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Author Topic: Proper gain structure  (Read 10797 times)

Jon McElvain

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Re: Posting Rules
« Reply #20 on: April 22, 2014, 06:21:49 PM »

Please go to your profile and change the "Name" field to your real first and last name as required by the posting rules displayed in the header at the top of the section, and in the Site Rules and Suggestions in the Forum Announcements section, and on the registration page when you registered.

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All fixed up, sorry.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Proper gain structure
« Reply #21 on: April 22, 2014, 07:55:27 PM »


I was working from the gain instructions provided at this link from Crown:

<http://www.crownaudio.com/media/pdf/133472.pdf>

It's interesting to note that the "volume" knob on amplifiers do not all function the same way.  It appears that Crown and Europower amplifiers adjust the input sensitivity.  If Crown is to be believed, in this scenario it's better to have the gain turned up on the front end leaving the amplifier with as much headroom, while minimizing noise, as possible.  The results in the system at my church were almost unbelievable when we made this change.  We also rewired the speakers and I think that was significant factor as well.
There is no level adjustment you can make on an amplifier that will give it more "headroom".  That is SOLEY limited by the output stage.

The best you can hope for is to LOWER the input noise from previous stages-giving you more "dynamic range" by making the noise floor lower.  But it does nothing to get any louder.

It is very rare that turning up the gain or sensitivity of an amp will improve the noise floor of the system.  Usually turning it down and driving the previous stages harder is what give the best noise performance.

I highly doubt any speaker rewiring made a "significant" change.  Unless there was something REALLY SERIOUSLY wrong in the first place.  But even then-I find it hard to believe it was "significant".

At least that is my experience.  Others may vary.
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Alex Rigodanzo

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Re: Proper gain structure
« Reply #22 on: April 22, 2014, 10:42:01 PM »

I know there are many ways to skin this cat and a lot depends on application.  Running bar bands here.  I always run the amps wide open because that is the easiest way to make sure the settings are consistent from gig to gig.  I also have the channel faders sit in the same range for consistency.  If changes are needed to the overall output, I do that at the xovers (I keep them racked at foh for just this purpose.) YMMV, but it works for me.
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Jon McElvain

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Re: Proper gain structure
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2014, 11:36:26 PM »

There is no level adjustment you can make on an amplifier that will give it more "headroom".  That is SOLEY limited by the output stage.

The best you can hope for is to LOWER the input noise from previous stages-giving you more "dynamic range" by making the noise floor lower.  But it does nothing to get any louder.

It is very rare that turning up the gain or sensitivity of an amp will improve the noise floor of the system.  Usually turning it down and driving the previous stages harder is what give the best noise performance.

I highly doubt any speaker rewiring made a "significant" change.  Unless there was something REALLY SERIOUSLY wrong in the first place.  But even then-I find it hard to believe it was "significant".

At least that is my experience.  Others may vary.

The short story for the speakers is that it appears that they were intended to be wired in a biamp configuration with the two highs in parallel and the two lows in parallel.  The two major issues were that they didn't remove the internal jumpers in the speakers and had both channels connected to a single channel on the amplifier.  The end result was two full range speakers in parallel which should have been fine, but based on the significant improvement my best guess is that the speakers were out of phase.  The one channel on the amplifier was turned all the way up and the gain on the previous stages was low.  We installed a second amplifier and have them both in bridged mode.  We made some assumptions about the speaker wiring and amplifier load and made the decision to get a second amplifier, but as it turns out it wasn't necessary and we have way more power available than is needed.  We also reversed the gain structure.  The sound honestly went from sounding like a cardboard box to me joking about Imax.  I am a home audiophile and it was the first time that I actually enjoyed music playing.
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Re: Proper gain structure
« Reply #23 on: April 22, 2014, 11:36:26 PM »


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