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Post by Darren on Jun 30, 2006 9:33:18 GMT -7
Hi Guys,
Since I dove into the IB world I've been struggling with how much power is needed for different drivers.
I've found that Darrel's 15" drivers are quite happy with 200 - 250 watts per driver. That's all I have experience with though.
What about high excursion drivers like the SoundSplinter RL-P15 dual 4 ohm. How many watts are you feeding those per driver? Are you able to reach their limit or is that getting insane?
I'm considering upgrading my amp to the Behringer EP2500 and want to be sure I have enough power for whichever driver I end up going with. with dual 4ohm drivers an 8ohm load is all I can reduce it to with 4 drivers. That's 325 watts per driver.
Enough?
What are your thoughts and experiences?
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Post by PeterW on Jun 30, 2006 14:28:16 GMT -7
i ran a dayton quatro 15'' woofer in an ib config with 360 watts at 4 ohms. The amp had tons of headroom and the woofer was reaching xmax with mabe 75% of the amps power being used.... it probably could have easilly run on 150 watts or so..
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jeffp
New Member
Posts: 41
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Post by jeffp on Jul 3, 2006 8:52:25 GMT -7
I'm running the RMX-1450 with 4x rlp's. However in looking at this question and how I have it wired I reliaze I made a fatal mistake in my hookup of wiring the dual coils. I wired to the same coil not across if that makes any sense. I'm not really sure what load I'm running at now. So I can't accurately answer your question until after I move my wires this weekend. I wired it like this diagram except I didn't notice the DVC orientation. Basically if you rotated the speakers 90 degrees and left the wiring the same that's what I have now. It's a wonder it works at all  LOL. akamaipix.crutchfield.com/graphics/infolib/carlib/subs/2_4ohmDVC_4ohm.gif |
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Post by eeyore on Jul 3, 2006 14:42:24 GMT -7
Which amp are you using now?
I am using the Behringer 1500 and wish that I had bought a 2500.
I am currently giving each driver 225 watts and barely see the drivers move.
Good output seems to be coming when I have the gain turned up to 26+ which is about 75%.
I'm about to pull the trigger on another EP1500 to see if more power is what I am lacking to get the drivers to travel a bit more.
I'm hoping to avoid more drivers but I am not against it.
I figure that if the second amp doesn't get it done I will need it when I add additional drivers.
I read your experiences with equalizing and house curves etc... I did find that a house curve improved things for me but I still need to work on it some more.
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Post by chrisbee on Jul 4, 2006 1:37:13 GMT -7
It's odd. I have the same "problem".
An EP2500 and 4 x AEIB15s in series pairs and these never seem to move either.
I had the EP2500 controls at maximum for Irene on Blackhawk Down expecting lots of cone movement. But I had hardly any movement even when the IB was exceeding the output of the 16-46. (I was experimenting with both subs for films at the time)
I have been wondering whether I should increase the input gain on my CX2310 crossover to get some lights up on the EP2500 and the BFD. On Irene I was just getting occasional flickers on the EP2500's yellow diodes. I'm lucky if I ever see the second yellow bars bars light up on the BFD.
On films I already have the output on the crossover's Low channel feeding the IB set at maximum. The high channel which feeds the stereo power amp for the speakers is cut back by 3 dB to get a better balance between sub and dialogue. This nominal 9dB difference makes me wonder whether I'm feeding enough signal to the big Behringer pro amp.
Since I'm more interested in music than films my system is really just a simple biamped stereo speaker + IB subwoofer(s) system. I'm just getting whatever bass is in the signal to the main (stereo) speakers whether on music or DVD film.
No LFE. Though I recently tried connecting the SVS to the LFE socket on my old Yamaha DSPE800 2.1 processor that I use to feed the rear speakers for fims. I also tried the SVS on the Sub-out socket on my DVD player. Neither option added anything spectacular compared with the output from the IB.
I'm still hoping for more bass on films but seem to have reached the limits of the power available still without much cone movement.
Or have I?
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Darrel
Junior Member
Posts: 58
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Post by Darrel on Jul 4, 2006 7:10:28 GMT -7
Hey Guys. I am not sure I am understanding these "problems" you are experiencing with your drivers. Low cone movement or excursion is the desired goal for low distortion and is exactly what you want. If you are creating sufficient bass output to balance these frequencies with your mains and you are seeing little cone movement... This is a very good thing..... If on the other hand your drivers are working like crazy just to keep up with the mains , you are in need of more drivers . As I understand it , the beauty of IB is in it's ability to play clean and low with little to no noticeable levels of distortions. Low cone movement = low distortion....... I would say that the amount of power needed would be that which allows your sub woofer system to balance it's output with that of the mains in the most demanding situation you would normally expect them to be in and sufficient headroom to keep from clipping the amp. If this is happening and your cones are barely moving... smile If on the other hand your drivers are reaching close to xmax all the time.... consider increasing the number of drivers necessary to get that cone movement back down to it's min. Darrel |
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ken
Full Member
Posts: 187
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Post by ken on Jul 4, 2006 7:48:47 GMT -7
It's odd. I have the same "problem". An EP2500 and 4 x AEIB15s in series pairs and these never seem to move either. I had the EP2500 controls at maximum for Irene on Blackhawk Down expecting lots of cone movement. But I had hardly any movement even when the IB was exceeding the output of the 16-46. (I was experimenting with both subs for films at the time) I have an ep2500 which l'm currently running bridged into my ported 15' box sub atm until l get my ib drivers setup , and l can tell you that the ep2500 doesnt start working until you get those yellows lights really going.....sounds like you have to increase your input signal by a fair margin if you want to really get it happening........there's a link somwheer about line level boosters you can get to do theis on here somewhere...cheers Kesa32. |
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Post by ThomasW on Jul 4, 2006 8:05:39 GMT -7
It's odd. I have the same problem. An EP2500 and 4 x AEIB15s in series pairs and these never seem to move either. Didn't you post that the IB wall was flexing?. As I recall Issac Newton published something about = and opposite reactions?....  This should tell you something.....  How many times do I need to post that one doesn't want to see ANY yellow bar light up? ......  Why is the difference an issue for concern? If for some reason you think that your mains and the IB should receive have identical output signals then you'd need to have identical efficiency speaker, and amps with identical amounts of gain. Have you gone into the setup menu for the DVD player to make sure it's setup for your system? There's a reason someone put a master volume control on the front panel of the amp, and provided level setting output knobs of the crossover so one could balance the relative output levels between the sub and mains. You may want to buy a line level shifting device to up the drive level to the EP. I have no idea if this will help. |
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Post by Darren on Jul 4, 2006 10:39:18 GMT -7
Wow, lots of discussion on this. Good topic, looks like some learning will take place.
