West Music Staff Blogs

Avoiding the error of purchasing and using an inadequate amplifier based on misleading wattage claims

At some point in the past, certain power amplifier manufacturers got hip to the fact that the only specification most power amp buyers pay attention to is wattage.

Sadly, they decided that misleading specs were OK as long as it created better sales. Hmm....

For purposes of our discussion, let’s consider two amplifiers. Amplifier A is rated at 1,000 watts (per side), into a 2-ohm load, with .1 percent Total Harmonic Distortion (THD), measured at 1 kHz, while Amplifier B is rated at 1,000 watts (per side), into a 4-ohm load, with .03 percent THD, measured full range from 20 Hz to 20 kHz.

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When "they" tell you that the loudspeaker can't possibly be harmed because of the small power output of the amplifier, YOU can tell them this true story!

When a power amp is pushed to its rated limit or beyond, the upper and lower limits of the sine wave seen on the oscilloscope will swing above and below the limits of the amp, and the smooth upper and lower limits of the wave on the scope looked chopped off, hence the term “square wave”.

When a square wave is presented to the speaker, instead of the seamless back and forth motion of the cone, we get a different behavior.

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I've been a big fan of Peavey P.A speakers since the mid 70's. I remember trading in my beloved Shure Vocal Master outfit for a Peavey P.A. with a powered mixer with huge knobs and 2 cabs with, if I recall correctly, 4-12" speakers that were about 5 feet tall. I couldn't believe how clean and LOUD they were!!

Around 1980, I bought a huge Peavey system complete with SP-1's (these were heavy...took 3 men and a boy just to move them, but man, they sounded good!), a CS800 power amp, 16-channel Peavey mixer, Peavey 260 monitor amp and a pair of Peavey floor monitors. I soon tired of lugging those huge speaker cabs around, so I went looking for a smaller speaker that would be efficient in medium to somewhat large venues, and I ended up with a pair of SP-2's. A smaller, lighter-weight cabinet equipped with the Peavey "Black Widow" Speakers and the same "long throw" horns that were in my SP-1's. They sounded awesome!!

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Greetings! This article discusses loudspeaker placement in houses of worship. Note that if your application is live portable/touring sound, weekend band, or other application, please contact me (see below) for a more application-specific discussion of your needs because those applications can be vastly different than the installed systems discussed here.

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