Power Amp Powered Speaker Question

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Is there any danger to my Mackie Powered Thumps speakers as described below if I drive them with my 300 watt per channel Yamaha Power Amp?

Speakers Info:

400 watts system power
Frequency response 40Hz-20kHz
15" high-precision low-frequency driver

Thanks for your response,

Yes, that's a problem if you feed a speaker output into the Mackie speakers. If the Mackies are 'powered' speakers as you say, they want an input of a line-level signal only. Look for a line-out on your amp.

Thanks Matt, I will do that.

I was using a little non-powered mixer but just not getting the sound I became accustom to from the Yamaha with the equalizer Maybe I'll look into an non-powered mixer with an equalizer?

PS: Enjoyed some of you music on Pandora the other day.

Later,

Thanks for listening to my music, Danny!

By the way, if you do use the Yamaha amp with no speakers, I think that's not good. I tried to do that with an old Peavey head and the company told me to use a dummy load or risk blowing the amp. I tried resistors as a dummy load but they got way too hot.

A mixer with EQ sounds like the trick for you. I don't know of any that don't use AC power, though (usually a wall wart).

I used one of these for about 5 years, and loved it.

Quote:

Thanks for listening to my music, Danny!

By the way, if you do use the Yamaha amp with no speakers, I think that's not good. I tried to do that with an old Peavey head and the company told me to use a dummy load or risk blowing the amp. I tried resistors as a dummy load but they got way too hot.

A mixer with EQ sounds like the trick for you. I don't know of any that don't use AC power, though (usually a wall wart).

That old Peavey must have been tube (valve) output amp.

Today's transformerless Solid State amplifiers don't need to have a load on the power amp at all and will operate safely in that fashion.

Danny's Yamaha powered mixer likely has either a Line Output or it may be marked Record Out or the likes, and he could use a shielded audio cable to connect to the Line Inputs of his powered Mackie speakers, just using the Mixer section of the Powered Yamaha PA as a mixer.

And it won't hurt a thing if connected and run in that fashion.

--Mac

Quote:

Quote:

Thanks for listening to my music, Danny!

By the way, if you do use the Yamaha amp with no speakers, I think that's not good. I tried to do that with an old Peavey head and the company told me to use a dummy load or risk blowing the amp. I tried resistors as a dummy load but they got way too hot.

A mixer with EQ sounds like the trick for you. I don't know of any that don't use AC power, though (usually a wall wart).

That old Peavey must have been tube (valve) output amp.

Today's transformerless Solid State amplifiers don't need to have a load on the power amp at all and will operate safely in that fashion.

Danny's Yamaha powered mixer likely has either a Line Output or it may be marked Record Out or the likes, and he could use a shielded audio cable to connect to the Line Inputs of his powered Mackie speakers, just using the Mixer section of the Powered Yamaha PA as a mixer.

And it won't hurt a thing if connected and run in that fashion.

--Mac

Agreed - as long as he doesn't plug in the powered speaker outputs of the Yamaha to the inputs of his active main speakers.

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Agreed - as long as he doesn't plug in the powered speaker outputs of the Yamaha to the inputs of his active main speakers.

While not a good idea to do, Ohm's law can tell us why this situation is not an instant kill of the following stage(s).

A Transformerless Power Output amp capable of delivering say, 100W into 8 ohm load, when connected to the Line Input of another power amp, which has a much higher input impedance than 8 ohms, Line Level inputs typically being from about 2,000 ohms to about 10,000 ohms impedance depending on design, Watts = EI or I*I*R (I squared R) or E2/R, we can see that the big bad power amp cannot develop enough wattage to instantly damage the input to the power amp. Of course, if one were to ABUSE that input by turning the power knob up on the first amp, eventually something is going to fail.

It is not a great idea to try this stunt at home, then, folks. Keep Speaker power to unpowered speakers and only introduce properly labeled Line Level inputs to your power amps.

--Mac

Quote:

That old Peavey must have been tube (valve) output amp.

Today's transformerless Solid State amplifiers don't need to have a load on the power amp at all and will operate safely in that fashion.

...

--Mac

Thanks, Mac. Yes, it was a tube amp. Good to know this is no longer the case with current amps, like the newer Yamaha head I'm currently using for gigs.