Poweramp purchasers beware

P

Penge

Member
I spent 6 hours yesterday driving to get a power amp. I was sooooo pleased. The amp was two U but very very light, and puts out 670 watts a side into 8 ohms. I fought rush hour traffic and got home to try it out. I fired it up and guess what? The fan was so loud I couldn't even hear the Axe through some wedges at a very low practice volume. It is quite funny actually. I never would have thought of fan noise. But I guess switch mode power supplies need to be kept cool, and thats what I get for getting such a powerful amp. I am sure I can find another use for the amp, but I am a bit disappointed. So just remember to try before you buy.
 
Well, rather than put down the company I should also say that the fan isn't squeaking or making funny noises it is just a high powered fan which the amp needs to keep cool. The amp was probably designed to drive huge subs at 2,500 watts in bridged mode so I am sure that high rpm fans are needed. I merely posted because it wasn't something I had thought to look out for.
 
One of the main reasons I bought an ART SLA1 was because the SLA series fans are very quiet.
I almost bought a QSC amp but the fan was too noisy for some of the quiet jazz gigs I do as well as for practising at home.
I swapped out the Axe's original fan for the same reasons.

So fan noise is one of the 1st things I think about.
 
Its very strange, although the AXE fan is noisy, I think I have gotten used to it. The amp fan was a very loud high rpm whir. I just wasn't bright enough to realise that a fan could be an issue.
 
my crown 402 was hella noisy. i wired in a switch to cut the fan power in half with a big resistor... so for home when i'm normal volumes it was on, and at gigs where i didnt care i had it on full. dont have the amp anymore, as it weighed about 50lbs.
 
When I hear things like this and compare it to companies like Carvin and ART, who not only have quieter operation but smaller units, I wonder what these "major" power amp manufacturers are thinking. Even Crown has just now come out with a somewhat lighter monstrosity, and it still looks like crap!
 
MotherSea said:
When I hear things like this and compare it to companies like Carvin and ART, who not only have quieter operation but smaller units, I wonder what these "major" power amp manufacturers are thinking. Even Crown has just now come out with a somewhat lighter monstrosity, and it still looks like crap!
Click to expand...

Again I would like to stress that I am not talking about a 1 U class D amplifier, but a quite powerful unit that is meant to run on 10 for days on end. So the amp was designed to be driven, and I just didn't take the fan into account. However when I get a chance to crank the f*** out of my wedges I am going to be very happy with the power and the headroom.
 
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