Just got a Buckeye Hypex NCx500 2ch with Def Tech D17 and a Wiim Ultra Pro to go along with my SVS PB-2000 that's been sitting waiting patiently for 10 yrs after 3 kids. Expected to blow myself away but was surprised at how it's not very loud. Doesn't help that my first set of D17's had a transformer that broke loose during shipment so none of the drivers worked. So now l'm paranoid more shits broke. The volume is at 80% and the power draw at the wall with a KillAWatt is only 60W. Wtf?
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Power draw less than expected
- Thread starter Jhnsmth
- Start date
That doesn’t exist, it’s either Ultra or Pro
That’s not surprising, music has a 10 to 20 dB crest factor, so the amp could easily draw multi 100W peaks with an average of 60W.
The amp has a gain switch: try setting it to medium or high.
- Thread Starter
- #3
Sorry, I know that. Not sure why I wrote pro. It’s an Ultra. The Ultra has the Line out level set to 2Vrms and the amp came configured with the Hypex gain. I’d have to open up the unit to switch to the Buckeye gain options, correct? Also, would that be a bad thing? I thought the current config was the correct settings. Would further increasing the gain cause considerable degradation?That doesn’t exist, it’s either Ultra or Pro
That’s not surprising, music has a 10 to 20 dB crest factor, so the amp could easily draw multi 100W peaks with an average of 60W.
The amp has a gain switch: try setting it to medium or high.
I don’t know, the model that I saw on their website had switches.
If it’s now configured correctly, I don’t know, I misplaced my crystal ball and I can’t seem to find it…
It’s best to double check on this.
staticV3
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Amplifier gain dictates loudness.
Rated power dictates headroom.
It's entirely possible for a 10W Amp with 34dB gain to be louder in practice than a 600W Amp with 25dB gain.
DVDdoug
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Of course it also depends on the "loudness" of the signal being fed-in. Analog signals from different devices can vary a lot. Some digital recordings are louder than others. All of the popular streaming services use loudness normalization to make all of the songs about the same loudness. And since a lot of recordings, including a lot of quiet-sounding recordings have "maximized" 0dB peaks and can't be boosted without clipping, the streaming services use a loudness target that ends-up lowering the volume of most songs. (The don't boost the peaks into clipping so some songs are still quieter than others.)
And yes, different amplifiers have different gain. But with all of these variations, most of the time you have enough signal and gain to push the amp into clipping (distortion).
It's usually pretty obvious when a speaker is broken... Usually bad distortion or rattling, or the woofer or tweeter isn't working, or something like that. And the left & right speakers are rarely equally-broken.
Sokel
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Specs are a little confusing but I don't think there's a higher gain option than when using the Hypex one,check it out:
are you using,RC,EQ,etc with Wimm?Cause these can cut a good chunk of signal on top of the recordings.
A nice recording is usually banging at 300mV at line level tops for sane listening ,so do the calc.
are you using,RC,EQ,etc with Wimm?Cause these can cut a good chunk of signal on top of the recordings.
A nice recording is usually banging at 300mV at line level tops for sane listening ,so do the calc.