CurtPalme.com Home Theater Forum

[AFryia]

I tried and failed to repair my BKA1000-4A ButtKicker amplifier.

Rather than go with another BK amp are there any known substitutes.

[ecrabb]

For Buttkickers? Grab any old decent used amp on craigslist or ebay. Ebay has lots of great amps available. I was always pretty fond of the monoblock Marantz MA500, or its big brother the MA700. There was also a newer version of the MA500, the MA6100. I was going to go with (6) MA500's before I decided to go with more powerful Crown pro sound amps.

SC

[AFryia]

From what I can gather the MA6100 is 125W.

The LFE transducer is rated 400W @4ohms. I'm sure that amp would work, but wouldn't it be underpowered driving <20hz, even with a pair bridged?

[ecrabb]

Yeah, probably a little underpowered. Depends how many transducers you have and how hard you want to drive them. How many transducers do you have? Do you listen pretty loud?

SC

[Curt Palme]

Yeah, seal the cabinet back and get an external power amp. Find something that's bridgeable, and get a 100-150 WPC channel power amp. Bridge it in mono, and you'll get about 400 watts at 4 ohms. Also keep in mind that the power rating of the woofer is going to be a bit ambiguous, but based on your info, what I stated above should work.

Otherwise, with the price of used powered subs out there, you may be cheaper getting a used powered sub, and scrap the Buttkicker.

[Curt Palme]

Yeah, seal the cabinet back and get an external power amp. Find something that's bridgeable, and get a 100-150 WPC channel power amp. Bridge it in mono, and you'll get about 400 watts at 4 ohms. Also keep in mind that the power rating of the woofer is going to be a bit ambiguous, but based on your info, what I stated above should work.

Otherwise, with the price of used powered subs out there, you may be cheaper getting a used powered sub, and scrap the Buttkicker.

[ecrabb]

BTW, the Behrenger iNuke is probably about as cheap as class-D sub amplification gets. It's larger than the BK amp, but a little more flexible. They're a little over-rated, and they have fans, but they're still a great value. Lots of guys use them as sub amps.

Cheers,
SC

[ecrabb]

Wrong thread, Curt.

SC

[Curt Palme]

No, not the wrong thread. He needs a replacement amp. What I missed is that it's a transducer.. wasn't thinking along those lines.

The only thing that might be an issue, is that I've had nothing but issues driving the Aurasound transducers with a 'regular' car stereo amp.. 3 or 4 different ones would go into protect mode all the time. I finally figured out that the Aurasound impedance was insanely low, so I series-ed two of them, and then the car amps worked well. Not sure if the Buttkickers have the same issue, but I'd drive the transducer carefully while monitoring amp temperature before driving it hard.

For my money, I wouldn't get anything by Behringer. Cheapest crap ever! If you have rack room, get a QSC or Crest power amp, bridge it mono, and you're done.

I'm also done recommending Crown after the fiasco I've had with their cheap crap on a local jobsite.

[Curt Palme]

No, not the wrong thread. He needs a replacement amp. What I missed is that it's a transducer.. wasn't thinking along those lines.

The only thing that might be an issue, is that I've had nothing but issues driving the Aurasound transducers with a 'regular' car stereo amp.. 3 or 4 different ones would go into protect mode all the time. I finally figured out that the Aurasound impedance was insanely low, so I series-ed two of them, and then the car amps worked well. Not sure if the Buttkickers have the same issue, but I'd drive the transducer carefully while monitoring amp temperature before driving it hard.

For my money, I wouldn't get anything by Behringer. Cheapest crap ever! If you have rack room, get a QSC or Crest power amp, bridge it mono, and you're done.

I'm also done recommending Crown after the fiasco I've had with their cheap crap on a local jobsite.

[macgyver655]

QSC......QSC...... ha, I sound like I'm cheering a college. And get an older one at that, like an MX series. Here is an example: http://www.ebay.com/itm/QSC-MX-700-Stereo-Power-Amplifier-MX700-Amp-/171391754201?pt=US_Pro_Audio_Amplifiers&hash=item27e7be9fd9

700 watts, bridged mono into 4 ohms. Nice clean power and silent fan.

[ecrabb]

[Curt Palme]

I have a client that has 16 Crown CTS 4200s. Air conditioned room that sits at 62 degrees, background music and paging. Massive 140,000 sq ft store, 64 zones of audio. They have had 8 amp failures in 7 years. One happened to fail when I was there. I had to power them all down to change the firmware in their DSP, and one amp refused to come back on. Manager said that this was the same problem they have had every time.

They used to send it to Crown in Canada (Soundcraft) for repair, at 2 months (!!) and $400 later. I asked the manager to email me the bill of the last repairs, so I could see what the issue was. He did... 'LV power supply replaced' I thinks to myself 'WTF???'

So I saw exactly the issue once I opened the unit. These Crowns use a little kickstarter power supply for some stupid reason at turnon to power the main amp up. the main amp is a nice fibreglass PC board, but the little LVPS is on a separate board, bolted inside of a shield, and the build quality is that of a laptop power supply. Phenolic board, total cheap build quality. Of course all the main power supply caps had the bottoms popped off. Soundcraft kept putting replacement POS power supplies into the unit, which of course would result in a repeat failure. I put in Panasonic caps.

I have quoted the customer on replacement amps.

