Peter you never did answer my question. Is there anywhere in the USA where your products can be seen, touched, or purchased?
Dear Bob, sorry for the late answer we do not have official US distributor yet. This situation will changing soon as our universal line range amps (XE-U/XD-U) now completed with the 10000 models. I can not really follow where and how our devices used but probably several devices went to your country on various channels...
but I like the idea of limited output on single phase, and full stadium power on 3 phase. Just wish my price on the PKN 40K was a bit better.
If you are interested this would be bit lower power but still strong&efficient amp, with very wide single phase AC line range:
http://www.pknaudio.com/~peter/Amps/XE-10KUint2s.jpg its power capability of over 5KW/ch @4R is probably OK for most of the 2K/8R speakers with some headroom.
We have also "dumb version" without display/Ethernet/remote control, called XD10000U.
While I agree that this amplifier is quite a feat of technology and I’m sure it’s everything it’s purported to be, I don’t think I’d be very comfortable running so many speakers on one amp.
Lose one of these amps for whatever reason and your sound will seriously be down.
If one two channel amp feeding say two subs goes down, you haven’t lost much sound.
Dear Paul, We put basically two identical 3PHASE-20K into the 40K housing so it has two separated, fused 3 phase power supply, housekeeping PSU and a pair of two channel endstages. Only the power connector, some of the input EMI filtering, the front display and remote control panel for networking shared. If one of the power supply of amplifier stage blow up during the show the other two channel still remain operational. For example If you shot through your amp by a rifle on the left side A,B channels lost but C,D still working!
Another thing is that these 3PHASE amps remain operational if one phase leg lost (in 3ph mode) with some loss of performance related sustained power levels which will be never noticed by the crowd. Compared to single phase powering all of the amps will go blank on the problematic phase leg. I think most of us have already experienced this type of accident.
And I still don’t see the “need” to stuff amplifiers into a single space unit. It’s neat but certainly mades it’s design complex and costly-and I’m certain larger components would be more robust.
larger components inside are not always more robust, for example on the operational frequency of this type of converter (and currents..) the length of interconnections are one of the important factors influencing the losses and conversion efficiency. Optimized minimum-length tracks carrying large high-frequency currents are essential to maintain low EMI/ high efficiency.
Another thing is that I did not "follow" the fifty+ years old conventional practices related circuitry/layout/magnetic design.
For example our novel power transformer technology is at least 1/3 of the size, volume and losses of the conventional designs.
This is meant to be humorous, not any type of negative about the technology, but I keep having an image of the savvy sound guy who brags about his 1 space amp rack, and also tows around a 150 kw 3 phase generator to be sure to be able to power it.
There is already 3 phase generator(s) powering the show, the difference is that PKN 3PHASE amps would need just 4 skinny wires instead of 9 fatty wires when the original 3 phase powering splitted to three single phase lines...
Practically the saving of overall copper cross section is over 70%.. It is not a small thing! Not mentioning that asymmetry problems eliminated..
The average power draw of 3PHASE-40K is maximum 32A, it means ~22KW per amp. The 3PHASE-20K is OK with ~11KW.
Depends on the actual signal levels, crest factors of music material and type of the load the typical power pulled out from the mains is even lower. So your 150K generator would be able to power ~5-6 of 40K or ~10-12pcs of 20K.
Another approach is that replacing smaller bridged amps by 3PHASE or driving higher impedance version (16R or more..) speakers effectively. Some of our clients have had very good experiences with higher impedance speakers of popular 8R versions related dynamic response, efficiency.