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I bought a RSQ DA-4000 mixing amp and I have 2 Peavey 15 inch 400 watt speakers. The amp btw is 400 watts. I got this amp in May and three times it has burned up (literally)! The customer service people are telling me that it's because my speakers are too powerful for the amp, but I've had other people tell me that it doesn't matter. I need advice, because they don't want to fix my amp or give me a refund.

The customer service people are obviously idiots. Speakers can't be "too powerful" for an amp since (unless they are powered speakers) speakers don't generate power. NOW - your speakers could POSSIBLY be in the wrong ohms which could burn your amp up. But your amp is rated to a 4 ohm minimum & most Peavey speakers are at least 4-8 ohms. You didn't state which model Peavey you have or disclose the ohms so I can't tell what you have. Now the only way you are going to go below that is if both your speakers are 4 ohms & you are connecting them together on the same channel, then you would be below the minimum & then you could burn your amp out.
Speakers don't matter - you can hook a speaker that handles 1,000 watts to an amp that pushes 100 watts as long as the ohms are in the correct rating. Funny thing is, you have a better chance to blow the speaker with an amp of that size, but chances are your amp will be fine.

BTW your amp is only rated at 100 watts per channel into 4 channels & 200 watts per channel into 2 channels. Your speakers aren't seeing 400 watts - they are seeing at least 100-200 watts maximum.

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The speakers are 8 ohms. Does that make a difference?

Yep, that means your amp isn't running as hard & should in no way "burn up". The customer service people are feeding you a line of crap!

<edit>The only other way you could burn up the amp is if you are driving it to max volume all the time.

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Okay, Thanks ALot!!! I just filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. Probably won't do any good though.

Nah the BBB is set-up more to protect the businesses. I would contact customer service again, you may have been talking to in uninformed clerk.
But that amp can handle 8 ohm speakers. How loud are you pushing the amp. That would also cause a possible failure on the amps side, although it would probably damage the speakers first. You may consider getting a more powerful amp if you find you are cranking it up. This will heat an amp up as well.

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This last time, I had it hooked up in my basement and I didn't have it turned up even half way. It's only been used 5 times and three of those 5, it started smoking and melted some stuff on the inside! I contacted customer service again and they're saying that they will "fix" it, but if it's like the last two times, why bother. Besides, I'll have to pay the shipping again and the last time it was $44.00. I would like a new amp or a refund and I really don't think that I'm being unreasonable under the circumstances. In the meantime after a lot of research and recommendations, I ordered a Rowland Martin 600 watt PS 55 Professional Mixing Amp.

The Roland amp actually pushes about the same in wattage. That is a a max rate not an RMS rating. It will actually be pushing around 100-150 watts per channel.
You may want to also consider (instead of another mixer/amp) a small mixer & separate power amp. If your player is of a karaoke nature, the only benefit you really will be getting with a "karaoke" mixer/amp is a key changer & a cheesy echo effect. Most karaoke players have a key changer built in. Get a mixer with built in digital effects & you'll have a much better effect sound, main sound overall plus more versatility with the system.

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This is getting really sad. I once again have to agree with Lonman

Well, I would fully agree with the customer people my friend! You see, the more power a speaker can handle the more power you need to power them, in this case, your amp doesn't seem to be able to deliver what the speaker were demanding! It's always better to be over power than under power, meaning, better to have a 400 watts amp with a 200w speakers than the opposite, you just need to know when to stop pushing!

Always keep in mind that the most powerfull speakers are the most demanding for amps!! The best option are to buy powered speakers, most amp in the pro world will NOT handle the abuse of will just not sound good, the more damping the better it is, but you'll need to spend over $2,000.00!!

Stay away from these amps, a good pair of Electro-Voice, JBL Eon or Yorkville will give you what you need!! Just in case you ask, Mackie, can't stand the sound of it & they over heat quickly!!

Wrong. It is better to overpower the speakers by at least half, BUT it isn't not going to burn an amp out if the speakers can handle more power than an amp is capable of pushing - guaranteed! He already stated he wasn't running the thing more than 1/4 volume up. I'm also willing to bet the the speakers he has he is reading the "max" power handling which being Peavey, 400 watts max = 200 watts rms = 100 watts continuous which is completely fine for his amp.



Not sure what you were getting at here. There are many "budget" amps that will stand the rigors of everyday abuse that still sound good, sure it won't sound like a Crown Macro series, but that's where the $$ lies. Good sound don't require the top of the line high $$ lines anymore.




Stay away from what amps? The ones you are mentioning?? Any powered speaker can overheat - the Mackies i've used, worked fine for hours without a problem.

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Got this from the Yorkville Site:

THE SPEAKER SYSTEM - POWER & SPL
POWER
First, let's establish that a speaker's power rating represents its maximum power CAPACITY. The reason power capacity is specified in speakers is to hopefully prevent them from being blown up by amplifiers which are too powerful for them.
There is some feeling in the consumer market that a power rating means you "must" use that many watts. This is not true in the case of PA speakers. Additionally it is sometimes assumed that a speaker's power rating directly reflects its sound output. This is also not true. If you apply the maximum power to a speaker it will (should) provide the maximum sound-pressure level specified by the manufacturer. If you apply less than that much power you will get less than the maximum SPL, but how much less?