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Post by Darren on Jul 4, 2006 10:46:26 GMT -7
Which amp are you using now? I am using the Behringer 1500 and wish that I had bought a 2500. I am currently giving each driver 225 watts and barely see the drivers move. Good output seems to be coming when I have the gain turned up to 26+ which is about 75%. I'm about to pull the trigger on another EP1500 to see if more power is what I am lacking to get the drivers to travel a bit more. I'm hoping to avoid more drivers but I am not against it. I figure that if the second amp doesn't get it done I will need it when I add additional drivers. I read your experiences with equalizing and house curves etc... I did find that a house curve improved things for me but I still need to work on it some more. I bought the EP1500 and use that currently but I don't believe it would be sufficient for the rpl's if I were to go that route. Which drivers are you using? The main question I'm concern is that with the dual 4ohm rlp's you can only get an 8ohm load with 4. That limits me to 325 watts per driver. That might be perfect I just don't know since I've never tried it |
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Post by eeyore on Jul 4, 2006 16:33:15 GMT -7
I'm using 8ohm Accoustic Elegance IB15's wired for four ohm loads (two drivers per channel.
I always get my terms mixed up (series and parallel) but you could wire two sets of drivers in parallel for two 8-ohm loads and then wire those in series for one 4 ohm load and bridge your EP1500 for 1400 watts going to your drivers. That's 350 per driver.
Seems to be pretty good for a start.
If it isn't enough you could try another amp later.
Edit: sorry, I was under the impression that you were using 4 drivers.
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Post by titch on Jul 4, 2006 17:34:57 GMT -7
Thats how Im running the my ep1500 (bridged 4ohm) |
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Post by chrisbee on Jul 4, 2006 23:56:45 GMT -7
Thankyou Thomas. I just feel so left out when I'm not getting clipping warning lights on every box in my system and my driver coils aren't bopping on their backplates. |
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Post by Darren on Jul 5, 2006 6:36:44 GMT -7
I'm using 8ohm Accoustic Elegance IB15's wired for four ohm loads (two drivers per channel. I always get my terms mixed up (series and parallel) but you could wire two sets of drivers in parallel for two 8-ohm loads and then wire those in series for one 4 ohm load and bridge your EP1500 for 1400 watts going to your drivers. That's 350 per driver. Seems to be pretty good for a start. If it isn't enough you could try another amp later. Edit: sorry, I was under the impression that you were using 4 drivers. Yes, I am using 4 drivers. With four 8 ohm drivers you can run two in parallel for 4 ohms a pair then in series to get 8 ohms or you could go two in series for 16 a pair then run those in parallel for 8... there is no way to get a 4 ohm load out of four 8 ohm drivers wired together unless you split them into two channels which only gives each driver 200 watts. |
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Post by ThomasW on Jul 5, 2006 7:26:45 GMT -7
If people want a realistic idea of what the power requirements are for their IB, they should run Unibox and take a look...
Put in the largest value possible for the box size, enter the T/S parameters for your drivers, and the Pmax for a single driver, select the number of drivers you have, and take a look at the sealed box plot...
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Post by Darren on Jul 5, 2006 12:11:33 GMT -7
Hm, can't find all the required TS parameters to enter into Unibox for the SoundSplinter RL-P15, many of them don't appear to be used but there are several that are used and I don't even know what they are.
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Post by ThomasW on Jul 5, 2006 13:34:13 GMT -7
Hm, can't find all the required TS parameters to enter into Unibox for the SoundSplinter RL-P15, many of them don't appear to be used but there are several that are used and I don't even know what they are. All you need are those for the upper left block where data can be entered. Unibox automatically calculates the rest. |
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Post by Darren on Jul 5, 2006 14:08:17 GMT -7
Ok, I have everything except for Le... I have Ls and Lp but no Le, Le2 or Re2...
I entered 0 for all of those above but I get a spreadsheet error "Genearl Drive Unit configuration Error" and lots of divide by zero errors and not a number errors
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Post by ThomasW on Jul 5, 2006 14:20:37 GMT -7
Use Ls for the Le and leave the rest blank.
Having the Le just tells you how the output will roll-off in the higher frequencies. It's not really needed for what you're doing.
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Post by Darren on Jul 5, 2006 14:23:42 GMT -7
Still get all the divide by zero errors etc...  Evidently I'm missing a step to have it calculate the remaining values because that isn't being done. |
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