Its big! Car audio amplifier...

[NiHaoMike]

Why are the "pros" even thinking about 12V when at those power levels, high voltage more than makes sense?

And while there's certainly not many "proper" applications for such a powerful amp in a car, there are still a few. Like a mobile PA system.

[kfitch42]

But, see above, where do you find 20kW in a car?

Perhaps you skip the whole mechanical->electrical->mechanical conversion nonsense. The Mythbusters built a diesel powered subwoofer that got over 160 dB spl at 16Hz.

[Shock]

Once the Sony LCD TV was brought into the room the capacitors curiously failed.

[Anks]

I work with sound equipment and hire Pro audio PA out to events and we always get asked how many watts by the daft promoters but the educated sound technicians are more interested in SPL and dispersion. A Precision Devices 1850 can be powered by a 500watt amp in the correct cabinet and create almost twice the SPL of most high end car drivers being powered from 2000watts.

As for the amplifier being shown I would have to guess that the total clean sine wave output is nowhere near its spec.

[NiHaoMike]

Perhaps you skip the whole mechanical->electrical->mechanical conversion nonsense. The Mythbusters built a diesel powered subwoofer that got over 160 dB spl at 16Hz.

Or go straight for the pulsejet!

[c4757p]

I work with sound equipment and hire Pro audio PA out to events and we always get asked how many watts by the daft promoters but the educated sound technicians are more interested in SPL and dispersion.

I was just more interested in the sheer amount of power that passes through this thing. Couldn't care less how loud it is... Once it's beyond "unhealthy" I lose interest. But I do like power electronics, and nothing says "power electronics nerdgasm" like a precision arc welder

[Monkeh]

Crazy

You guys are so gona wish you hadn't when you get older. Tinnitus can be become quite bad for some people in older age (I suffer from it myself), not to mention deafness.

It's just not worth it - something you really don't realise until it's too late (it's unreversable).

Not all of us drive around jamming at full noise on a daily basis lol.
My system (pretty weak, 138.5dB) probably sees full volume for a few minutes a year at competitions - the rest of the time everything is virtually idling in sound quality mode :p

140dB bass isn't too damaging to hearing. It's probably about as damaging as sticking your head out the window of a moving car. 150dB will make your ears feel funny. 160dB is insta-damage.

"Isn't too damaging"

Any avoidable damage is too much damage.

[G7PSK]

They do not need to work for long as they are for Loud car competitions they play a single frequency for a short period and measure the sound output often well over 150 dba. They have to replace the glass with plastic bolted in otherwise it's blown out. That bottom video is of a van with 30 KW.

[AmmoJammo]

As for the amplifier being shown I would have to guess that the total clean sine wave output is nowhere near its spec.

Why not?

The amplifier pictured below happily does about 3500watts cleanly, and its less than half the size of the first amps pictured (I say "half" its probably bigger than that... lol)
Well, when it has a heatsink on it, and isn't blown up 

[ciccio]

Speaking of arc welder. I remember a guy telling me back in the 90s a few of the amplifier companies used to do just that. To show their amps were stable into fractional ohms (at over 1kW) they would actually use them as arc welders.

About 1980 I met a  guy, the late Brian Gary Wachner,  founder of the BGW company (that still exists).
He built very powerful amplifiers, and one was called "the Arc Welder Special".
I saw a demo at some exhibition where they demonstrated their efficient protection circuit  by creating big sparks when shorting the output terminals.

The year after my company demonstrated our new amplifiers driving an electric drill with a 50 Hz signal at the input... just to do something different.

In those years I had a second job: in my home lab I did maintenance and repairs for many importers of pro-audio gear, and I must admit that I've seen only one BGW amplifier, and many more of better known  manufacturers..

[Kryoclasm]

The military should weaponize these Boombox cars... ie paint them camo, and use them for front line offensive operations. Making your enemies heads explode! 

[TMM]

Crazy

You guys are so gona wish you hadn't when you get older. Tinnitus can be become quite bad for some people in older age (I suffer from it myself), not to mention deafness.

It's just not worth it - something you really don't realise until it's too late (it's unreversable).

Not all of us drive around jamming at full noise on a daily basis lol.
My system (pretty weak, 138.5dB) probably sees full volume for a few minutes a year at competitions - the rest of the time everything is virtually idling in sound quality mode :p

140dB bass isn't too damaging to hearing. It's probably about as damaging as sticking your head out the window of a moving car. 150dB will make your ears feel funny. 160dB is insta-damage.

"Isn't too damaging"

Any avoidable damage is too much damage.

