You can never have too much power......

[OVERKILL]

My home setup is pretty basic, and probably a lot less "fancy" than a lot of members on here:

1. Harman-Kardon stereo receiver (120Wx2 @ 8omhs, 150Wx2 @ 4ohms)
2. A set of antique Cerwin-Vega D-3's w/McIntosh tweeters and Bravox woofers
3. McIntosh sub tower w/1x15" sub

"A" on the receiver powered the CV's
"B" on the receiver powered the McIntosh sub

A buddy of mine does DJ'ing and told me I should try out one of his Yorkville amps (made in Canada

) on the speakers. The Bravox woofers are DVC and rated for a LOT more power than I'm feeding them..... I've had good luck with Yorkville, I've had one of their 15" bass amps for ages, so I figured why not!

So last night I borrowed his older AudioPro 3000
http://www.yorkville.com/downloads/other/omap3000.pdf

which pushes 475Wx2 into 8ohms, 750Wx2 into 4ohms and things just get silly from there.

He also lent me his mini Behringer mixer so I could run the pre-amp outs from the HK into it and get the correct levels for the amp.

I didn't know what I was missing! It is so much louder, and so much clearer at higher volume now. I can actually make the Bravox woofers work now, LOL!

Thinking of picking up one of these now, or something similar at least. I obviously wasn't adequately powering these speakers, which I guess I knew in the back of my mind, but needed a kick in the rear to actually see what kind of difference it would make.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Love my old cerwin Vegas. I even have one of their old floor firing 15 inch subs!

 

[Volvohead]

. . . I think that's a party/pro amp.

Unless it's filling a barn, most folks don't need that much power at home, especially not with CVs, which tend to be more efficient "head-banger" speakers.

IIRC, the D3 is a 94 db/w, 8 ohm nominal design in stock form. One hundred real watts should be more than enough for it.

I suspect your HK receiver just had overrated flabby amp and power supply sections, like a lot of "high power" receivers do. Most of them have very little current headroom to speak of, and are best paired to bookshelf speakers. You may be getting wowed by the relative weakness of that receiver.

FWIW, the D3 is only rated to 125 watts continuous. While that ceiling may be based on the drivers (some of which you have replaced), it could also be derived from the X-over build. So I would proceed with some caution, especially as the 'lytics (if still original) have probably degraded. Also, it's hard to push high current through a push spring terminal, which is what I believe the D3 uses.

At the end of the day, the first watt is always the most important one.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Volvohead
. . . I think that's a party/pro amp.

Unless it's filling a barn, most folks don't need that much power at home, especially not with CVs, which tend to be more efficient "head-banger" speakers.

IIRC, the D3 is a 94 db/w, 8 ohm nominal design in stock form. One hundred real watts should be more than enough for it.

I suspect your HK receiver just had overrated flabby amp and power supply sections, like a lot of "high power" receivers do. Most of them have very little current headroom to speak of, and are best paired to bookshelf speakers. You may be getting wowed by the relative weakness of that receiver.

FWIW, the D3 is only rated to 125 watts continuous. While that ceiling may be based on the drivers (some of which you have replaced), it could also be derived from the X-over build. So I would proceed with some caution, especially as the 'lytics (if still original) have probably degraded. Also, it's hard to push high current through a push spring terminal, which is what I believe the D3 uses.

At the end of the day, the first watt is always the most important one.


"Especially with CV's, which tend to be efficient "head-banger" speakers".

Except the only CV components left are the cabinets, the X-overs and the mids.

Woofers are the PXW10D-4's:

http://www.bravoxaudio.com/print_ph_pxw.asp

Rated for literally twice the power the woofers that came out of the cabinets could handle.

With the stock woofers and tweeters, these speakers could be adequately driven with the HK. I wouldn't call it weak, it was/is one of their better 2-channel units. It drives 120x2 @ 8ohms admirably, however, I was asking it to run that load plus the 15" McIntosh cabinet on top of that, and it just wasn't up to the task. But the bass that cabinet adds, well, it was worth the power penalty to the towers. Basically, driving the McIntosh cabinet, the towers were only seeing 60W each, and I think we can agree that isn't enough.

