Adire plate amps no more :-(

[Mark_IDT]

Kyle from acoustic visions gave me the drop that Adire probably won't bring back their line of class D plate amps. This is very dissapointing as I was lining up to buy their brute 1200w to compliment a 15" tumult. I wish the word was they'll be back just hold out for a while but it looks like I'll have to settle for a dayton audio 1000w. While the dayton is obviously no wuss it has almost half the features that Adire threw into their amps. The one pluss is the dayton may actually have better sound quality though I heard neither. Well before I buy is there any other brands of plate amps I should have a look at?

Thanks -Mark

[kexodusc]

I'm not a fan of the class D amps at all for subwoofers. They're high wattage for sure, but they seem to really feel more comfortable far below their max spec wattage. I dont' have anything scientific to base this on at all, unusual for me for those that know me, but I have done several a/b's in a DIY "club" (for lack of better term) where we swapped amps in and out. A 500 watt amps seemed to have much less problem delivering the juice at high than the 2 class D's we had. I think the class D topology suffers from not having beefy PSU's and large enough caps for delivering that raw current to low impedance drivers. Instantaneous power for short bursts, it can deliver a bit, but a longer bass note, or multiple bass notes and they struggle a bit. Still lots of power, and you can't fry eggs on them like the ol' class a's and b's, but they high specs are quite misleading. I could be off, but we all heard it.

That Dayton sub is an absolute workhorse - class G, a bit different from the D's, similar efficiency (does anyone really care about that though?) but a more conventional output stage.. Features aside, it's got plenty of juice.

FWIW, most people I know running one or more Tumults or whatever giant woofers you can think of tend to just buy big, high current capable pro-amps and bridge them for gobs of power. I have a 400 sq ft plus room that does more than fine with a "small" 240 watt amplifier driving my 88 dB sensitive 15" woofer.

[Mark_IDT]

Hey Kex you probably remember what it is I'm trying to do that is building a franken sub as you quoted it with a tumult 15. Well I've been unable to build it cause the tumults haven't come out yet but should in a few weeks. Anyway I spent most of my money while waiting and was going to just buy the amp for now and there gone also. You all had pretty much agreed on just getting a plate amp before sence it includes the crossover, eq, and everything. If I were to go with a seperate amp what else would I need besides a behringer feedback destroyer? I actually just bought a tempest classic off ebay for $100 that I intended to use for now it's a dual 8ohm and buy the amp I intend to use for a tumult later. I need some bass in a hurry it's been way too long, The dayton 1000w is on sale for $325 and a OSC plx is about $800 I figured I will need the behringer with either route.

Thanks -Mark

[kexodusc]

Plate amp is definitely easier, and more compact than the pro-amp solutions especially if you want it all in one box. If you seriously need some mega watt power though, it might be an option...Downside to the pro amp options is that you usually hook them up with to the L/R speaker outs of your amp or receiver, instead of the low level output. And if you need a pre-amp, crossover, eq, etc, I can't see it being cheaper, smaller or better than a plate amp. So yeah, I still prefer the plate amp option, even if you have to wait. Just so happens a few people I know who have lots of audio gear use old pro-amps rather than buying plate amps. I'm sure if they had to buy from scratch, they'd have bought plate amps.

What volumes are you hoping to achieve here? $325 for that amp is pretty reasonable, and I'm sure it's enough for most people.

[Mark_IDT]

Well considering a Tumult has no problem playing to 120db I would like to see close to that. Yes I realize just how loud that is I've metered my friends band playing in a garage at ovr 115db and thats the kind of volume I'm looking for. This sub will have dual purposes both as my house unit and for a dj setup for large frat parties and outside parties as well. I don't mind seperates a rack would be nice to set my laptop on which will be used for most of the playback when i'm djing. I didn't even think of a preamp though. I need to hit the ground running at under $600 -$100 for the behringher leaves $500 for amp, pre amp, and crossover. Not looking good for the seperates approach. Oh and I don't mind buying good used ebay stuff.

[Woochifer]

That's too bad, because that means that the Rava II subwoofer will probably also disappear into vaporware history. On paper, that thing was a worldbeater, but unfortunately, subwoofers are no good to anybody if everything that they can do remains on paper.

All of these rollout delays have been very disappointing. It took Adire forever to announce their new product lineup when they started up their Chilean manufacturing operation. And more than a year later, the majority of what they announced still hasn't been sold yet.

[Mark_IDT]

In all likelyhood I'll end up with the dayton but with some of the recent reading I've done a question has come about. What type of amps are best for subs? I suppose I should split that into a sound quality/sound level question as well. I've seen class A, AB, D, G and others maybe. When it comes to amps I've spent more time reasearching how speakers work so I'm not so versed on amplification.