Passive subwoofer amps help!
I acquired two massive subwoofers (over 230lbs each) that were mated to a $100k+ custom system and I need to power them somehow. In my limited research, I'm a bit confused about all this. I'm used to my subs being powered. The subwoofer amps I've found by Dayton Audio seem to be very lower powered. Can I just buy an SVS PB16 amps off ebay and build a box and use that? That gives plenty of subwoofer power and the ability to control with phone. Or is that a big sin in the subwoofer world? Why are there not more external high powered solutions for this with a volume knob, low pass knob, and phase switch on the front.
I did look at the Klipsch RSA-500 but it specifically lists the subs this amp is to be used with. Also, for $1k+, it's not that powerful.
@mijostyn , thanks for the QSC suggestion. I should have mentioned that the Dayton SA-1000 has a fixed 80 Hz second-order line level highpass filter to roll off the bottom end going to the amp for the main speakers. No DSP in the Dayton; it's all analogue. Reliability has been very high in my experience; aside from a brief string of defective units that were either DOA or died within the first couple of weeks, I've only had ONE unit (out of about 200) fail in the field. It failed about 4 years and 10 months into the 5 year warranty, and Parts Express replaced it under warranty. Duke
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@mijostyn , I agree with you about the heat issue. Except for the very first generation of my subwoofer system, dating back to 2006, I haven't been putting amps inside of subwoofers. My observation (based largely on conversations with customers) is that high-power compact equalized sealed-box subs tend to have fairly high failure rates for their amplifiers and their woofers, and I think it goes back to the "oven environment" you described. One of the reasons I use vented enclosures (tuned such that their response is the approximate inverse of typical room gain from boundary reinforcement) has to do with thermal power handling. A comparable sealed-box sub will theoretically need roughly three or four times as much power in the region of the port tuning frequency in order to have the same frequency response. Also, a port allows an exchange of air with the outside world, so you don't get that "oven environment" that you do with a high power sealed box sub. In other words, imo there are arguably worthwhile thermal benefits from making a vented box approximate the frequency response of a very low-Q sealed box down to the port tuning frequency. In my opinion. Duke |