Truth. I don't go to music concerts because my ears feel far worse for wear after...

[NiHaoMike]

The year after my company demonstrated our new amplifiers driving an electric drill with a 50 Hz signal at the input... just to do something different.

And those who have actually tried to run a mains voltage drill from a 30V or so supply (did that as a failed experiment to really slow it down for operating a pasta maker - ended up getting a proper geared motor assembly) would know how easy it is to actually make one of those things turn. They should have used something bigger like an air conditioner (which is a remarkably difficult load unless the inverter is specifically designed for it) or a vacuum cleaner.

[smashedProton]

Is that 10kW continuous? I don't believe you can do 10kW with just a small cooling fan -- you'd need water cooling to do that.

"sweet mother of god" is a saying which refers to the Virgin Mary... it's a saying... don't take it too seriously.

Actually there is the holy trinity So the ghost man,  Jesus and the father are the same, sui everyone Is right.   

[kfitch42]

The military should weaponize these Boombox cars... ie paint them camo, and use them for front line offensive operations. Making your enemies heads explode! 

There is a little known corollary to 'rule 34', if you can think of it, the US military has a weapon of it:
http://www.psywarrior.com/loudspeaker.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4857417

http://physicscentral.com/explore/action/speech-jam.cfm

[SeanB]

The year after my company demonstrated our new amplifiers driving an electric drill with a 50 Hz signal at the input... just to do something different.

And those who have actually tried to run a mains voltage drill from a 30V or so supply (did that as a failed experiment to really slow it down for operating a pasta maker - ended up getting a proper geared motor assembly) would know how easy it is to actually make one of those things turn. They should have used something bigger like an air conditioner (which is a remarkably difficult load unless the inverter is specifically designed for it) or a vacuum cleaner.

They do run quite well from a 115V 400Hz aircraft power supply, though they have a lot less power and tend to sing a lot. Running them off the DC bus was good for light work like taking out rivets when there was no air supply available to run air tools.

[tesla500]

I'm just waiting for someone to modify an electric car traction inverter to drive subwoofers as a class D amplifier. A Tesla Model S inverter could drive almost 400kW of speakers if you add some filtering on the output! Would be 3 phase though, some interesting acoustic design would be needed.

[MacAttak]

Reminds me of my younger days in competition car audio. My favorite amps were Orion "red" HCCA amps (not sure how well they are made these days - I haven't been involved in competition audio since the mid 90's), we would wire a number of 15" or 18" sub drivers in parallel - not uncommon to put < 1 ohm loads on them. The hardest thing was supplying enough current quickly enough to avoid clipping. It was normal practice to install special alternators along with a bank of deep-cycle marine batteries for the power system, along with a bank of supercaps very near to the amplifier hardware.

At least once in their life everyone should get to experience 150+ dB of raw bass while sitting in the cab of one of those SPL show cars. It is a unique sensation - there is nothing else like it in the world. (and don't be an idiot and ignore the deafness warnings - wear the proper ear protection)

[SeanB]

I had that already. Atar 09K50 at full afterburner with you standing next to it. Full body massage..........

[Alex]

This looks like the Phoenix Gold "The One". 12kW, bridgeable. In the words of the presenter:
They began with a typical class D topology...and then someone threw the lunacy switch.



Why increase the battery voltage when you can throw ferrite and copper at the problem?

Alex.

[AmmoJammo]

This looks like the Phoenix Gold "The One". 12kW, bridgeable. In the words of the presenter:

Doesn't really 

The transformers in "the one" don't look to have heavy enough gauge/quantity windings on them.... One webpage I found said the following:

"Maximum power at 1 ohm at 16 volts was a ridiculous 9419 watts! If you do the math, that means the amps output to the speaker load was over 90 amperes, and over 90 volts. "

Not sure how you advertise a 9400watt at 16volt amplifier as being 12,000watts :p The amp I pictured should do more than that off 14.4volts

[senso]

Peak value measured during 10ms, 1ms, or 0.1ms, or some stupid non-real world value..

[84GKSIG]

i guess if you like listening to your music in full rage, a little extra reserve current to stop bottoming out in the low frequencies or clipping is fairly important, but that is just silly even to me 

[Alex]

Doesn't really 
The amp I pictured should do more than that off 14.4volts

Nah, "the one" is clearly superior. You will have to return it now and get a real man's amp, if you can afford it!

[Setar2k11]

That amp is just a toy.... This ,http://www.pknc.com/3phase_eng.html, is an amp, 2 x 20Kw into 2.66ohms, all in a 1U rack mount case.