The HK is now only driving the 15" McIntosh unit, with the 3000 driving the CV cabinets. So the McIntosh is seeing ~240W, whilst each of the cabinets now can see 475W if was stupid and wanted to drive them that hard, which I won't.

HK doesn't give a lot of info on the receiver, but here's what is in the manual:

Originally Posted By: Harman-Kardon

HK 3485 Stereo Receiver
Audio Section
• 120 Watts x 2, both channels driven at full power at 8 ohms,
20Hz – 20kHz, • 150 Watts x 2, both channels driven at full power at 4 ohms,
20Hz – 20kHz, • High-current capability, ultrawide-bandwidth amplifier design with
low negative feedback
• All-discrete amplifier circuitry


These are the tweeters:

They sound excellent BTW, way, way, WAY better than the horn tweeters that came in these cabinets.

 

[Quattro Pete]

I've got an HK 3495 which must be very similar to yours. It does OK powering two 6-8Ohm speakers, but it somewhat struggles with four (A+B) when cranked up. I ended up getting a second 150WPC amp to power one set of speakers and letting the HK power the other set. Add to that two self-powered subs, and all is well in my basement.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
I've got an HK 3495 which must be very similar to yours. It does OK powering two 6-8Ohm speakers, but it somewhat struggles with four (A+B) when cranked up. I ended up getting a second 150WPC amp to power one set of speakers and letting the HK power the other set. Add to that two self-powered subs, and all is well in my basement.


You sure it is a 3495? I don't see that model on their site. The 3485, and the 3490, both of which have the same power output.

 

[Quattro Pete]

Sorry, 3490.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Quattro Pete
Sorry, 3490.

There we go, LOL

 

[Volvohead]

OK,

That LF driver is a 2 ohm nominal car audio subwoofer. Very different from a LF driver designed for higher fidelity systems. A universe apart from the driver the CV engineers originally specified for that enclosure. I won't go into all the details. But the impedance mismatch and resulting load is the problem with using the HK. It's likely seeing 1 ohm or less at the very bottom, which is way too much for most mid-market receivers. A total mismatch in many ways.

Speaker design is part science and part art. I'm not going to run the enclosure and electrical calcs on this one, but it seems you have a frankenspeaker on your hands. Nothing wrong with that, and it can be a lot of fun. But I don't know what the combined overall impedance or frequency response of that array now is. It certainly isn't matched to the original Xover at this point. You may be throwing watts at it to overcome other weaknesses (severe impedance and frequency response variations) at this point.

I will repeat, most well-matched systems run around 1 watt continuous the vast majority of the time. Power is for increasing loudness and transients/dynamic range across the bandwidth. Higher power is not a cure-all, and more of it brings it's own set of problems that must be negotiated.

Another option to replacing electronics in these situations is to replace the speaker with one that fits better. Especially with homebrew gear, it sometimes is a cheaper and more satisfying result.

But if you like the sound, that's ALL that ultimately matters.

 

[97tbird]

I tried HK 3480 way back and hated the way it sounded - lifeless (not in a good neutral way), and just plain horrible and weak. CD input was DOA, too...
It seems they have improved things with the newer 3490 - i hear good things about them...

Went with a Music Hall 25.2 and never looked back - one of the best sounding int. amps i've heard in that price range; coupled with Onix Ref-1's and a Onix x-sub, the system sounds superb. It "only" has 50 wpc @ 8 ohm (100 wpc @ 4 ohm which the Ref-1s are), but sounds like it has way more power...

I do like the HK system in the BMW - it's nothing superlative, but has VERY decent SQ.

 

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: 97tbird
It "only" has 50 wpc @ 8 ohm (100 wpc @ 4 ohm which the Ref-1s are), but sounds like it has way more power...


We may have chattered about this in a past thread. There are "100wpc" amps . . . and there are 100wpc amps. It's ultimately not just about the advertised watts. And some watts sound a lot better than some others. You've discovered the difference.

