Opinions wanted on Nady Power Amplifiers

[catnap]

i am looking for an amp that can push 1500 watts @ 8ohms mono bridged. the most affordable amp that i could find that meets these specs is the Nady SPA-2400 amp, for $379.00 at Musician's Friend. i am not familiar with this brand of amps, however. nady's specs for these amps can be found at:
http://www.nady.com/products/product_pgs/spaampls_pg.html

i am going to use 2 of these amps to push my two 15" bass scoops (loaded with Eminence Kilomax subs).

does anyone have an opinion / experience with these amps? amps that powerful do not come cheap and these top my list as the best price. but are they any good?

here's a brief bit of specs:

Continuously variable speed fan with back-to-front air flow
User-defeatable clip limiter
Switchable 30Hz low-cut filter
Balanced XLR and 1/4" TRS inputs
Detent volume controls
Stereo, parallel-input, or bridged mono operating modes with selector switch
Binding post and Neutrik Speakon™ outputs
Ground-lift switch
Soft-start turn on/noise-free on-off
Built-in DC offset and current limiter
independent DC and thermal overload protection on each channel
Short circuit and speaker protection
Parallel outputs allow "daisy chaining" amps
Clip and Signal LED indicators for each channel
Durable double rack space (2U) steel casing
2 X 750W @ 4 Ohms,
2 X 1200W @ 2 Ohms,
Bridged mono: 1500W @ 8 Ohms, 2400W @ 4 Ohms
Weight: 30 lbs.


thanks,
sim*n

 

[david lee]

welp, at a whopping $0.16 a watt, i wouldn't recommend it. the old saying: "you get what you pay for" applies here.

just because it's loud, or publishes an extreme wattage doesn't mean it's going to perform at that level.

i recently went to some Crown training and learned quite a bit about how to read the specs of these amps. one of the most important things to look for when buying an amp for your subwoofers is: damping factor. damping factor is the amplifiers ability to control the woofer and give a tight accurate bass response (that's the highly abbreviated version). typically, some companies don't even publish the specs on damping factor because it is so low. an example is the Crown K2, it has a damping factor of 3,000....which is unbelievably insane. a K2 has such a tight low end slam to it, it is practically a subwoofer upgrade. i can put a K2 on any sub in my showroom floor and it will have a clean tight defined punch that rocks. most amps rate somewhere between 250 and 500, which is great. Macro Techs are rated at 1,000. the K2 is kind of a wierd breed of amp and most don't do what that amp does.

the Nady amp that you have shown doesn't even publish a damping factor at all. does this mean that it has one, sure, probably, but it's most likely immesurable.

ok....long winded. basically, if all you can spend is 300-400 dollars and you must have a sub amp, i suppose this one won't be too bad. but if you want a really tight slam, step up to something like a QSC PLX series, or a Crown CE, K, or Power Tech series amp. you won't be sorry. the K2 runs about $1000 and it's worth every penny. (rated at 500 w/ch)

 

[david lee]

by the way. Nady is known mostly for the wireless systems they produce. they aren't even the best wireless systems you can buy too. they probably farm out some sweat shop in japan to make these amps for them at 20 bucks a pop.

for the price, i guess you can't go wrong. if you're spending that much money on a higher end amp you probably won't get quite as much power as you'd need.

 

[catnap]

thanks for the advice! however, as much as i'd like to have Crowns or QSC's (i've owned and loved amps by both companies) my subs are very power hungry and i can't afford the $1500-2500 pricetag on a pair of top of the line amps.

i've tried to compensate for the lower quality of the amps by using a DBX subharmonic synth & a good crossover. hopefully if i can send a nice signal to the amps then it will improve the sound overall.

has anyone out there actually used these amps? any first hand experience? please someone come on and tell me....

peace,
sim*n

 

[Peasant Nikon]

1. Get an amp that can go into 4-ohms bridged and be stable, and hook both speakers up to it for awhile. If that does not cut it for you powerwise, get a second one when you can afford it and run them seperately.

2. Wattage ratings on amps are not nearly as accurate of a gauge of power as they should be. 1000 watts of Crown MacroTech or something similar will probably stomp all over 2000 or so watts of bargain basement amps. When I look at amps, I look at weight more than I look at wattage. This is not a science, but it gives you an idea of how much heavy stuff is inside the box. If at all possible, go somewhere where you can hear different on amps on a system with reasonably good sound quality so you can hear differences.

3. There is also more to amps than power and even sound quality. Heat dissapation is something that is integral to the performance of an amp, but often seems to be ignored by most people when shopping. Before you put together a system to run hard all night, make sure that it is up to it.

After going on my tyrade, I want to say that I have never seen or used a Nady amp. My comments are based on my experience with gear in general. I hope that you are able to give the amp a try and that you will be able to work soemthing out.
-Peasant Nikon