A night spent with me and my new Monster Amplifier

Laura Palmer

Just wanted to pop in and say that I had my Monster amp came and that I had my first experience yesterday hearing seperates.

My neighbor had to help me carry this amp into my home because lord knows I couldn't carry this thing by myself!

I set it up and my system and boy is it ever massive. Really, I can't believe it. All night I thought I was an absolute NUT for buying such a thing. Even the POWER CORD on this amp made me giggle cause it weighs like 5 pounds!!

Now.... I had some weird results. I'm sure it sounded better, but I won't know until I listen to it for a long time and THEN go back to powering with just my HK635. I did notice a few things though: the bass had a lot more impact. I could actually feel it inside my head if that makes any sense.

And as far as detail goes, I'm sure it's incredibly "detailed" but then again I don't know whether I'm just hearing more detail in the songs now (because I usually hear something more on every repeated listen) or if they weren't audible before I had this equipment. It's hard to know.

The biggest confusion I had was this.... I was listening to a rock CD really loud (as loud as I knew my neighbors would tolerate really) and plenty loud for me. And it wasn't registering a SINGLE watt. It didn't make any sense to me, I thought about calling Monster Customer Service.

Finally by track 4 I had registered my first WATT (0.5 in each channel :P)

So I decided maybe I should put in a quieter CD. I put in Tori Amos and I was able to turn that up much louder cause it's quiet music... still the peak was usually like 5 watts...and that was LOUD for my room.

Finally I put in the Glenn Gould Bach Goldberg Variations.... I figured this time I'd REALLY give it some power, and there I was able to get up to 30 watts at times... but really, in order to get 30 watts (don't forget that's 15 watts per channel) I had to have the music blaringly loud.

I can't EVER imagine needing 500 watts of power... I think I went WAYYYY overboard with THIS purchase.

Now, I know this doesn't make much SENSE but.... how is it that I'm not UNDERPOWERING my speakers? I mean if my peak on regular listening volumes is ONE watt and my speakers recommend well, a lot more than that... Did I do myself a major disservice buying this amp?

AsSiMiLaTeD

Laura, you results sound about right.

Very seldim will you need more than just a few watts of power to get things going, especially with efficient speakers.

That's why these guys can run tube amps that only put out 20 watts per channel and still get really good sound.

I'm not sure which Polks you have, but I'd guess they're in the 88 - 90 db range in terms of efficiency - this means that they will play at 88 - 90 db at meter distance when powered with 1 watt...that should help put things in perspective...

Mike682

Many people don't realize that 1 watt is actually pretty loud, especially with high effecient speakers....I didn't myself until I had a power meter and was able to see the real time wattage. I was also very surprised.

Don't worry about underpowering your speakers by only sending them low wattage since most listening is not done at a high wattage anyway; Your "peak" wattage is the peak you feel comfortable with and is not the amplifier's peak wattage.

Overall, it is good to have plenty of reserve power to create that full sound, even if you hardly ever crank it very loud.

Spawndn72

Caution: This is my understand of the way things work. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

For 88db eff. speakers you need to have 1 watt of power to give you 88db of sound measuered at 1 meter. You then have to double the watts to get 91db. So you would need 2 watts to get 91db, 4 watts to get 94db, 8 watts to get 97db, etc.

Now lets talk real world stuff.

Lets say you are watching a movie and it is a scene where two people are talking. Normal conversation is between 60 and 70db. Lets say they are rather loud people and they are talking at 70db. So your amp is running along at .03125 watts to achieve those 70db's. Then some moron in the movie turns on a power saw. Power saws are around 110db. So to achieve that 110db your amp needs to pump out around 128 watts. This is where your Monster amp will shine and you old HK would be clipping.

Hope that helps.

Mike682

Originally posted by Spawndn72
Caution: This is my understand of the way things work. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

For 88db eff. speakers you need to have 1 watt of power to give you 88db of sound measuered at 1 meter. You then have to double the watts to get 91db. So you would need 2 watts to get 91db, 4 watts to get 94db, 8 watts to get 97db, etc.

Looks correct...here is a chart from Polkthug:

http://clubpolk.polkaudio.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28174&highlight=chart

Mike

Gaara

Also how far you sit from the speaker is going to affect things. Last time I checked everytime you doubled the distance from the speaker it was a 6db drop. Since most speaker's measured efficiency is from one meter away, if a person sits 4 meters away that equates to a 12db drop. If you did sit 4 meters away to get the same db level as someone who was 1 meter away you would need 16x the power.

