agedhorse

We do a 3 week long event (pro audio) with 6 or 7 sound systems (small up to arena size) and we design everything around 105 deg F (~40C), everything works fine for hours and hours but that's because everything is designed around these ambient conditions. As long as a designer is aware of the conditions, it's not that big of a deal. It might involve derating things a bit, but generally it's not a big deal.

Yes, there have been quite a few cases of designers underestimating how much effort goes into a successful design. This is especially true where the SMPS and the amplifier work together to improve performance even more as a pair. I know how difficult it is to design reliable SMPS and class D amps, I've done it a few times and it took longer and cost more than I expected every time. Ultimately, even though I have the background and education to do so, I simply couldn't compete with the depth of highly specialized talent that IcePower has in-house. The smart decision (IMO) was to partner with the best designers in the world and exploit their strengths as well as have input into their evolution of new products. Sometimes it better to put ego aside and keep your strengths for where they can make the greatest contributions.

You made the claim that class A amps are always better than class B amps, yet in the bass amp world (this is a bass forum after all) class A amps of any practical power level simply do not exist. therefore a product that does not exist can't be better. That's why I wondered if you understood the nature of conduction angle as it applies to class A, versus AB, versus B, versus C.

Yes, you are essentially correct. I know of no practical examples of class A bass amps available.

This is a good question, and I believe it has been discussed before (maybe not here but on other forums). One way to determine rated RMS power is to go to the AC power rating, which by safety agency standards must be a MINIMUM of what the amp draws from the source at rated audio power at the lowest rated impedance USING RMS metrics at a minimum of 1/8 rated power. According to the published specs below, we can determine the likely power in RMS terms: The calculation would be to assume an overall average efficiency of 85% for the power supply and amplifier, and run the following numbers using the published 110 watts input power: (110W x .85%) /.125 = 748 watts RMS rated audio power as used in the safety certification. If the overall average efficiency was 80%, then the calculated value would be 704 watts RMS (both into 4 ohms). Under maximum power output, it's listed as 2000 watts peak, but without a concrete definition of peak being provided, no conclusions can be accurately drawn. Peak will always be less than when using RMS metrics however, usually twice the RMS value but sometimes more depending on the definition. I hope this helps answer and clarify your question.

Interesting perspective. Would you care to give and example of a class A bass amp (power amp) that fits your above theory? From your description it sounds like you are unclear about what amp class actually means. All class D amps have power supplies, and what may be surprising to you is that some of the power supplies used in class D amps are actually bigger (in capacity) than their line frequency brethren. Sometimes by a LOT. The physical size can't be used as a comparison because the SMPS that are most often used with class D amps operate at a higher frequency which requires smaller magnetics (transformer) and also recharge the supply bus at ~100,000 times per second rather than at 120 times per second (100 times per second in 50hz regions)

Actually, the bigger problem is the end users who think they understand what the data sheets mean without actually understanding the technical data behind the numbers and WHY they might be used in describing specific specs. When an experienced designer learns all of the ins and outs behind the performance of the module and what is actually happening between the lines, it becomes apparent that there are additional performance gains present to those who understand how to exploit them. As a specific example, when I was designing around an earlier IcePower module, we used to get "armchair techies" who would insist that the module wasn't capable of driving 4 ohms BTL and that it was was only capable of 250 watts into 4 ohms therefore we were not being truthful. In fact, the amp could easily deliver 900+ watts RMS into 4 ohms BTL, and that the 250 watt single ended specification didn't even apply. This was such a valuable off sheet applications (that required specialized cooling and over-modulation management) that we received a patent for the techniques that we employed. It's very similar to what's happened in the automotive industry over the years. Power output per cubic inch (or litre) of displacement has increased greatly through the introduction of fuel injection, variable valve timing, variable ignition timing, stoichiometric fuel management through combustion products feedback, advanced combustion chamber design, tighter tolerances, lighter reciprocating mass, etc. The same applies to many of the successful applications in all industries. The more you know, the easier it is to be successful and deliver successful, reliable products.

