Class D Hifi Speaker Amp with Guitar Cab

[budda]

Watts are watts. 60w pushing the right speakers should have no issues keeping up with drummers,

The velocity wont struggle to keep up, poorly eq’d guitar tone will

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Watts are watts.

Not really, no.

It's one of the reasons that measuring amps in wattage is pretty stupid in general, without proper context.

 

[laxu]

Not really, no.

It's one of the reasons that measuring amps in wattage is pretty stupid in general, without proper context.

Watts are watts, but the way they are measured and represented between amps can vary greatly. I think Fryette claims that even the Mesa 2:90 is closer to 65W than 90W.

Tube amps are typically rated for clean, low THD and can then go way above that with high THD (poweramp distortion). Solid-state amps are rated for clean, low THD and that's it. So that's where you get the "oh my tube watts are so much louder when at 4/10 it's louder than this SS amp at 9/10" even though both would be running at their max clean headroom at that point and measured volume might be similar.

And that's completely ignoring perceived volume which can depend on speaker sensitivity and sound profile as well as the amp used. More treble or mids is generally perceived as louder compared to having a lot of low end.

I would take the power ratings of those Class D Hifi amps with an absolutely massive grain of salt.

 

[budda]

Not really, no.

It's one of the reasons that measuring amps in wattage is pretty stupid in general, without proper context.

No ones asking about speaker efficiency though hm

 

[MaxOfMetal]

No ones asking about speaker efficiency though hm

See @laxu's post above.

Two very different amps rated at the same wattage, other than more than likely not actually being the same wattage, function differently and that's before you introduce a myriad of other variables outside the amp itself.

 

[complex-barb.0t]

So, I own that exact one. There's two problems I can see from skipping strait to that 16min mark.

The first problem is assuming that any solid state power amp like this is going to keep up with a tube amp, remembering at the same time that tube vs. solid don't handle clipping the same way. If you play FKING LOUD it will not keep up. This one won't, the quilter won't, the blackstar won't, none of them will. My comment was comparing two similar class D amps.

My 25w lunchbox Mesa head is a bit louder than the 200w when both are used under the ideal circumstances. My 90w Mark IV eats both of those for breakfast, has a nap, then demolishes the building, even with giant impedance mismatches and awful speakers. It's not apples and oranges, it's apples and Chinese buffets.

The second problem is that he's using an Orange cab. The PPC412 is the worst case scenario for the PS200 because it's designed to put out its full power at 4ohm, and those are 16ohm unless he's rewired it. There's a huge impedance mismatch here. At 16ohm, the wattage is going to be closer to 50-60w (it's not listed in the manual, unfortunately, because - as it says in the manual - it's intended for 4-8ohm loads). So you're comparing what might be a conservatively rated "100w" to 50w to a bunch of tube amps.

As a bonus, I don't know the science behind it, but it's my understanding that perceived volume is not an actual measure of volume or wattage or anything else really. If any of those amps are doing any kind of "simulation" that modifies the signal in a way that would make it be perceived as louder.... well, that'll affect the test.

If you put that same PS200 through a 4ohm Mesa 4x12 instead, with the volume where he had it, you're right back into "holy crap this is too loud" territory.

Some good points here but I was just comparing the two class D amps against each other. I never made any claims of either one hanging with a 100w tube amp. We do know by this comparison that the Amped 1 can get louder before clipping.

Now if you don’t want it, that’s coo with me. I was just listing a potential option. If you already have a PS200 why even bother with hifi amps? Most of them have very dubious watt ratings.

For the size I think the 100w Fryette power station is the way to go. Not solid state but a stupid powerful clean power amp.

 

[ATRguitar91]

Since there doesn't seem to be many folks who have tried this, I ordered a banana cable to 1/4 jack and am going to try this with my little amp I use for bookshelf speakers.

It has a full preamp/dac and is only 50w, but it should be pretty close to one of the simpler, bigger amps. It'll at least let me see if this approach is workable.

 

[TedEH]

Now if you don’t want it, that’s coo with me. I was just listing a potential option. If you already have a PS200 why even bother with hifi amps? Most of them have very dubious watt ratings.

I'm not the OP. I'm not using hifi amps for guitar. I was giving an opinion that, since I have a little amazon hifi amp, I wouldn't trust it to work well in a guitar setup.

 

[ATRguitar91]

Update: The banana plug to 1/4 came in, so I brought my little speaker amp home and hooked it up to my Stomp via RCA, and it sounds amazing! Clean, clear tone, without much if any coloration. It sounds pretty close to what my Crown XLS1000 does, but in an amp that can fit into the palm of your hand.

I had it hooked up to my Mesa OS 412 and Vader 412 running at 4 ohms, and it got as loud as I was comfortable pushing it without hearing protection, with no distortion that I could hear.

As a proof of concept, I feel like this is a resounding win for these cheapo class D amps. I played this same setup with my Quilter MicroBlock, and the no name amp sounds way better to my ear. The Quilter's preamp imparts a lot of its own tonal characteristics, which is not what I'm looking for from a poweramp.

If anyone is looking for a cheap poweramp solution for a modeler, I think these are a solid option. No way to judge the reliability, but at least the amp I have has had zero issues for the year I've owned it.

 

[c7spheres]

Mine Velocity has got to be pushing 20 years old at this point, so reliability is definitely a question. And the one time I tried it with a drummer it struggled to keep up.

I may have better luck this time now that I know to run it in bridged mode, but I'm not counting on it.

I'd go with the Rocktron out of the one's you're talking about. The room your in and cab will affect effectiveness. When in a thunder god drummer situation you'd be better off with say 2 1x12's aimed properly than a 4x12 for example. Or even a single 1x12 to beam where you want to fill out the room. Getting thump and volume isn't really an issue it's dispersion for monitoring.