I have had zero failures with the Crest amps, and a buddy/semi competitor says he's had zero failures of QSCs as well. Mac's recommendation of an MX700 is a good one, although those amps are now 20+ years old. I've seen a few through here (along with the larger 1500s) that were driven hard and put away wet, and more than one had big heat damage on the PC board, with open capacitors on the boards.

BUt, there's a bunch of options to consider in this thread.

[Curt Palme]

I have a client that has 16 Crown CTS 4200s. Air conditioned room that sits at 62 degrees, background music and paging. Massive 140,000 sq ft store, 64 zones of audio. They have had 8 amp failures in 7 years. One happened to fail when I was there. I had to power them all down to change the firmware in their DSP, and one amp refused to come back on. Manager said that this was the same problem they have had every time.

They used to send it to Crown in Canada (Soundcraft) for repair, at 2 months (!!) and $400 later. I asked the manager to email me the bill of the last repairs, so I could see what the issue was. He did... 'LV power supply replaced' I thinks to myself 'WTF???'

So I saw exactly the issue once I opened the unit. These Crowns use a little kickstarter power supply for some stupid reason at turnon to power the main amp up. the main amp is a nice fibreglass PC board, but the little LVPS is on a separate board, bolted inside of a shield, and the build quality is that of a laptop power supply. Phenolic board, total cheap build quality. Of course all the main power supply caps had the bottoms popped off. Soundcraft kept putting replacement POS power supplies into the unit, which of course would result in a repeat failure. I put in Panasonic caps.

I have quoted the customer on replacement amps.

I have had zero failures with the Crest amps, and a buddy/semi competitor says he's had zero failures of QSCs as well. Mac's recommendation of an MX700 is a good one, although those amps are now 20+ years old. I've seen a few through here (along with the larger 1500s) that were driven hard and put away wet, and more than one had big heat damage on the PC board, with open capacitors on the boards.

BUt, there's a bunch of options to consider in this thread.

[macgyver655]

[ecrabb]

[macgyver655]

[ecrabb]

[Curt Palme]

Mac, only because many of the QSCs have been driven hard. They weren't marketed towards HT users, they were marketed towards pro stuff. Heck, those lemon Crown amps will be fine if I get my hands on them as trade-in, I'm recapping the LVPS with better caps, but any amp that's been put through the wringer by a band or a club (all clubs were smoking establishments back then), it may have internal issues.

Also as an FYI, the QSC 1500 non 'a' series had a basic design flaw. The DC return to ground for the preamp op amp ran through the main level pot. Once the level pot went noisy, guess what happened? Hit an oxidized spot on the control, and the output would momentarily go to full DC. Had a number of 1500s used to drive mid-high cabinets in clubs back in the day, and had more than one cabinet come in with a blown driver. It wasn't until one club brought in one of the QSC 1500s and said 'the horn popped when I adjusted the level control' that I figured it out. I let QSC know, and the tech I talked to had a shitfit. The 1500a had the problem cured.

Not sure if that issue was with the 700 as well.

[Curt Palme]

Mac, only because many of the QSCs have been driven hard. They weren't marketed towards HT users, they were marketed towards pro stuff. Heck, those lemon Crown amps will be fine if I get my hands on them as trade-in, I'm recapping the LVPS with better caps, but any amp that's been put through the wringer by a band or a club (all clubs were smoking establishments back then), it may have internal issues.

Also as an FYI, the QSC 1500 non 'a' series had a basic design flaw. The DC return to ground for the preamp op amp ran through the main level pot. Once the level pot went noisy, guess what happened? Hit an oxidized spot on the control, and the output would momentarily go to full DC. Had a number of 1500s used to drive mid-high cabinets in clubs back in the day, and had more than one cabinet come in with a blown driver. It wasn't until one club brought in one of the QSC 1500s and said 'the horn popped when I adjusted the level control' that I figured it out. I let QSC know, and the tech I talked to had a shitfit. The 1500a had the problem cured.

Not sure if that issue was with the 700 as well.

[macgyver655]

I actually own a MX1500 and an MX1000. I also have a 1000a. Those level pots are suppose to be set at full and left there. Any pot will go erratic over time. All this talk is non relevant. New stuff can fail just the same and probably worse then old. Brand new amps can take out drivers. I still work on pro stuff all the time. I have multiple Dj's and some local bands that bring me their stuff for repair. At this point I do not even know what you and SC are trying to recommend. I could easily trash any make or model that can be thrown out here. So I only recommend what I know from my own experience of which makes and models would be the best option. Would I recommend a QSC after the USA series, probably not. Do you see my point?

I could take everything both of you said and turn it to any make or model, new or used. I'm saying, if you threw all these pro amps into a big pile, I am weeding through the pile to say what the best value is that I have found after all these years.

But lets look at it this way. When someone who is an expert in repairing this stuff and can choose what ever brand he wants tells you what he is personally using in 1 of his own setups, what would be some thoughts.

So really guys, do you have recommendations or just looking to trash others recommendations?

[AFryia]

At present i have a single LFE transducer.

With iNuke or QSC etc. those are full range amps right. Can they sustain the bottom end running 15hz signals for periods of time?

I've also been contemplating sub plate amplifiers.

http://www.parts-express.com/dayton-audio-spa500-500w-subwoofer-plate-amplifier--300-807

No fan and built specifically for sub and infrasonic range.