I'm getting older now, so my reference frame might include classics and antiques for some. But when I think of "100 watt" amps, I think of something like this:

http://app.audiogon.com/listings/threshold-t-100-stasis-class-a

It's just a little "60 watter". But it really isn't. Seventy pounds of audio delight into any load for someone on a budget. And this is not even a true Pass-designed Threshold from the early days. The older ones are even better still by a good magnitude. But it's a nice piece nevertheless (provided one understands the risks of the IGBTs used on this particular series). This one in the listing is overpriced IMO by about $3-400. Just an example.

And high power isn't the same as good sound. While I have a muscular amp on the main system (due to the current the speakers demand) - and it takes some real muscle to lift it - my favorite sounding amps are usually well under 30 wpc.

 

[97tbird]

I agree - power is not everything, and i like how 'fine' and subtle the MH amp sounds at low volumes...what I like about it though, it retains almost all of this finesse even when you crank it up...I am sure the speakers play a big role in this, too...

My brother has a 180 wpc (at 8 ohm) Denon int. amp. To me it sounds horrible compared to the old-ish Marantz PM-50 SE int amp from the early 90's I had in germany which only had ~ 50 wpc at 8 ohm I think...

 

[HerrStig]

Good amps today have very low distortion figures, the same cannot be said for drivers, even very good ones. They have always been the weak link. I don't like being subjective about technical matters, but insofar as the human perception of sound is concerned, it's easy to be misled by "louder" rather than "cleaner". I have found that amps with good power supplies and output devices will usually show well in A/B tests, once the listener gets passed the perception that loud fuzzy bass is better than deep, clean, (and harder to produce) bass. These small, "ported" enclosures (which I call collectively the "Bose Illusion") are a example. What folks are hearing as bass is not what you would hear on a good set of headphones from the same recording. A good tool is a dual trace scope, to watch for changes from source to high level output, but not many folks have a Tek in the basement.

 

[HerrStig]

BTW a good source for driver upgrades is "Parts Express". Nice fat paper catalog, too.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Volvohead
OK,

That LF driver is a 2 ohm nominal car audio subwoofer. Very different from a LF driver designed for higher fidelity systems. A universe apart from the driver the CV engineers originally specified for that enclosure. I won't go into all the details. But the impedance mismatch and resulting load is the problem with using the HK. It's likely seeing 1 ohm or less at the very bottom, which is way too much for most mid-market receivers. A total mismatch in many ways.

Speaker design is part science and part art. I'm not going to run the enclosure and electrical calcs on this one, but it seems you have a frankenspeaker on your hands. Nothing wrong with that, and it can be a lot of fun. But I don't know what the combined overall impedance or frequency response of that array now is. It certainly isn't matched to the original Xover at this point. You may be throwing watts at it to overcome other weaknesses (severe impedance and frequency response variations) at this point.

I will repeat, most well-matched systems run around 1 watt continuous the vast majority of the time. Power is for increasing loudness and transients/dynamic range across the bandwidth. Higher power is not a cure-all, and more of it brings it's own set of problems that must be negotiated.

Another option to replacing electronics in these situations is to replace the speaker with one that fits better. Especially with homebrew gear, it sometimes is a cheaper and more satisfying result.

But if you like the sound, that's ALL that ultimately matters.


They are only 2 ohms if you wire them that way. I've got them wired for 8ohms

Remember, DVC subs/woofers can be wired in series or parallel.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: 97tbird
I tried HK 3480 way back and hated the way it sounded - lifeless (not in a good neutral way), and just plain horrible and weak. CD input was DOA, too...
It seems they have improved things with the newer 3490 - i hear good things about them...

Went with a Music Hall 25.2 and never looked back - one of the best sounding int. amps i've heard in that price range; coupled with Onix Ref-1's and a Onix x-sub, the system sounds superb. It "only" has 50 wpc @ 8 ohm (100 wpc @ 4 ohm which the Ref-1s are), but sounds like it has way more power...

I do like the HK system in the BMW - it's nothing superlative, but has VERY decent SQ.


