Karaoke Forums

Anyone familiar with this amp?

It appears to have a crossover built into it.  You can set it to cross at different frequencies.   You piggy back the banana plugs.  Subs plug into Channel 1 and tops plug into channel 2.   Plug them in wrong and blow out your horns.  

Now i am guessing that you would not be in stereo with that set up.  What i don't understand is, if it's a stereo amp, (and you ingnore the crossover feature for now,) how does it separate the right from the left?

If you run a single wire to a set of 3 speakers per side (sub and mid & horn) and jump from the bottoms to the top, that would be stereo. Right and left side separation.  Once you put both subs on one side and the tops on the other using two wires per side.  You have the subs putting out the left side music channel and the tops putting out the right side music channel.  How is that going to sound correct?  Any highs on the left side would not be reproduced and any lows from the right side would not be reproduced.  On stereo discs.   I don't think it wouldn't matter on mono discs.  But the majority of the disc manufactures use stereo.  

I can't see the advantage of this amp. Or this wiring setup.  Maybe i am missing something or don't understand the setup.

It looks to me like the XTI series of crown amps is a good bang for the buck amp. It has some very useful features. As far as your concern on splitting the amp between handling tops on one side and bottoms on the other. Thats a very common practice with an amp and certainly not exclusive to crown, most any amp can be wired that way. Running in stereo isn't all that important in a Karaoke situation and in most cases(depending on how far apart your upper cabinets are) not desirable for the mere fact that people on one side of the room aren't going to hear what the people on the other side of the room hear. I almost always run in mono for this reason. I run a three way system, One amp is bridged and powers the bottoms, another amp is run in stereo with one side feeding the mids and the other side feeding the horns.

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When the crossover is turned off, it will act just like a stereo amp.  WHen the crossover is engaged, it changes the signal path to each channel & acts as a bi-amp system.  It is basically a digital circuit amp & has some built in dsp, eq, limiters processors as well for signal delay/alignment between the mains & sub.  It pushes alot of power for it's weight (18.5 pounds).  I played with it a few nights & it does rock!  3 year, no fault warranty.  Good choice!

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The practice is common, but it's usually done with external processing.  I haven't heard of many amps that have the crossover built in to be able to use 1 channel for the sub & the other for the tops.  Most amps that have crossovers built in usually dedicate the amp to either sub or tops.'   My set-up is very similar to yours as well.  1 amp bridged to the sub, 1 for the mids (2 on 1 channel, 1 on the other), another for the highs (same config).  I have 1 full range speaker off to the side that is only bi-amped & the main area is tri'd.  
Working on bi-amping the monitor system next.

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Typical Stereo karaoke disc.


Left side                                                                       Right side

May contain drums,                                        May contain keyboards
back up vocals,                                              lead guitar                                    

keyboards, guitar, etc                                      bass guitar, lead singer, etc

This is how it would be with a stereo amp.  You would hear it this way from the back of the room.

With the crossover amplifier.  You run two wires biggybacked to the subs right and left, from channel one.   You run two wires biggybacked to the tops right and left from channel two.  

Look at the example above.   The instruments on the left channel will go to the subs.  The instruments on the right side will go to the tops.  You will lose about 1/3 or more of the high and low frequencies.  How?  There will be some bass frequencies that are on the right side that won't go to the subs on the left channel.  There will be some high frequencies that are on the left side that will not be sent to the right channel.

In my opinoion, this amplifier is strictly for live bands that are not playing their mix in stereo.  It is not meant for DJs or KJs that are using stereo discs.  When splitting the channels, one for subs and one for tops.  Mono discs it might work.  Who is buying all mono discs?   Over 95% on mine are stereo.

It would only work  by splitting the right and left sides to their respective speakers with single cables.  You would have all of the high and low frequencies delivered to the speakers.

I think you misunderstand stereo and how it relates to this. When you split a single sub and the tops, you use the mono mix. That doesn't depend on the disk -- it is available from any competent mixer, simply by mixing the left and right into the same channel.