Consider the following; if you reduce applied power by 50%,the SPL will be reduced by -3dB reflecting a decrease in perceived loudness of roughly 30%, possibly less depending on who you ask. If the system was producing 110dB, the SPL would still be around 107dB with 50% of the applied power gone (believe it or not!). And if you think that's unusual, consider the reverse situation - doubling applied power only nets +3dB or roughly a 30 to 40% increase in perceived loudness - more about this later.

THE DISTORTION ISSUE
The main reason for PA users thinking that you "must" apply 100 watts to a 100-watt speaker or 500 watts to a 500-watt speaker, etc., is because of distortion. The problem is that a mere 50 watts can blow up a 100-watt speaker if the ampifier is sufficiently distorted (again, believe it or not!). Therefore the reasoning seems to go that if you have the maximum power available to the speaker, you will have plenty of power "headroom" and you will never turn up the volume far enough to distort the amp and blow the speaker because by then the system will be too loud.

The problem with this reasoning is that "too loud" is just too vague and most people like things extra loud anyway, especially the bass. What often happens is somebody increasing the low-frequency EQ below the enclosure's low-frequency limit (if the the frequency response specifications say "50Hz - 20kHz", usually 50Hz will be the low-frequency limit). Now, the amplifier's remaining power headroom gets gobbled up in an effort to make the woofers do the impossible and distortion is just around the corner. But that's not all; the woofers are actually trying to do the impossible and reproduce frequencies that are too low for them. This causes a rapid drop in their power-handling capacity and they blow, even if the power is not distorted and the amp is putting out substantially less than maximum power.

{ TIP - If your power amps have "High-Pass Filters" or "Low Frequency Cut" buttons or "Subsonic Filters", use them. If your amplifiers don't have such a feature but you do have a graphic EQ, pull down the EQ faders which are of lower frequencies than the speaker's low-frequency limit. Do these things and your system will sound cleaner, louder and better.}
Before we leave this topic, keep in mind that a 100-watt distorted amp can blow up a 100-watt speaker even faster than a 50-watt distorted amp. The main reason distortion damages speakers is because somebody wasn't watching the amplifier "clip" indicators. Hint - watch those power amp clip lights! If they look too busy, turn down the system level.

POWER RATINGS
Finally we have speaker power ratings. They are expressed in watts, everyone knows that, the question is, what kind of watts. Once upon a time it was "RMS" and now it's "PGM" (program) power. One of the reasons for the change away from RMS (aside from the fact that it was a technical misnomer) was all the marketplace misunderstandings about translating RMS ratings into applied power.

Back in the 1970's when everybody was learning about sound systems, you might hear someone say, "Oh I know that speaker. The rating is 100 watts RMS but you can hit it with two times that much power." Go around the corner and you might hear someone else say, "RMS times three, that's how much power you sock into that speaker - in fact any speaker." (argh!). Meanwhile speakers, horns and tweeters were blowing up like popcorn and repairmen were the only ones making a profit - at least that's how it seemed. Thankfully, "program" power ratings are more reliable when used the right way. Now, when you see "pgm" you know it means "APPLY NO MORE THAN THIS MUCH POWER". Life is simpler and safer.

Oh yes, it's worth noting that applied power is shared by speakers. Two 100-watt seakers powered by the same mono amplifier or one channel of a stereo amp can handle a total of 200 watts (you already knew that, right?).

Hope this helps, underpower can simply burn your speakers or overheat the amp. Overpower that is well controled, will give you the maximum from your speakers & will prevent overheating the amp!

You are mainly talking about blowing the speakers. Which I completely agree. I also agree that it is possible to blow an amp in the manner described - which is why I asked how loud he had it up, however it is not as common these days as it was say 20 years ago. Unless the amp in question is just a complete piece of crap, most of them have thermal protection units that would shut them down before burning up.

I also got to thinking it might be in the speaker wire - there might be a direct short which could also be a culprit - it wouldn't need to be an obvious short, 1 fraid wire grounding out could still allow signal to be passed through while in the same time heating up the amp, but again, there is usually a protection circuit that would shut it down before that happens.

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I think in this case, the reason givin by the customer people could apply & let me explain why:

His powered mixer is in fact a 50w/channel at 8 ohms which means not much to drive a 15 inch woofer that can handle 400w. What if he did push it with out knowing it? It doesn't take much to get to this power?

In general and I think you'll agree, powered mixers are not really the way to go, better off buying a good mixer and get some powered speakers or at least a good power amp. His powered mixer should be connected to speakers of 100w-150w (8 ohms), not monsters like the Peavey with a 15 inch woofer, it is a little to demanding for that powered mixer, that in the first place happens to be a lower end quality, not much damping of course & probably very low courant. If he was using a basic amp with 150w/channel at 8 ohms I would say, no way it should burn, but in this case, the gap is way too big & keep in mind it's a powered mixer not a power amp, what type of cooling system? It got too hot, not enough protection... Just a bad setup unfortunately!!