I'm going to disagree here as I have experience designing amps around different platforms. In general, all of the MAJOR power amplifier platforms are really quite good and difficult to discern any real world differences when driven from an identical source. Most of the differences come from the designer's choices that typically reflect what the players are asking for as well as their own personal tastes) The reason I (as a designer) have chosen IcePower is because of my 20 year history with the product back when I was designing touring level pro audio using the IcePower platform. In the industry, they are generally considered the "gold standard" module because of their reliability track record, their ability to supply defect free product without interruption, their product's safety and EMC certification, and the in-house engineering support capabilities. You might be surprised, but cost is actually pretty far down the list of priorities as they are not the cheapest supplier of these parts (not by a long shot).

A solid state amp does not have to distort with odd order harmonics IF the designer chooses to manage HOW the amplifier clips. A tube amp, for example will NATURALLY distort with more lower level, even harmonics but this doesn't mean that a solid state amp (either linear class AB or non-linear class D) can not. In fact, one of the most important aspects of today's current digital based modelers (ie. AxeFx, helix, etc) is all about improving and perfecting what happens (in software) under modeled clipping conditions. Similar things are done by some designers in the purely analog world as well. Often, the power supplies in class D integrated power amp modules with SMPS have GREATER capacity than their linear (class AB with ,line frequency power supplies) counterparts. Often by a great margin too. Just providing some factual information here.

This is true, there are good implementations of amplifiers using these parts and some that have suffered from the symptoms being described. Each designer is different, each has their own preferences, skill set and experience designing with these parts. My design experience with IcePower goes back almost 20 years, when I was also designing for the (touring) pro audio industry. When I started designing bass amps with these class D parts, I already had a 5 year advantage over just about every other designer so I wasn't affected by the learning curve nearly as much. Also, this was the same time that players began demanding smaller, lighter weight cabinets, so some of the differences can be attributed to a general migration of demand and change in tastes rather than just the amps themselves.

It's not just the size of the heatsink, but the effectiveness of transferring heat to the ambient environment. A good deal of thermal engineering goes into high quality designs, it's not the kind of solution you pull out of your butt (or bum) because that's how you end up with thermal problems and noisy fan designs.

I wouldn't recommend 600 watts RMS continuous through a Kappa 15LFA, not if you want a long service life. The "maximum rated power" for most manufacturers (including Eminence) is based on a 2 hour survival rate. My experience through testing of many drivers for calculating warranty exposure purposes suggests that a ~20% reduction minimum is necessary in order to increase this value to 200 hours. I typically use 25% unless testing shows otherwise. Powering with 400-450 Watts (rms) is about ideal for that driver IME.

Where the return currents travel through the aluminum structure, there are voltage gradients all over the plane and no uniform ground reference. These voltage gradients factor into amplifier design too, we want to eliminate as many paths of current (both conducted and induced) in the amp's chassis through the use of star ground networks. The same applies to PCB layouts, every trace is a resistor and as the frequencies increase (SMPS and class D) every trace is also an inductor and capacitor.

It is indeed the designer's choice. It's not just the fan, but the aerodynamics of the air flow, the ratio of laminar flow to turbulent flow, and how the heat is removed from the devices and into the atmosphere. Using the same power module and even the same fan, it's possible to have very different noise levels depending on the choice of the designer and the designer's experience in the area of thermodynamics. I actually am the "inventor of record" on a US patent for the management of thermal loads and peak current management in class D amplifiers, so this is obviously not something that I take as casually as others might. There are many ways to skin this cat, some are quite elegant and some quite messy.

There are many similar styles of jack but beware that there are different mounting heights and pin setbacks from the front edge of the PCB. Sometimes, the best solution is to get 2 identical jacks and replace both, at least that way the mounting height doesn't matter and as long as the mounting surface of jack extends slightly beyond the PCb everything should mount fine. Just don't damage the PCB.