 

[ATRguitar91]

I'd go with the Rocktron out of the one's you're talking about

Now that I know a cheap little class D amp is a viable option, I'll probably buy one of those to use at home which will free up my Crown to be used out and about.

My hangup before was that the Crown sounded so much better than my other options that I wanted to keep it at home, but if I can get 90% of the way there with a class D amp, I'll just get one of those for home use. That way I won't have to worry about the volume and potential reliability issues down the road.

 

[c7spheres]

Now that I know a cheap little class D amp is a viable option, I'll probably buy one of those to use at home which will free up my Crown to be used out and about.

My hangup before was that the Crown sounded so much better than my other options that I wanted to keep it at home, but if I can get 90% of the way there with a class D amp, I'll just get one of those for home use. That way I won't have to worry about the volume and potential reliability issues down the road.

Somethign to keep in mind is class d will punch, feel and breakup a little different. Wether that's an issue is personal taste. I find class-D to be fine but at loud volumes it tends to smack the ear drum harsher because of pulse wave modulation. It doesn't break up like a real amp either. It's harsher. It's like led lights are class-d bright white, solidstate is halogen off white or white, and tubes are incandescent golden sun warmth. lol.

 

[ATRguitar91]

Somethign to keep in mind is class d will punch, feel and breakup a little different. Wether that's an issue is personal taste. I find class-D to be fine but at loud volumes it tends to smack the ear drum harsher because of pulse wave modulation. It doesn't break up like a real amp either. It's harsher. It's like led lights are class-d bright white, solidstate is halogen off white or white, and tubes are incandescent golden sun warmth. lol.

That makes sense, I like that light bulb analogy. I haven't used one at stage volumes yet, but since I'm feeding it with a modeller I'm not wanting any breakup or coloration of the tone anyways.

At least at solo practice levels, I really like the response I get from Class D. I can dial in as much punch and compression as I want on the modeller side.

 

[ATRguitar91]

Update: My new amp arrived. The $25 Nobsound NS-03G off of Aliexpress (without a power supply). Only took a week to get here which is nice. 100w of class D power in an amp that fits in the palm of your hand.

First impressions are that this thing is impressive. It compares quite favorably to my Crown XLS1000. It doesn't impart any kind of flavor to my HX Stomp tone, which is exactly what I'm looking for. It just takes the quiet signal and makes it loud.

It may be a bit brighter and not have as much fullness in the low end like the Crown, but for $25 it's hard to nitpick. I would have no qualms about jamming or gigging with the tone this thing produces. I would take the tone this little amp puts out over my Rocktron Velocity and Quilter Microblock.

Running into an 8 ohm cab with a 19v power supply, at around 1-2 o'clock it was reaching volumes that I wasn't comfortable with sustaining for long, and I didn't hear any obvious distortion or discoloration from the amp.

The real question is going to be reliability, but that's something I'll have to see over time. This little booger is going to stay home and free up my Crown for music outside the home. Overall, I'm super happy with my little experiment and it turned out better than I expected.

 

[c7spheres]

Update: My new amp arrived. The $25 Nobsound NS-03G off of Aliexpress (without a power supply). Only took a week to get here which is nice. 100w of class D power in an amp that fits in the palm of your hand.

First impressions are that this thing is impressive. It compares quite favorably to my Crown XLS1000. It doesn't impart any kind of flavor to my HX Stomp tone, which is exactly what I'm looking for. It just takes the quiet signal and makes it loud.

It may be a bit brighter and not have as much fullness in the low end like the Crown, but for $25 it's hard to nitpick. I would have no qualms about jamming or gigging with the tone this thing produces. I would take the tone this little amp puts out over my Rocktron Velocity and Quilter Microblock.

Running into an 8 ohm cab with a 19v power supply, at around 1-2 o'clock it was reaching volumes that I wasn't comfortable with sustaining for long, and I didn't hear any obvious distortion or discoloration from the amp.

The real question is going to be reliability, but that's something I'll have to see over time. This little booger is going to stay home and free up my Crown for music outside the home. Overall, I'm super happy with my little experiment and it turned out better than I expected.

Nice. What you using for power supply?

 

[ATRguitar91]

Nice. What you using for power supply?

Just a 19v laptop supply I have on hand. These amps take a regular DC barrel jack, so according to the manual it'll take anything from 12 to 24v.

I've got a 24v from Quilter that came with the Microblock I could use, but I'm getting more than enough volume with 19v.

 

[ATRguitar91]

After a couple days of testing, I'm even more impressed than I was initially. I've tried with a couple of different power supplies, and aside from headroom, I don't notice significant tonal differences. Same thing with running 8 or 4 ohm.

However, I have ABed it as close as I can against my Crown, and I think you'd struggle to tell the difference in a blind test. There may be some very slight differences in terms of clarity favoring the Crown, but that could just be in my head because I think the Crown should sound better.

At this point, I've got the little Nobsound amp permanently setup to be my home amp for the Stomp, so I'll just be testing to see how long it goes. Hopefully it holds up over the long haul, because I'm really happy with the sounds I'm getting out of this $25 amp.

 

[TedEH]

This thread makes me wonder if I could just order one of those ICEpower boards and stick it in a cab to make a powered cab.

 

[ATRguitar91]

This thread makes me wonder if I could just order one of those ICEpower boards and stick it in a cab to make a powered cab.

I don't have the electronics knowledge to know if it could work, but if it would, I bet it'd sound great.

 

[TedEH]

I don't have the electronics knowledge to know if it could work, but if it would, I bet it'd sound great.

I mostly don't either, but it looks straitforward. The boards already have power supplies on them, it might be as simple as buying the board, buying some jack plugs and connecting them up. Maybe. The one that's used in the PS170 is little more than $100. It's tempting to try it.