That amp supposedly pushes 200 watts per channel into 4 ohms with 2 speakers, 100 watts per channel into 4 ohms with 4 peakers - per RSQ. Like I said the Peavey he is most likely running he was reading maximum power. Which means his speakers are probably more like 100-200 continuous power at 8 ohms which shouldn't put a strain on any amp like that. Now he is only going to be seeing more like half the power from the amp which will be about 100+ per channel with 2 speakers.
I know several people, many on this board, that have run those types of speakers with those types of amps with no problems. Karaoke stores package these systems themselves.
I do agree with not liking those types of amps & they probably don't have the protection circuits that separate power amps have.

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Lonman you are right on , I use a Crown2000 it has all this protection circuits built in, I had a shorted speaker wire, the amp went up in smoke the main board had to be replaced..by the way crown has a three year no fault warranty........

HMMMMMMMM........This is interesting. I have also heard (and experienced for my self) that it is better to have an amp that produces 400 w/p/ch @ 8 ohms to speakers rated for 200w / 300w peak. I have (and use) B-52 SR 15's, (400w continuous 8 ohms). I was powering them with a Crown CE 1000A and had all kind of problems with the crown clipping out on me. I replaced the crown with a Behringer EP2500 and have been able to drive the SR's to the max with good clean power with little to no distortion at high volume. One would think that it would stand to reason that if the voice coil in the speaker actually takes (draws) more power than the amp can produce to actuate and produce clean sound, then this would be taxing on the amp thus causing it to either clip out or burn up. I have had 4 of the SR's hooked up to this amp as well (thus a 4 Ohm load) and also have wriven them hard without the amp clipping out on me. More power is better in my opinion.

I didn't realize this was going to cause such a debate! Most of what you are talking about, I don't understand anyway! First of all, I am a SHE and I just wanted to let you all know that I bought a Martin Rowland 600 Watt PS 55 Mixing Amp. I've had it for a couple of months now and so far I'm happy with it. NO Problems. As far as the RSQ goes, I did send a complaint to the Better Business Bureau where the company was located and Mediasync Corp. has agreed to send me a new RSQ mixing amp. I don't really want another one, but at least maybe I can sell it and get some of my money back.

Once upon a time I had Ford Tempo. I really liked my Tempo but suddenly it started running like it was on three cylinders. It spent eight very frustrating days at the dealer. They would say it was fixed, I'd drive 5 to 10 miles and it would start feeling like it was running on three cylinders and it would die. They replaced sensors, the computer, tweaked, massaged, no avail. After five trips in eight days I had to start scratching my head and told the dealer that I was contemplating lemon lawing my car. The regional rep had already been out and they sent out for one last try the lead mechanic for the Northeastern United States. They called me to come down and I was told to drive. They would not tell me what they did. I drove it and did my magic voodoo I learned over the days on what it took to get it to die. No go - it ran like a top, my car was fixed! The regional representative upon my satisfied return held up a $2 spark plug wire.

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Don't get me wrong - one of the best threads I've ever read. Some REALLY smart people contributing here and I'm impressed. But I think that some of the point here is being missed. Couldn't a bad crossover in a speaker, at least on paper fry an amp? How about a bad cable - plug in a speaker and strip the respective connector off and touch the two ends together on an amp you don't care about - POW!

Years and years ago when I was doing DJ shows I had a friend helping me come up with the brilliant idea to plug in the speakers with the amp live and signal going through - it was just a really bad timing thing on his part. The results were instant and disasterous - the amp was dead - and on paper at least, because of the speakers. I'm just tossing out that for all the debate that maybe, just maybe the more simple solutions are being missed here - or I could be just talking out of my you know what.

On the issue of peak power handling for a speaker versus peak RMS on the amplifier, I was always taught that your power handling on your speakers should exceed the peak RMS of your amplifier. As noted by an earlier poster a factor of X2 was a good rule of thumb.

On the other hand I was also taught in that same school of thought that you need to have enough power to drive the speakers in the first place, and an under powered amp creates a seperate but equally devestating list of problems versus an over powered amp, that, especially on large drivers if you went under /3 on the power, you were asking for problems, and poor sound quality.

In other words, at least in my school of thought BOTH sides of this debate are right. Power equals clean sound. Have enough watts even a bad amp will sound good to an extent because it's not being pushed. Over drive even the best equipment on the planet, and it's going to sound like poop.

If it were me, and all things being equal, I'd chuck my cables and get new ones. If my new amp blows than something within the speakers becomes suspect in my book - but admittedly a problem with a crossover to the point of killing an amp is almost unheard of (no pun intended) especially if the speaker doesn't sound like crap to begin with. Like my Ford Tempo years ago, the biggest of issues may have the simplest of solutions.

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