Most people will never use up all their amplifiers power, but it is nice to know it is there. Its all about the headroom.

Jared

ohskigod

i went through the same thing with my carver. the 4.0t has led lights that move based on power output. unless i am really pumping out sound in my large basement, the meters rarely move.

i remember the all wise george grand (who owns 2 such amps) saying that the lights dont move until 35 watts of power or more is being pumped out by the amp. He has 2 carver amps bridged to his carver amazings. when i listenned to his system at farely high volumes, the lights didnt move, it took serious volume to even get the led's to flicker.

heiney9

Laura,

No need to worry. First of all the meters are more of an indicator rather than a TRUE measurement of output. Also keep in mind that wattage is usually measured as “****” RMS. Which is Root Mean Square. Of course since I’m at work I don’t have the link explaining this. But it’s basically a formula that calculates average wattage. The meters are more gimmicky than useful. Current is much more important. Wattage is a product of voltage and current. When I get home and can find the link it will explain this, but it tends to be math intensive and hard to understand. Anyways FWIW.

Are you following? An amp doesn’t put out wattage. Wattage is the unit of measurement to compare across other amps. Amps put out voltage and current. Therefore any measurement of wattage is dependent upon how the wattage is calculated. The meters don’t take into account the load (resistance).

H9

marker

Can't believe someone hasn't already said this yet,.....


but what a lucky amplifier!:p :cool: :eek:

Laura Palmer

Personally I can't believe what huge difference a visit to ClubPolk did for me.

You people have educated me so much.

It feels like it was only 4 months ago that I had my RTi8s and my Pioneer VSX-1014 receiver....

I'm so glad I didn't keep it, or replace it with the 1015.

My HK635 is PERFECT.

And I'm so happy with the bass that the RTi12s put out now that I couldn't have imagined going any other way.

But this amplifier you guys encouraged me to buy is just too much I think :P

I'm happy though. Very happy. I'm gonna stick with it. But if I'm unhappy and want to upgrade my system in 5 years I'll want to shoot myself instead.

RuSsMaN

Glad to hear you are enjoying your rig, yet sad you bought an amp from a dirty company like Monster.

jdhdiggs

Glad you're happy!

On my extremely inefficient maggies, it is painful to run 35W through them it's so loud.

Why do you need such a big amp? Safety for the speaker and better dynamics.

Ditto Russ' sentiments on the company...

Early B.

But this amplifier you guys encouraged me to buy is just too much I think

That's audio blasphemy. You can NEVER have too much power. Those 12's ain't even breakin' a sweat. They luv the juice you're pouring into them.

Enjoy your amp.

cfrizz

Just take comfort in the fact that you can rock as loud as you want & know that your ears will break long before your amp or speakers will!

You will also probably never have to buy another 2 channel amp regardless of who made it.

Just give it time & then when you go back to check out how your receiver handles the load all by itself, then you will really notice the difference.

Enjoy!
Cathy

ninerbj

Laura...
How long have you had this amp? Is it brand spanking new?

Two words... BREAK IN
give your new Monster baby some time, and I am sure things will start to sound even more full. Your smile will grown and your buyers remose will shrink.

CONGRATS on a great new amp!!

Brad

audiobliss

I wanna see some pics!!

Laura Palmer

It's brand new, yes. And that's definetely good news that it will sound better and better as it ages and breaks in!

I've actually only had the opportunity to spend 1 day with the amplifier, cause I'm in Toronto right now looking for apartments.

Suffice to say, I'm eager to return home

Thank you for everyone's advice. Hard to believe in the end that my home theater system is worth $10,000 Canadian (not what I paid, but still pretty insane to do the math since that doesn't even include a TV :P)

RuSsMaN

If you want to be geeky about it, keep track of time in use - the caps should break in (sound change) somewhere between 20-50 hours.

That is, if it isn't already run-in from the factory.

mrmusicman

I've actually only had the opportunity to spend 1 day with the amplifier, cause I'm in Toronto right now looking for apartments.

With that rig you could be apartment shopping on a regular basis.:D

marker

Originally posted by audiobliss
I wanna see some pics!!

Of the amp?;)