powered amp and monitor set up

[damonseed]

Listen this may sound a bit elementary but I want to buy a powered mixer set up 4x300 watts @ 4 ohm this means 4x150 @8 ohm correct? Now I need 4 monitors @ 8 ohm set up and mains,2, both 8 ohm. All speakers have a power rating @300 continuous watts. It isnt possible to connect the monitors in parallel is it? I can only see that they can be daisy chained putting the ohmage to 16 which isnt enough acoustic sound and will over drive the amp
Im afraid i need to use and additional amp for monitors correct?, or can I reduce ohmage by parallel connection and how? Can someone clarify pls or should i go for a beefier set up?

[damonseed]

its actually a powered monitor and speaker set up 12 channel carvin powered mixer rated 300x4 channels @4 ohm

[GZsound]

Listen this may sound a bit elementary but I want to buy a powered mixer set up 4x300 watts @ 4 ohm this means 4x150 @8 ohm correct? Now I need 4 monitors @ 8 ohm set up and mains,2, both 8 ohm. All speakers have a power rating @300 continuous watts. It isnt possible to connect the monitors in parallel is it? I can only see that they can be daisy chained putting the ohmage to 16 which isnt enough acoustic sound and will over drive the amp
Im afraid i need to use and additional amp for monitors correct?, or can I reduce ohmage by parallel connection and how? Can someone clarify pls or should i go for a beefier set up?

First off.. I don't know of any powered mixers that have four amps in them. I know Carvin makes one with three amps.

Another issue is your ohm load. Speakers in parallel cut the ohm load. In other words, two eight ohm speakers in parallel would show a 4 ohm load.

I never recommend going below a four ohm load regardless of what the amplifier manufacturers say.. Don't ask me why, just old school.

Since you have two 8 ohm main speakers, you can easily daisy chain them together to create a 4 ohm load. That would take up one amp.

As to running four monitors, if you don't purchase another stereo amp to run them, one alternative is to run the speakers in "series". That requires building a box with the series connections made in it. You do not want to simply daisy chain your four monitors together, that could lead to burning up your amp. Better to maybe purchase the Carvin three amp PA system and use one amp for a pair of monitors, another amp for another pair of monitors and the third amp for the mains. I am not familiar enough with the Carvin unit to know if this would work, but I believe it would.

I have built a box that allows me to connect up to eight 8 ohm speakers to any amp and still show an 8 ohm load. I call it a Series/Parallel Box.

You are correct in saying you need four amps. Carvin also makes an amp with four amps built in that would work for you too.

[damonseed]

gz its cx 1272 p it has 12 channels and 300watts a side for stereo FOH and then 2 300 watt amps for monitor if i daisy chain or loop them will i be ok? i thought when you loop speakers it draws from the amp more ie. 8 ohm +8 0hm in series is 16 ohm?

[JeffBarnett]

Hi Damon,

Yes - if you connect two 8-ohm speakers in series, you'll get a 16-ohm load. This is almost never done, though. If you just daisy-chain two speakers together, that's running them parallel, so they'd have a 4-ohm load.

What GZ is talking about is taking two pairs of speakers, wired in series, for 16-ohms each. Then he takes those two 16-ohm loads and runs them in parallel for an 8-ohm load.

There is no way to run two amplifier channels into a single speaker, which is what you are talking about doing. You'd have to run each speaker off of a separate amplifier channel, and that means they'd be under-powered.

(This is the classic problem with powered mixers, by the way. You'll almost always end up under-powering your speakers.) An under-powered speaker is easily damaged, if you're not careful.

[GZsound]

gz its cx 1272 p it has 12 channels and 300watts a side for stereo FOH and then 2 300 watt amps for monitor if i daisy chain or loop them will i be ok? i thought when you loop speakers it draws from the amp more ie. 8 ohm +8 0hm in series is 16 ohm?

Yes, that is the mixer.

And "drawing from the amp more" is sort of not the case. An amp puts out more wattage at lower impedance "load".. which means a lower load of 4 ohms would allow the amplifier to produce more wattage of power.

There is a lower limit, which in some cases is 2 ohms, but like I said, I prefer to never go below a 4 ohm load.

When you connect speakers in parallel, you divide the load, when you connect speakers in series...whch as Jeff said, is rarely ever done....you add the two loads together.

So it isn't really the fact the speakers are "drawing" more power from the amp, but rather that the amp produces more power into a lower load. Ohm is a measure of resistance.. Lowering the resistance means the amp can produce more power.

Just like your car. Lowering the resistance of the car to the wind doesn't mean your car suddenly "draws more power", it means your engine has less resistance to work against. Sort of.

[damonseed]

man, gentlemen thanx for the help I feel much more confident in making some important and costly decisions facing myself. So looping speakers is in effect running parallel, so buying the 12 channel w/ 4 x300 watt amps@4 ohm will handle 2 8 ohm mains looped in ch 1 and 2 sets of 8 ohm monitors looped in ch 2 and ch3 respectively with one to spare. This produces 900 watts of acoustical sound and is more than enough forsmall clubs and hotel functions. Is this correct fellas? Thanks again for all of your expertise visit our myspace @ www.myspace/hauphat
till next time
Aloha
Damonseed

[GZsound]

man, gentlemen thanx for the help I feel much more confident in making some important and costly decisions facing myself. So looping speakers is in effect running parallel, so buying the 12 channel w/ 4 x300 watt amps@4 ohm will handle 2 8 ohm mains looped in ch 1 and 2 sets of 8 ohm monitors looped in ch 2 and ch3 respectively with one to spare. This produces 900 watts of acoustical sound and is more than enough forsmall clubs and hotel functions. Is this correct fellas? Thanks again for all of your expertise visit our myspace @ www.myspace/hauphat
till next time
Aloha
Damonseed

Yes, that will work, although if you have four amps, I suggest you use all four. Connect your mains to two amps, one amp per side and connect your monitors in pairs to each side of the remaining amps.

In some cases, and maybe this is old school, but I don't like having an amp on and running with no load and there is no reason to leave one amp disconnected from any load..