Is my rig "safe"? Poweramp into cab questions.

J

jz3r0

Member
Hey guys. Picked up a Carvin DCM2000L to run into an Orange 4x12 with my Axe FX 2. I'm currently running the Carvin in bridged mode, but I'm not sure if this is safe. Am I going to overload the speakers?

Orange speakers are rated 240W at 16 ohms.
 
Yes if you crank it up all the way, you can absolutely damage your speakers. That amp in bridged mode puts out 2000 watts RMS into 4 ohms and 1200 watts into 8 ohms at full volume, so even with a 16 ohm load it is still capable of easily pushing more than double the cab's rating of 240 watts. You can blow your speakers if you run it loud like that for any extended period of time. With that cab, it would be much safer to only use one channel in mono mode instead of bridging.
 
Okay, I've switched it over to mono. I never ran it past the "12" mark on the Carvin Poweramp. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since the poweramp is solid state, isn't the "go to" rule of thumb to treat it like 240 watts times 5 for SS instead of tube?
 
Yes, the amp could blow the speakers. It's not at all unusual to use a higher wattage power amp like that in order to gain clean headroom, as you're more likely to burn a voice coil with a distorting overloaded power amp than with good clean signal flowing from an amp not under strain. As @mr_fender noted, you might be better running one side unbridged, and turning the other side to 0 if the amp can do that. That would be about the rated wattage.
 
I'm paranoid that I might have already caused damage. Would it be obvious if I've already ruined the speakers?
 
Yes. Generally, a blown speaker is either stone silent or makes a lot of self-noise. You can normally hear a burned voice coil by just manually moving the speaker cone a bit. It will sound scratchy when moved, and sometimes won't move at all. Play something clean through it and listen for distortion or buzzes from the speakers. If you don't hear anything, they're probably fine.
 
jzacharia said:
Okay, I've switched it over to mono. I never ran it past the "12" mark on the Carvin Poweramp. Correct me if I'm wrong, but since the poweramp is solid state, isn't the "go to" rule of thumb to treat it like 240 watts times 5 for SS instead of tube?
Click to expand...

Not at all. Watts are watts whether it's tube, solid state, light bulbs, a vacuum cleaner, a hair drier, whatever. Volts x Amps = Watts. You might be thinking of output ratings for tube amps vs solid state amps. Amplifiers are rated at clean output, so a 100 watt tube amp when fully cranked up and overdriving is likely pushing as much as double that. There's a bigger usable range between the clean rated output and the actual max output of a tube amp because tube amps sound much more pleasing when they compress and clip. Solid state amps clip late and hard and usually sound pretty bad doing it, so their clean rating tends to be very close to their actual max usable output. The wattage rating is exactly the same, but the amount of usable headroom can seem different because of the natural compression tube amps give. 100 tube watts is completely equal to 100 solid state watts. There is no difference in the power measurement. When you are looking at speaker wattage ratings, treat them exactly the same.
 
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