Continuous and program...whats the deal?!
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Posted on May 04, 2009 03:25 pm
dlambe6
Member Since: May 04, 2009
What is the difference between the continuous wattage and the program wattage of speakers? For example, we have a set of Peavey Impulse 1015. The continuous is 500 watts and the program is 1000.
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May 04, 2009 05:30 pm Manufactures are starting to give three measurements to their speaker boxes now a days.
It just use to be two. Continues and Peak.
Now it's continues, program and peak.
Continues and RMS are the same. What they mean are, what ever the rating, you can run that speaker at that rating forever without doing any damage to the speaker.
Program is now the rating that is given for a musical performance. With the dynamic range of music, you have short burst of high level wattage.
The rating states the the speaker can survive hits for short periods of time at this level.
Peak. This is the max rating that your speaker can take. Exceeding this rating, can and will do damage to your speaker.
monmixrIf 50hz 60 will kill ya.Member
Since: Jan 08, 2009
May 05, 2009 12:48 am you and I both know its all sales hype anyway.
It really goes like this:
Continuous: what you should be running the speaker at.
Maximum Program: what you are running the speaker at because the cheap azz promoter wouldnt pay for enough pa.
Peak: what the bands engineer is running the speaker at because he has to be a little louder than you were with the previous band.
Hope this helps....
May 05, 2009 08:46 pm So just to clarify....Our speakers are: continuous 500, program 1000, and peak 2000. Our amp is pushing 500, so are we good to go?
May 05, 2009 09:25 pm Here is the grey area.
According to all of the text book sales guy answers... Yes, your fine.
In the real world of audio....
I would like to see you increase the output power of the amp.
Here is why. When you have a speaker that can handle more power then the amp can deliver, you tend to try to driver the speaker harder.
You know that it can go louder. And the band is calling for just that little more.
Now the amps clip lights are starting to flash. And starting to stay red for a few seconds or more. And that's the bad part.
What is happening on the inside of the amp is not a good thing.
All amps have transistors inside of them. And the voltage that supplies power to them are set to a predetermined level for the output that is needed. These are the voltage rails. A positive and negative rail.
When the incoming signal reaches a level that brings the transistors full power, and then you try to just get that little more.
Now, the transistor tries to give you that little more.
What happens then, is that it has reached the voltage that the rails that supply the power to them. It has no more voltage to go up to. so it flat lines. ( No, not flat lines like in a person dieing.) Flat lining in an amp means, go to max power. Hold that power. Then let it go.
This is a square wave. If you where to look at this under an oscilloscope it really would look like a square.
The square wave is the killer of all speakers. The speaker is told to move all the way out. Stay there, then move all the way back in.
When the amp and the speaker are at the stay there part, They both are creating a ton of heat. More heat then either can handle.
And failure is the end result for both.
The answer is to get an amp that can deliver close to the peak. That way you can avoid trying to over drive the amp into a square wave.
And like I was saying in the beginning, you may wish to find an amp that is around a 1000 watts, or just a little more.
May 06, 2009 10:47 am I heard from a pretty reliable source that you can switch speakers from 8 ohm to 4 ohm by connecting them together with a cable. For example, run channel 1 of the amp to the left speaker and channel 2 of the amp to the right speaker. Then , run a cable from the left to the right speaker. Is this correct? This way we could get a little head room for the amp in that it will push 700 at 4 ohms instead of 500 at 8.
May 06, 2009 10:57 am Also, what is an average price of an amp that puts out 1000 watts at 8 ohms? From what I'm seeing (which is not much) it's going to be a over $1,000. Like I said though, I'm not seeing much that pushes that high.
May 06, 2009 11:26 am OK, on the ohm load question.
You have it partially correct. You can change the ohm load by adding another speaker in parallel.
The description that you have above, is a dead short. Not parallel. Or even series for that fact.
You never take the positive of one side of the amp, and have it meet the positive of the other side of the amp. Whether it's coming from a speaker, or not. You just never do that.
When your in parallel, you dealing with the same side of the amp at all times.
So, let me show you how this is done.
Starting with channel one of your amp. The positive of the amp goes to the positive of the first speaker. Then from the same positive of that first speaker, you go to the positive of the next speaker.
Now, go back to the amp. And starting from the negative of channel one. You go to the negative of the first speaker, then from that same negative at the speaker, you go to the negative of the second speaker.
That's it. Your in parallel.
Now channel one of your amp is at a 4 ohm load, as long as the speaker where an 8 ohm load.
The math behind this is ratter simple. It's ohm times ohm, divided by ohm plus ohm.
So, 8 x 8 = 64, 8 + 8 = 16, 64 divided by 16 = 4.
Since most ohm loads are an even number, you can take a short cut. As long as the two ohm loads are the same, just divided in half.
So two 8 ohm loads are four ohms. Two 4 ohm loads, are 2 ohms.
Never go below 2 ohms!!!!!!
If you do, you will do damage to your amp!
There is an article that I wrote for this here on the HRC. Go to the tip section of the top tabs. In there you will see one entitled Bi-amping. In there I give all the information on how to wire a PA for series, and parallel. and just some good general math skills that you are going to need for both.
There is one section of that I made a mistake on. But, you should be able to spot that right away. It's for the series parallel circuit. I was half asleep when I did the math for that one. See if you can catch it.
May 06, 2009 11:56 am I don't know how I would do that with our setup. The back of the speaker has two TRS 1/4" inputs and two speakon inputs, but arent labeled positive and negative. I see how your article explains connecting the positives together but I don't understand how I'd do that with out opening the cabinet up. The back of the amp does have the positive and negative poles so I see how it would work with that.
May 06, 2009 12:02 pm That is where the speaker manufacture has thought about you.
All speaker that have two jacks to them, are already wired in parallel.
All you have to do, is take a wire form the second input of your speaker, to the next speaker. And your in parallel.
Nate Mc.Formally Hydrial69Member
Since: May 06, 2009
May 06, 2009 12:11 pm yup, thats been around for a long time time now, and a usefuly alternative if your low on co-ax and amps
and other functions.
and wattage is a frustrating thing to me lately, because ofcourse they make it seem more powerful than it really is, just read carefully, always read the back of your gear you own, i make it a habbit to know every number and word on the back of my gear, whcih is getting harder by the paycheck, haha
May 06, 2009 12:33 pm Rob, that's what I was talking about in my earlier question. Sorry if I wasn't specific enough. So if I'm understanding correctly...just by piggy backing the speakers (running from the amp into the left and then from the left into the right) I will be running in parallel? Which means the speakers are now in 4 ohms and I will be sending somewhat of 700 watts to them. Sorry if this seems redundant. I just want to make sure I'm understanding it correctly.
May 06, 2009 01:27 pm Yes. the way you are stating here is correct.
The first way, you stated that a wire for the left side of the amp to the left speaker.
Then a wire from the right side of the amp to the right speaker.
Then a wire connecting the two speaker together. That is the wrong way.
Never make a loop that goes to either side of the amp. That is the dead short, and will blow all of your equipment up.
May 06, 2009 02:36 pm oh damn...good thing I didn't try that before asking haha. Thanks again Rob, you the man!