If someone is talking about the left and right inputs, I am sure they are just talking about feeding the sub back in to the left input and the tops to the right input. Or more likely for an amp with a crossover, the mono mix going only to the left input where it gets split by frequency. The right input is ignored.

Of course there is more than one way to do this. One crossover setup I have takes both left and right inputs, and sums them together to produce the low output, while having two high outputs, one right, and one left.

The point is that with a single sub, it is as you say -- you don't take it's input from only one stereo side. There are mutliple ways to avoid that.

Are you mixing back in the late 60's?   Lol!  Drums are typically snare/kick in the center with the toms & cymbals panned from left to right to get that stage setting feel.  Bass is usually dead center, keys are generally center or slightly off center with a delay channel.



Like I said it's a digital amp, & once the crossover is engaged, it takes the stereo signal & converts it to a mono signal.



Stereo isn't very well suited for most clubs anyway, I haven't run a stereo mix in a club since the late 80's.  9 out of 10 times you cannot place the speakers where everyone in the club will benefit from.  Especially with stereo discs in your extreme example, one half of the club would hear mostly one thing, while the other half would hear the other stuff but not what the first half hears.  Most mixers can be set to run a mono mix.  Stereo mixes is good for recordings, home listening, home theater, theaters themselves.  Plus it really gives no added benefit to club listening.  And if you truley are dedicated to having to run a stereo mix, then you get 2 amps, run one on one channel & the other for the other.  You'd be surprised how many shows are run in mono.



It will work by taking the stereo signal & converting it into a mono signal so both the low & high inputs of the internal crossover (when engaged) get the same signal but the outputs will only deliver what they are supposed to deliver - sub frequenices to the sub channel & the rest to the other channel, it no longer is a stereo amp once the crossover is engaged, it is a mono amp & any stereo signal fed into it will be automatically converted into a useable mono signal.

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That was just an example. (May contain) To prove a point.  Every company would run their mix different.

You are still going to lose frequencies using the described set up.  Even if the amp is in a "Mono" mode.

Depending on which instruments are assigned to what side.


[highlight=darkblue]It will work by taking the stereo signal & converting it into a mono signal so both the low & high inputs of the internal crossover (when engaged) get the same signal but the outputs will only deliver what they are supposed to deliver - sub frequenices to the sub channel & the rest to the other channel, it no longer is a stereo amp once the crossover is engaged, it is a mono amp & any stereo signal fed into it will be automatically converted into a useable mono signal.[/highlight]

Are you 100% sure there will be no frequency lose?

Well sure, depencing on which insrtument is assigned to which side, sure  there would be a difference, however once the signal is sent to a mono output it won't matter in any way which side they were panned as they will all come out in the mix as equal.




There will be absolutely no frequency loss as all frequencies will be combines into a mono signal.  Trust me I tested this amp & am actually considering it to replace a couple I already have!  It's a really nice amp!

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There *is* no side. You are running mono. If you want to run stereo, you would need two amps.


Yes.

Well you'd need 2 amps if you wanted to run stereo with the crossover engaged on each.  Otherwise the 1 amp with the crossover disabled would be a stereo amp.

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Lonnie, your patience is to be commeded

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Quickness of mind will deceive the eye

I run stereo setups That being said I still run subs Mono.

A good set of high power subs will consume all the power from this amp.
The best bet is to have 2 amps in any Main with Sub Situation.

I know a few people that have used these amps and they were not big fans of the amp settings and decided to use external crossovers.

Yes. But he was talking about the crossover losing frequencies, so I presume that would mean it is engaged.

It does seem like a nice amp, and it would save me a rack space for my crossover. But I am unlikely to outgrow my EP2500 -- unless I keep doing what I am doing over time, accumulating more and more sound equipment.  Pretty soon I will have enough to run Woodstock VI.

Plus the fact that it only weighs 18 pounds vs the 40 or so for the EP.

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CAUTION:

If you use this amplifier in the crossover mode, (With two speakers wires piggybacked from one channel per side) connecting the tops into the wrong channel will blow the speakers.

As would connecting the outputs from any crossover to the wrong speakers.

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