jaudere
Well-Known Member
Hello guys,
I did something very odd, took a plunge and bought a powered mixer in place of an amplifier
Actually i went to market to buy an amplifier for my subwoofers.( i am/was using Yamaha RXV 361. with sub crossover set at 160 Hz. the main speakers were philips Hi-Q full rangers 25 W RMS on open baffle and subs were locally made. i was driving the subs with a stereo amplifier which i had . i needed a better amp as this old amp was 20W RMS or so and gave bad distortion).
Could not find a mono amplifier easily which would support frequencies down to 30Hz. then i took an audition of norge 1000 at silo media, pune, which i would use as sub amplifier. On same day itself, i remembered what Cranky had said about active crossover and that i can use my AVR as multichannel amplifier. so i checked out Behringer 3400 active XO. i didn't like what i heard, although i know that you need to play with the settings to get the sound right.again there was going to be issue for converting unbalanced to balanced(RCA to XLR) signals. cables were not easily available.The same night i read about similar attempt by someone which failed. So i was scared to spend 10K of my hard earned money.
Called up Silo media again. he said he already sold that Norge 1000. They had MOsfet 2000 and 2060 in stock. i decided to take an audition again but my car tyre went flat. so i postponed the audition.
I went to the pro market in pune again. suddenly i remembered powered mixer which is being used in my hospital. it is Proton K300, connected to Polk audio BS speakers(don't remember the model but it has dual woofer and one tweeter costing about 25K/pair). I like the sound it produces. I enquired about it. The cost was 8.5K (for 150W RMS X2). but he needed 4 days to get it. i didn't have much time left and i stay in such a village that getting couriers other than simple envelopes is pretty difficult. He gave me another option
ROLAND 602D, powered mixer. i had never heard this company but i took his word and checked it. it is a 6 channel mixer with one stereo in socket.
i carried my DVD player with me. so i could take a short audition and i liked what i heard. the power was 250W RMS X 2 channles at 4 ohms( god knows what was THD.) But i suppose that it will give a least 100W RMS of clean power,more than enough for my 25W RMS speakers. The cost was too attractive :Rs 7.5K ( i suppose it is that low due to absence of brand value).This machine has a torroidal transformer and cooled by a fan along with heat sinks. i bought it.
when i came home, i decided to try it as stereo amp before using it as Sub amplifier. connected it to my philips full range speakers. and played few songs. there was a very spontaneus response from my wife "the speakers are sounding lively". it is an open baffle system, and it needs some equalization at lower frequencies(commercial open baffles like orionuse active XO ) so i pushed up equalizer at 60Hz and that is all that was needed. I did not need woofers for songs. so now it is full range single driver on open baffle doing everything. .No active/passive XOs and speakers getting purest sound signal without any processing except DA conversion and equalization at 60Hz. i will think of adding tweeters later if i feel the need in future.
So now i have a separate stereo amplifier for music and will use AVR for movies, PC and TV. I fear that full range speakers will be damaged by low frequency sounds on TV and movies. so i won't use them there.
It was an insane step to buy this large, powered mixer but in the end i was lucky be happy with its performance.
It will still work as sub amplifier for movies when it will get the sub input from AVR (will have to disconnect fullrangers but it will be an easy job with presence of 1/4" jacks and considering my frequency of watching movies at 1/month).
P.S.
while auditioning Norge 1000, i compared it with Denon PM710AE.(both being connected to Quad floor standers and using Denon 700 CDP). Denon was better in some aspects but i feel that it did not justify the cost difference of Rs 18K.(28K vs 10K)
I did something very odd, took a plunge and bought a powered mixer in place of an amplifier
Actually i went to market to buy an amplifier for my subwoofers.( i am/was using Yamaha RXV 361. with sub crossover set at 160 Hz. the main speakers were philips Hi-Q full rangers 25 W RMS on open baffle and subs were locally made. i was driving the subs with a stereo amplifier which i had . i needed a better amp as this old amp was 20W RMS or so and gave bad distortion).
Could not find a mono amplifier easily which would support frequencies down to 30Hz. then i took an audition of norge 1000 at silo media, pune, which i would use as sub amplifier. On same day itself, i remembered what Cranky had said about active crossover and that i can use my AVR as multichannel amplifier. so i checked out Behringer 3400 active XO. i didn't like what i heard, although i know that you need to play with the settings to get the sound right.again there was going to be issue for converting unbalanced to balanced(RCA to XLR) signals. cables were not easily available.The same night i read about similar attempt by someone which failed. So i was scared to spend 10K of my hard earned money.
Called up Silo media again. he said he already sold that Norge 1000. They had MOsfet 2000 and 2060 in stock. i decided to take an audition again but my car tyre went flat. so i postponed the audition.
I went to the pro market in pune again. suddenly i remembered powered mixer which is being used in my hospital. it is Proton K300, connected to Polk audio BS speakers(don't remember the model but it has dual woofer and one tweeter costing about 25K/pair). I like the sound it produces. I enquired about it. The cost was 8.5K (for 150W RMS X2). but he needed 4 days to get it. i didn't have much time left and i stay in such a village that getting couriers other than simple envelopes is pretty difficult. He gave me another option

i carried my DVD player with me. so i could take a short audition and i liked what i heard. the power was 250W RMS X 2 channles at 4 ohms( god knows what was THD.) But i suppose that it will give a least 100W RMS of clean power,more than enough for my 25W RMS speakers. The cost was too attractive :Rs 7.5K ( i suppose it is that low due to absence of brand value).This machine has a torroidal transformer and cooled by a fan along with heat sinks. i bought it.
when i came home, i decided to try it as stereo amp before using it as Sub amplifier. connected it to my philips full range speakers. and played few songs. there was a very spontaneus response from my wife "the speakers are sounding lively". it is an open baffle system, and it needs some equalization at lower frequencies(commercial open baffles like orionuse active XO ) so i pushed up equalizer at 60Hz and that is all that was needed. I did not need woofers for songs. so now it is full range single driver on open baffle doing everything. .No active/passive XOs and speakers getting purest sound signal without any processing except DA conversion and equalization at 60Hz. i will think of adding tweeters later if i feel the need in future.
So now i have a separate stereo amplifier for music and will use AVR for movies, PC and TV. I fear that full range speakers will be damaged by low frequency sounds on TV and movies. so i won't use them there.
It was an insane step to buy this large, powered mixer but in the end i was lucky be happy with its performance.
It will still work as sub amplifier for movies when it will get the sub input from AVR (will have to disconnect fullrangers but it will be an easy job with presence of 1/4" jacks and considering my frequency of watching movies at 1/month).
P.S.
while auditioning Norge 1000, i compared it with Denon PM710AE.(both being connected to Quad floor standers and using Denon 700 CDP). Denon was better in some aspects but i feel that it did not justify the cost difference of Rs 18K.(28K vs 10K)