Which amplifiers for an active-crossover speaker system? Some surprising observations…

They say that the main dis-advantage of an active crossover system, is that you need to buy more amplifiers. This is true, but also a lot of fun! We like amplifiers. Amplifiers are awesome, and more amplifiers are even awesome-er, right?

With an active system, you get to choose different amps for different jobs. One stereo amp each for the subwoofer, bass, mids, highs, etc. The common assumption is that since the midrange and tweeters don’t need as nearly much power as the subwoofer, then you can use a big 2000W amp on the subwoofer, and maybe just 50W on the mids and tweets, right?

Nope. Not exactly. You don’t need the power, but you still need the voltage! Transient spikes are the reason.

Continue reading Which amplifiers for an active-crossover speaker system? Some surprising observations…

Sold: Adcom GFA-535 II – Re-capped, refurbished and upgraded! Even better than new. (Pick up in Madison, WI or FedEx)

Update: Sold to Gary in Arlington, VA! It will become part of a 5-channel home theater system based on Klipsch LaScalas and Belles. He’s also getting the super-high-current monobloc for his center channel. Sounds like a really cool system!

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Hi Folks, I have another ADCOM GFA-535 II for sale! As with all the amps I sell, this unit has been thoroughly refurbished and obsessed over. This amp not only sounds better than new, but I intend it to last another 30 years or more! I go way beyond  a simple re-cap. Any and all parts that may potentially deteriorate have been replaced.

Continue reading Sold: Adcom GFA-535 II – Re-capped, refurbished and upgraded! Even better than new. (Pick up in Madison, WI or FedEx)

A fun project: Adcom GFA-535 SUPER-HIGH-CURRENT MONOBLOC

Hi folks, this is a fun little amplifier project I slapped together yesterday… (Well, carefully slapped together.)

I have lots of spare parts for Adcom amplifiers around, including a fully restored output module for a GFA-535 II, and a few chassis with power transformers.

So, I thought it would be fun to piece together a mono-block amplifier, capable of driving a 2 Ohm load using TWO power transformers for just one channel! This should give close to double the current to just one amp channel. This is the same basic idea as my Super High-Current GFA-535 II that I created from the remains of a GFA-2535. (The 2535 is basically four channels of GFA-535, with a double-size power supply, and I modified it to drive only two channels.)

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Continue reading A fun project: Adcom GFA-535 SUPER-HIGH-CURRENT MONOBLOC