For 400Hz power supplies, noise can enter through the power supply, through the inductive effects of then magnetic field of the transformer or from the effects due to ground loops. Sometimes, bridging topologies can be beneficial because IF you can get the noise to be common mode, much of that can be rejected because the noise falls in a band where the CMMR of most op-amps (including power op-amps) is the highest. The parent company of Genz Benz (one of the companies I designed for) was part of Kaman Aerospace (K-Max high lift helicopters and other aerospace subassemblies) so there were a lot of exposure to resources that revolved around electrical noise control in 400Hz environments.

The fan on the Subway amps (and other amps that I have designed in the past) are quiet by design. It's not something that can really be retrofitted AND still have acceptable performance under hot ambient conditions, As an example, it's not uncommon to reach 100 degrees F in my area so I typically design to somewhere around 105 degrees F as the high ambient temperature condition. At these temperatures, I doubt anybody would want to either play bass or listen to bass or a band or much of anything IME.

For small amps it's almost impossible to beat the performance of the TDA-2050 without spending a LOT more, but it looks like these are all going by the wayside in favor of integrated class D IC based amps. Look ma, no heatsink! There were a lot of cool tricks that could be done with the TDA series too, even paralleling a couple or 3 to drive a 2 ohm load! Paralleling took a good bit of effort to insure stability, and there was also the bridged parallel set-up that could get might impressive power into a 4 ohm load (close to 100 watts IIRC). All of that's now water under the bridge.

It should be noted that different manufacturers might have different definitions of presence also, so what may be obvious on one amp bay not follow intuitively on all amps that label a control or switch "presence".

Tha bass guitar in the lowest octave produces less than 50% fundamental, the rest of the sound is harmonic series of the fundamental. Position of the pickup in relation to the bridge changes the percentages of the various harmonics (and the percentage of the fundamental in the total), as does the type of string, their material, the position of the strings with respect to the pole pieces (or magnetic fields), it goes on and on. A bass that just played fundamentals would sound very much like a sine wave generator (which is what it would be).

Be careful swapping fans to be sure the characteristics match what the designer intended. the is ESPECIALLY true on amps that have variable speed fan control circuitry. These circuits and the fans must track for the cooling to be the same.

This wouldn't be SOAR protection (in the classic or traditional sense of the approach), SOAR doesn't track temperature, the limits need to be calculated and designed around the design thermal limit. There are some unique thermal limiting circuits, a particularly effective (but very intrusive) one is a combination of SOAR with the addition of thermal feedback that operates on almost a cycle by cycle basis at low frequencies developed by National Semiconductor called SPiKe, (Self Peak Instantaneous Temperature Ke ), the Ke is an abbreviation for a thermal element in the equation algorithm. It was used on some integrated amplifier IC's. It is a way of decreasing the current limit as temperature of the die increases. It's purely a protection mechanism, it induces nasty current clipping into a reactive load. There are other approaches too, some of which feed back thermal information that lowers the threshold of a more conventional limiter circuit, and some that (in the case of an SMPS) feed back thermal information that will reduce the main supply rail voltages. The limiter approach is pretty common with class D amps, especially those using DSP because it can all be integrated in software. Another approach that many lateral MOSFET amps use is the natural behavior of the device itself, where as the current through the device (and the temperature of the device) increases, Vgs also increases which reduces the rated power that's possible. This is a VERY complicated subject with a LOT of highly technical details and math involved to make it work well. The simpler it appears, the more difficult it actually is in practice.

I was just pointing out WHY fan cooling often becomes the better choice if the size of the amp has anything to do with your choice for an amp.

The problem with passive cooling as the power levels increase is that the size of the amp will grow to accommodate the space needed for passive cooling compared with fan assisted cooling. I have designed amps with both types of cooling and I know firsthand the challenges involved.