Still on a small budget, power amp questions.

[herbertv2]

Feeling a bit more confident about the direction we are going after talking to a retired sound engineer that did work on the pa system at the church before so decided a new post would be best.
Where we currently are is with the two Bose 251 speakers as the mains, 1 12in Rockville Powered Sub and 4 Galaxy Audio HotSpot HSVC monitors on stage, will be adding 2 possibly 4 JBL control 25s as delays to fill in the gaps left by the Bose 251s.

Now for my question I was leaning towards Crown branded power amplifier, the engineer recomends QSC or Peavey branded amplifiers and to avoid Behringer like it was the plague. So looking for your experiences with Crown, QSC and Peavey? Should note the engineer sells QSC and Peavey equipment.

[Sam Spoons]

Crown and QSC both have an excellent reputation (I have QSC actives as my main FOH speakers), Peavey are, by reputation, probably a step or two down in price and quality and Behringer are a budget brand when it comes to PA. My personal experience is that Crown (various models from XLi to Macrotech) are reliable, powerful and sound good, my QSC K12s are superb and have proved reliable and Behringer sound fine if you don't push them but are significantly less well constructed and not as reliable as the others. I don't recall using Peavey power amps but have not heard anything bad about them.

I would be happy to buy QSC from your engineer guy if the deal is ok. Useful to keep him onside should you need further advice.

[James Perrett]

While it has been a few years since I've been involved in live sound, I've had good experiences with both QSC and Peavey amps. I'm not so keen on Peavey speakers but their electronics are good.

[resistorman]

I've used QSC for decades with virtually no problems at all and have always found the sound quality great. The one time I had a 10 year old amp go bad they repaired it for free. I wasn't even the original owner. I have no idea if their service is still that good, since nothing of theirs has broken since.

[shufflebeat]

I have a Peavey cs1000 in a box somewhere which drove our bass bins for years without trouble. I heard some nice things about it from bass players but it was/is a serious chunk of iron and copper and doesn’t really have a place in the hatchback.

We’ve come a long way since then and I don’t hear much talk to reassure me that Peavey have kept up with modern requirements in the way QSC seem to have.

Our other amps were Yamaha, which were much more manageable with plenty of grunt. They seem much more keen to stay current (so to speak).

I’ve had reasonably good experience with Behringer amps when people have asked me for advice specifically about cheap amps but I also advised to keep the receipt somewhere safe for when the warranty was required.

[ef37a]

I know nothing about the sonic qualities of the makes mentioned (I suspect next to buggerall diff' in practice!) but I have respect for a Peavey amp I used at the 'gitamp shop'.

It was old school, heavy as **** 500W per ch IIRC and was used in conjunction with a 60 Hz oscillator that the late tech director Bruce built to deliver a simulated US 110V 60Hz mains supply.

Used to power pedal supplies and even a 5W valve amp it worked famously but we got a bit silly and tried it with a 50W head. After about 5 minutes the amp shut down but after a few minutes cool down was juicing the amp once again. I cut the test short!

I seem to recall that there was a Quad ll amplifier with a special 240V OPTraff used to drive a gramophone motor from battery supplies? It might even have had a 'vibrator' HT generator in it a la early car radios?

Dave.

[James Perrett]

I know nothing about the sonic qualities of the makes mentioned (I suspect next to buggerall diff' in practice!) but I have respect for a Peavey amp I used at the 'gitamp shop'.

It was old school, heavy as **** 500W per ch IIRC and was used in conjunction with a 60 Hz oscillator that the late tech director Bruce built to deliver a simulated US 110V 60Hz mains supply.

Apparently the old Crown DC300A was often used for industrial purposes - driving tables for vibration testing. I think they were also used in an early tape sync system to drive the synchronous capstan motors on tape machines. A mains frequency signal would be recorded on one tape machine and then used, via the power amp, to drive the capstan motor of the other tape machine so that they stayed in sync.

We used a QSC amp for driving a sonar transmitter which was a more difficult load than a normal speaker - other amps we tried didn't survive (though we didn't try Peavey or Crown).

[shufflebeat]

Apparently the old Crown DC300A was often used for industrial purposes - driving tables for vibration testing. I think they were also used in an early tape sync system to drive the synchronous capstan motors on tape machines.

I have a vague memory of being told about someone putting a 9v battery across the input of a Crown amp and charging a lorry battery with the outputs.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME - for a variety of reasons.

[Arpangel]

On a more budget note, I've heard that the Thomann range of amps are pretty good value, and sound OK.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Apparently the old Crown DC300A was often used for industrial purposes - driving tables for vibration testing. I think they were also used in an early tape sync system to drive the synchronous capstan motors on tape machines.

They were marketed as a "Laboratory Amplifier" and were most unusual at the time (1967 I think) for being DC coupled — allowing precise control of solenoids etc. Most transistor amps of the era had capacitor-coupled outputs!

I believe the HH S500 power amp was essentially a reverse-engineered DC300A, in a more practical rack case!