Any idea as to the significant differences between the 3480 and the 3485? I'd certainly not describe the sound the 3485 makes as "lifeless"

It replaced an older two-piece Pioneer unit, which in turn, had replaced an old HK from the 70's that was 80x2.

 

[OVERKILL]

I've encountered an interesting issue..... Apparently these cabinets are too light

When playing something like Rihanna (don't judge!) at relatively high volume, they move backwards across the floor.....

 

[SteveSRT8]

He he, I've had that with home made enclosures I used to have.

Sound is extremely personal.

If it sounds good, it is. What you like may sound terrible to someone else. People get so caught up in technical specifications and forget that we LISTEN to sound systems. I once participated in a DCM clinic and when you are blindfolded you may choose differently.

I have tons of high frequency hearing loss due to decades of noisy equipment without protection so most people do not like my equalizer settings!

 

[Volvohead]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
. . . People get so caught up in technical specifications and forget that we LISTEN to sound systems. . .


It's the folks who listen to their systems, or the measurement disciples who listen only with their scopes, who regret and forget the object of the hobby . . . listening to the MUSIC brings the joy.

This hobby, and all it's instruments, circuits, and parts, right down to the solder, are intended to deliver music and pleasure, not satisfy an oscilloscope.

While I have a fully equipped bench, when I first size up a system (one in good repair), I will only need about 30 seconds listening to a reference recording which I know intimately. After that, I usually know the system's strengths and weaknesses and what needs to be corrected. In a known instrument, I can usually ascertain nuances of the resistors, capacitors and active elements involved. If someone replaced a polyester with a teflon, or swapped in an RCA black plate for a Mullard short plate, I will know it. And by ear I'll usually know it's an RCA black plate, too.

But after that, if I choose to listen further, it's just me and the performer and the notes -- the system is gone.

Specifications are not the sole touchstone. Some of the least musical and least satisfying equipment I have encountered over the years had impressive "specs". How things work together and "sing in unison" is usually more important. It's all about tone and voicing.

__________

Why the OP is using car subwoofers in an vintage home speaker, I do not know. Why he wants to power them with a portable pro amp one step removed from a PA design, I do not know. I no longer question the ingredients used. If I can help point out why a certain result happens, or how to get there, I will still try to do so.

But if it sounds good or better to him, and it brings him pleasure, that is all that matters.

 

[OVERKILL]

Originally Posted By: Volvohead
Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
. . . People get so caught up in technical specifications and forget that we LISTEN to sound systems. . .


It's the folks who listen to their systems, or the measurement disciples who listen only with their scopes, who regret and forget the object of the hobby . . . listening to the MUSIC brings the joy.

This hobby, and all it's instruments, circuits, and parts, right down to the solder, are intended to deliver music and pleasure, not satisfy an oscilloscope.

While I have a fully equipped bench, when I first size up a system (one in good repair), I will only need about 30 seconds listening to a reference recording which I know intimately. After that, I usually know the system's strengths and weaknesses and what needs to be corrected. In a known instrument, I can usually ascertain nuances of the resistors, capacitors and active elements involved. If someone replaced a polyester with a teflon, or swapped in an RCA black plate for a Mullard short plate, I will know it. And by ear I'll usually know it's an RCA black plate, too.

But after that, if I choose to listen further, it's just me and the performer and the notes -- the system is gone.

Specifications are not the sole touchstone. Some of the least musical and least satisfying equipment I have encountered over the years had impressive "specs". How things work together and "sing in unison" is usually more important. It's all about tone and voicing.

__________

Why the OP is using car subwoofers in an vintage home speaker, I do not know. Why he wants to power them with a portable pro amp one step removed from a PA design, I do not know. I no longer question the ingredients used. If I can help point out why a certain result happens, or how to get there, I will still try to do so.

But if it sounds good or better to him, and it brings him pleasure, that is all that matters.


Thank you

I DO think it sounds better.

How would you suggest I prevent the speakers from moving? They have the factory plastic feet, would you advise rubber? While amusing that heavy bass notes make them walk, it isn't very practical to allow it to continue.