This is a review and detailed measurements of a clone implementation of the Lab Gruppen FP10000Q four channel amplifier. The real one costs about US $2,850. The clone version was kindly send to me by a member and costs around $800.
I get a kick out of them not putting the label in the provided space on the grill! I have not seen the original but this seems like a true clone of it. The unit is surprisingly heavy for a pro amp.
The FP 10000 designation refers to it producing total of 10,000 watts which is kind of amazing given a single 15 amp captive cord:
The fans in the unit howl fairly loudly. And more so if you stress the unit. Large number of gain settings and modes are provided as you see by the array of dip switches. I focused on stereo testing, using Channels A & B and lowest gain of 23 dB.
FP10000Q Amplifier Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard:
Don't know what is going with the weaker channel in blue. There are a lot of intermodulation products that don't exist in the other. Averaging both channels, the ranking is very close to poor:
Dynamic range is good though:
Channel separation is not:
Multitone is more reasonable than I expected:
This is some kind of hybrid class AB/Class D design and it shows from frequency response test:
It has no load dependency.
Being so used to these pro amps producing far less power than their spec, I ran the power sweep into 4 ohm. I saw the curve go past 1 killowatt at ease and then bam, everything shut down! It tripped the circuit breaker in my power strip which powered it, the analyzer and my computer. I rebooted and tested just one channel. I saw the power approach 2000 watts now with the same outcome: breaker tripping. So bypassed the power strip and used the AC outlet directly (20 Amp). This allowed me to sweep 4 ohm to clipping:
We are talking 3000 watts total! Granted, this is for a few milliseconds but still, I have never seen such a powerful amp on the bench.
Worried about smoking my dummy load, I limited the sweep for 8 ohm but still got crazy amount of power:
Not sure what happened in one channel.
Next was measuring power at 40 Hz:
No sweat..... But wait. What is that loud fan sound??? A secondary fan had turned on, making the amp sound like a vacuum cleaner. Look at the front panel and the overtemp LED is lit for Channel B. No worries. I let it cool. Sadly, that did nothing. Not only is that indicator stuck on with the fan going nuts, none of the channels work anymore.
Conclusions
Man, these amps are no joke. Owner wants to use them to drive DBA subs. If it can be hidden away so the noise is not a problem, you have incredible amount of power for so little money. I wish the thing had come with dual AC connections (for US market). Then you could use all four channels.
Reliability of course is a concern. Is this a true circuit clone of the original? If so, then I say it is not very reliable. But if they have cut corners, then I would think twice about purchasing it based on my experience.
I am torn between recommending and not recommending the FP 10000Q. Let me know what you think.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I get a kick out of them not putting the label in the provided space on the grill! I have not seen the original but this seems like a true clone of it. The unit is surprisingly heavy for a pro amp.
The FP 10000 designation refers to it producing total of 10,000 watts which is kind of amazing given a single 15 amp captive cord:
The fans in the unit howl fairly loudly. And more so if you stress the unit. Large number of gain settings and modes are provided as you see by the array of dip switches. I focused on stereo testing, using Channels A & B and lowest gain of 23 dB.
FP10000Q Amplifier Measurements
As usual, we start with our dashboard:
Don't know what is going with the weaker channel in blue. There are a lot of intermodulation products that don't exist in the other. Averaging both channels, the ranking is very close to poor:
Dynamic range is good though:
Channel separation is not:
Multitone is more reasonable than I expected:
This is some kind of hybrid class AB/Class D design and it shows from frequency response test:
It has no load dependency.
Being so used to these pro amps producing far less power than their spec, I ran the power sweep into 4 ohm. I saw the curve go past 1 killowatt at ease and then bam, everything shut down! It tripped the circuit breaker in my power strip which powered it, the analyzer and my computer. I rebooted and tested just one channel. I saw the power approach 2000 watts now with the same outcome: breaker tripping. So bypassed the power strip and used the AC outlet directly (20 Amp). This allowed me to sweep 4 ohm to clipping:
We are talking 3000 watts total! Granted, this is for a few milliseconds but still, I have never seen such a powerful amp on the bench.
Worried about smoking my dummy load, I limited the sweep for 8 ohm but still got crazy amount of power:
Not sure what happened in one channel.
Next was measuring power at 40 Hz:
No sweat..... But wait. What is that loud fan sound??? A secondary fan had turned on, making the amp sound like a vacuum cleaner. Look at the front panel and the overtemp LED is lit for Channel B. No worries. I let it cool. Sadly, that did nothing. Not only is that indicator stuck on with the fan going nuts, none of the channels work anymore.
Conclusions
Man, these amps are no joke. Owner wants to use them to drive DBA subs. If it can be hidden away so the noise is not a problem, you have incredible amount of power for so little money. I wish the thing had come with dual AC connections (for US market). Then you could use all four channels.
Reliability of course is a concern. Is this a true circuit clone of the original? If so, then I say it is not very reliable. But if they have cut corners, then I would think twice about purchasing it based on my experience.
I am torn between recommending and not recommending the FP 10000Q. Let me know what you think.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
