy for in-studio like based rooms..

i've cancelled out NAD c272 as a friend said its not powerful enough.. Wrote off Outlaw Audio 7500 coz its too expensive..

Between Crown x402 & Behringer ep1500, i thought of getting the Behringer.. Why?

1. My sound engineer uses Behringer monitor & power amp for our production studio..
2. Cheap.. About half the price of the Crown x402 or Emotiva XPA-5..
3. Got authorised distributor in Malaysia which handles warranty issues..

That was until a HTsifu told me that its rough & have high noise levels.. Now i'm stuck..

i figured i'd get other sifus comments & help on this..



in advance

p/s - will add pic of EP1500 specs soon *AMENDED*



This post has been edited by saprozeldo: Sep 26 2009, 10:09 PM

Did Axiom mention what problem happened when paired with Emotiva?

it was in the axiom forum.. some forumers owned the 2 items and faced scenes where some of the emotiva's channel shut down.. emotiva blamed it on the speakers.. and naturally axiom blamed it on the power amps.. bottom line, forumers felt that emotiva & axiom's are not compatible..

you can read the thread here..
http://www.axiomaudio.com/boards/ubbthread...3306#Post273306

any thoughts on behringer power amp jchong?

Sorry, I've no experience with Behringer amps. But do you know who is the distributor locally? Hopefully they can do demo, then after that I will have some thoughts on it.

yea.. i'm half certain its av-studio in puchong.. i have the number of the manager.. i'll try arrange a demo if we have some silver-eared (dunwan gold eared, too high standard) to comment..

jchong, from the product sheet, it looks quite good value for money.. at least thats in my newbie opinion la.. what you think based on d product sheet?

behringer's are known for value for money audio post production stuff...lotsa studios in malaysia uses behringer....mainly coz it's cheap. But i'm sure they've produced a lot of good quality albums with the equipments from Behringer.

but this brand is not really hi-fi material....your ears need to be the judge for that....just know that sometimes hi-fi are a bit overrated

Whaferdale's should also has some power amp models for reasonable price...try calling CK Music for this.

Bro, just go do a demo. bring your M22 together and listen to it, would be sound better than your Yammy? Then u go & decide....

I've got an issue with the SVS MTS-01. My puny 4310 can't drive it efficiently. Luckily, help is on hand. My friend happily lend me his Rotel RB-1080 to drive it. Now, sonically better. Forward sounding, punchier bass note and expansive staging. Yet, not to the fullest yet.

I suspect it needs something above 250W to make it work above 90%.

what;s the rated sensitivity?

87dB but impedance is 4~6ohms, which is quite pwr sapping even though its power handling is 20-250W.

When I ran my auddysey previously, it detects these as full range speakers. What I knew is that 4310 aint up to the task. Time to scout for beefy power amp liao.

87 is quite low to begin with..

That's why. I am so used to 95dB and above (Klipsch) but AQ is miles apart lah.

Yeah at 87dB and possibly 4ohms, it would be difficult to drive. Emotiva I hear.....

WOW! I did not know that my brain can send those subsonic freq waves all the way to Penang

What is impedance?

Impedance is the extension of the idea of electrical resistance to AC signals (like music). In high school, we all likely learned Ohm's law at some time or another. Whether we remember it or not is another story! Luckily, the refresher course is easy. Resistance is a way of relating voltage and current in a simple DC circuit. An easy way to visualize voltage and current is to think of electricity like flowing water. Voltage is like water pressure: high voltage is akin to high water pressure, with lots of potential energy. Current is like water flow. High current is like a rushing river, low current is like a dribbling faucet. Electrical power (watts) is the voltage times the current. The resistance relates the current to the voltage though Ohm's law, V=I*R (where V is voltage, R is resistance and I is current). When the resistance is high, a high voltage is necessary to result in a given current, and vice versa.

This is really all you need for DC circuits. Maybe they're nonlinear (i.e., the resistance depends on the voltage or current), but that's all. For AC signals, the situation is more complicated. The voltage and current are now sinusoidal signals. We need to keep track of both the voltage and the current, but now we need to also keep track of the phase between them. This is where impedance comes in. It is the AC equivalent of resistance, but also keeps track of the phase. We can still write V=I*Z, but now all three of the numbers are "complex" numbers, with a real and imaginary part. The real part of Z is exactly the same as the DC resistance. The imaginary part, called reactance, represents capacitance and inductance. A positive reactance is an inductance; a negative reactance is a capacitance. We can write this down either as a real and imaginary part (i.e. a resistance and a reactance), or as a magnitude and a phase angle. A phase angle of zero means all resistance. A positive phase angle means inductance, a negative phase angle means capacitance.

For a speaker, this mathematical complexity is something we care about. An amplifier, or any electronic circfuit, prefers to drive a purely resistive load. The addition of capacitance and/or inductance causes all manner of frequency dependent changes, making a flat frequency response much more difficult to achieve. Unfortunately, speakers have lots of reactance. Most speaker drivers have big coils of wire in the drivers. A coiled wire is an inductor. Tweeters usually look electrically like capacitors.

While most amplifiers are designed to deal with reactive loads, speakers that have low reactance will be much more kind to their amplifiers. Also, amplifiers are typically designed to drive speakers with 8 ohms impedance. If the speaker impedance gets too low, the amplifier might not be able to deliver enough current, and will clip. If the speaker impedance is very high, the amplifier might not be able to provide enough voltage gain to play loud enough.

interesting read..

Behringer makes good amps, as has been pointed out, the fan is noisy, unless you mod the amp or put the amp inside a hidden rack away from your living room.


as for the high noise level, negligible if you always use your speakers at near reference level volume.

sell me your 4310 lorr boss.. you go 4810 pulak laa..

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Added on September 28, 2009, 3:35 pmbeing a newbie, i only have bronze-ear la bro.. thats why need golden-eared sifu to tell me, okay or not.. i'd probably say its okay.. but then, how to elevate my listening standard if no higher benchmark..

wharfdale eh bro.. you have ck music contact details or not? let me explore..

This post has been edited by saprozeldo: Sep 28 2009, 03:35 PM

Based on product sheet the specs look ok. Then again, you really cannot tell performance based on specs alone.

Ultimately have to let your ears be the judge.

Yup, looks like a power amp is called for 87dB sensitivity is on the lower side. That means your speaker is twice as power hungry as a 90dB speaker.

You keeping the MTS-01 for yourself or is it eventually going to be the demo model in the showroom?

fronts are 95db [91db if SPL Anechoic 1w/1m(db)]
surrounds are 95db [91db if SPL Anechoic 1w/1m(db)]
centre is 95db [91db if SPL Anechoic 1w/1m(db)]
rears are 93db [89db if SPL Anechoic 1w/1m(db)]

so sifus,
what is SPL Anechoic 1w/1m(db) & why is this lower?