why does my amp keep blowing up when i put a mixer through it ?

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i was dj-ing (well, sort of) at 2 seperate parties in
the last month. fairly humble set up : mp3s
on discs, 2 cd players, a £40 numark mixer 4 speakers and
one standard sherwood amplifier (richer sounds).

now, both times, the amp got too hot and kept cutting out,
switching itself off completely, mainly whenever i switched
from one cd player to the other.
some pissing about at the back with the speaker wire
eliminated the frequency of it blowing, but it was
still temperamental. why ? can't you buy decent cheap
amps that *don't* cut out ? what's the remedy here ?

― piscesboy, Monday, 10 February 2003 18:32 (twenty-three years ago)

You could try sending an email to answers@zZounds.com (yes, 2 Z's)
My friend answers almost all the questions, so don't tell him I told you to give him more work!

― Oops (Oops), Monday, 10 February 2003 18:57 (twenty-three years ago)

couldn't you just fade between the two cd players instead of "switching"?

― kephm, Monday, 10 February 2003 21:46 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah sorry i was doing that.
it was still blowing up.
like jay-z in that pitman song.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 12:47 (twenty-three years ago)

A possible explanation is that if you happened to plug the mixer into the phono/aux socket and your amp has a phono stage, you would've been hopelessly overloading it. You need to always plug a mixer into the tuner or cd sockets, never the phono because record decks have a much lower power output than mixers.

The simpler explanation if you had it plugged into the right socket is that you can only get so much power out of an amp before it cuts out. You were probably just trying to get more volume than was reasonable out of the thing. The heat and humidity at parties doesn't help. This is why when you go to a club they use a PA amp, not a hi-fi one...

― Jacob (Jacob), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 13:15 (twenty-three years ago)

The amplifier you have may not be desgined for the use you are putting it to its running too long at too high volume and is cutting out becasue of this.

What model amp is it?

A proper PA Amp would be better.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 13:19 (twenty-three years ago)

What, like mine?

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 13:23 (twenty-three years ago)

No one that's better than yours, by at least 5.

― Jarlr'mai (jarlrmai), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 13:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Rubbish. Mines at least 4 better than this theoretical P.A. of which you speak.

― Lynskey (Lynskey), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 14:19 (twenty-three years ago)

You guys all know more about this stuff than I do, but I had a very similar situation at a gig a few months back, and I kept assuming it was the amp. In fact, it was just the power bar. Assuming you plug your gear into a power bar, try even testing that. If it's old, especially, it can cause lots of problems. (Since I replaced my power bar with a new one, I've had no troubles.)

― s woods (danfitz), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 14:46 (twenty-three years ago)

hey thanx -
umm chaps what's a power bar ?

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 18:36 (twenty-three years ago)

One of those 4 way main socket things.

Was there anything on top of the amplifier at the time? I guess you'd have though of that though.

― Graham (graham), Tuesday, 11 February 2003 18:50 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah i had.
wafting the vents with the curtain didn't seem to help.

― piscesboy, Tuesday, 11 February 2003 23:40 (twenty-three years ago)

You don't say what kind of speakers you were using - maybe the impedance was way out of range?

― Graham (graham), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 16:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Is the mixer also a pre-amp by any chance?

― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Wednesday, 12 February 2003 16:30 (twenty-three years ago)

well.
the good good people of
richer sounds inform me i need
a power amp not an integrated
one. 200 quid !!

― piscesboy, Wednesday, 12 February 2003 16:34 (twenty-three years ago)

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