Got to love the UPS guy...

Post by **Eric D** » Fri May 14, 2010 7:10 pm

Another bundle of joy in the mail today...

Audiophiliac · Post by **Audiophiliac** » Fri May 14, 2010 8:12 pm

This is the one I am hoping will find its way to my car.

Hopefully it performs as well as the monoblock.

I am sure you will, but give us a real world comparison to its larger brother Ti800.4. While I would rather have the Ti, my budget and space restraints will fit this little guy much better. I would be running it in 3 ch. mode on fronts and a sub.

Post by **Eric D** » Fri May 14, 2010 8:16 pm

I can setup a nice 3-channel setup on my test bench with a sub I have.

I am going to try and get my LMS computer up and running. I would like to do some loaded frequency plots on this amp to see if it can handle it.

Post by **ttocs** » Fri May 14, 2010 11:27 pm

I hate your ups driver.

I am not sure how ups found a former nascar driver/track star but he is one hell of a ringer

......

denim · Post by **denim** » Sat May 15, 2010 4:22 am

I am jealous, looking forward to the review!

Post by **Eric D** » Sun May 16, 2010 12:28 pm

I unboxed the S400.4 today and hooked it up for a listen. This is certainly a unique amplifier.

It has "virtually" no idle current.

From what I can tell idle current is in the very low mA range. The lowest I have seen on any amp ever.

In the case of a M25 for example (I love to compare other amps to the M25), if you hook power and remote to a M25, but no RCAs or speakers, and then turn the M25 on, it will get quite hot in a short period of time. It has a pretty high bias, which means pretty high idle current, and more heat.

At this point, I can only think of two reasons why the S400.4 might have such low idle current...

1) Some sort of idle shutdown. If no signal is present on the line input, the amp may go into a "sleep" state to limit heat production.

2) The amp is actually Class B, not Class A/B. The Class A part of a Class A/B design is where a lot of the idle current comes from. I might be able to verify this when I look for crossover distortion while the amp is loaded.

If you happen to be thinking Class B, what the hell? Take a step back first. I have only built one audio amplifier myself several years ago. What I built was "high feedback Class B". It sounded great (for being only 5W or so). With high feedback you throw away a lot of the output voltage to instead make what output voltage you do have very clean. Pretty much all car audio amps I have worked with have some sort of feedback. In the case of Class B, if you have enough feedback, you find the crossover distortion actually goes away. I would never have believed this myself until I saw it first hand with the amp I had built.

So, there is a chance this amp is Class B.

Also, I am listening to it as I write this post and it sounds great so far. It has been playing bridged for about a half hour now at pretty high output levels and is just getting warm. Fan still has not come on.

For the most part, Class A/B has become a marketing bullet more than anything. For years I have wondered why no one made a nice Class B amp. If this is Class B, then maybe PG is one of the first to take a risk and make something more efficient.

twista17 · Post by **twista17** » Sun May 16, 2010 11:27 pm

hi i'm now running the S400.4 amp in my camry and could not agree more on eric on how good it sounds. and yes it does not draw up a lot of current in fact i only noticed around 0.5v difference in my voltage meter when the system is playing loud as compared to in normal listening volume.

the component kit i am using does not seem as "bright" as when i still had the US amps installed.

by the way, this is a paired up with the following gear:
Alpine CDA-9887
Prototype Aluminum cone MB and TW kit
Phoenix Gold R2.10 10" subwoofer in a ported box
Stinger 4ga amp kit
Stock Camry battery

overall, i like the amp and it feels as if it makes its rated power with no problem. and i am surprised how it was able to handle the 400watt sub with precision! its not a powerhouse but its an excellent amp for low power needs.

just my 2 cents worth...

tonym · Post by **tonym** » Mon May 17, 2010 5:07 pm

ttocs wrote:I hate your ups driver.

do you like mine?

Post by **Rold Gold** » Mon May 17, 2010 5:15 pm

If she was my UPS driver I'd go broke paying freight......

Post by **Bfowler** » Mon May 17, 2010 5:19 pm

get ready for some "my package" jokes!

Post by **ttocs** » Mon May 17, 2010 6:33 pm

if that was his ups driver, there would be a missing person alert on her, a stolen amp report filed by amp as well as an APB out on me

......

in reality I see it happening more like smokey and the bandit and when I pulled up in my stang(modern day version) she would just hop in the car, amp in hand.

Post by **smgreen20** » Tue May 18, 2010 3:41 am

I like the pats express box on the dolly.

Just for you Brian, but ....She could handle my package. Special delivery.

Post by **Bfowler** » Tue May 18, 2010 8:16 am

oh, i'll bet she handled it with care. even if it was marked for express delivery.

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Tue May 18, 2010 8:44 am

Bfowler wrote:oh, i'll bet she handled it with care. even if it was marked for express delivery.

Yeah right, as if UPS handles anything with care!

It was tugged on, jammed into spaces it wouldn't fit, thrown off the truck and generally abused. Smgreen's insurance claim has also been denied.

Edit:

waynehead · Post by **waynehead** » Tue May 18, 2010 12:52 pm

lol i took a picture of a package i recently received via ups. One corner was smashed in completely and one side had a boot print in it clear as day. I meant to post it on here to rant but forgot until this post. picture coming soon.

bretti_kivi · Post by **bretti_kivi** » Tue May 18, 2010 12:55 pm

my package I picked up today was fine ?!

If they're too light, they get thrown around. Moral? make it 30lb+. The last light one was 7kg and that was in awful condition. The big ones are generally fine.

Bret

Post by **smgreen20** » Wed May 26, 2010 8:50 pm

Any further updates on the review Eric?

Post by **Eric D** » Thu May 27, 2010 6:01 am

I had a few people with computer problems, so I had to clean off my test bench and work on those. I hope to have the whole review done within a week.

Post by **smgreen20** » Thu May 27, 2010 7:45 am

Thanks for the response. Just wanted to make sure I didn't miss something.

tonym · Post by **tonym** » Thu May 27, 2010 7:18 pm

Eric D wrote:I had a few people with computer problems, so I had to clean off my test bench and work on those. I hope to have the whole review done within a week.

talk about computer problems

my rack at ashburn equinix dc4

I need to move it over to the new datacenter dc5 next weekend

gigabit connect to the web
10 gig fiber x-over to main newsgroup indexer at dc3
2x 30 amp circuts

Post by **fuzzysnuggleduck** » Thu May 27, 2010 7:22 pm

Lot's of HP in there, one Dell, a few whiteboxes but no IBM... hehehe.

tonym · Post by **tonym** » Thu May 27, 2010 7:27 pm

fuzzysnuggleduck wrote:Lot's of HP in there, one Dell, a few whiteboxes but no IBM... hehehe.

yeah the hp's were a steal....ibm was 4x the cost for less machine

3 dells there also....just 1 in its orig case still old 2650...they work well for what they do...all run freebsd but the dells...they run openBSD

AAMP217 · Post by **AAMP217** » Thu May 27, 2010 7:30 pm

Can't wait for the review!