twiiii
Lunatic Member
a 2300 sound if not pushed is fairly easy to listen to is what I found. The bass isn't tight as it would be with more modern amps, but some might find the highs a little gentler on the ears. But some might find the top Octave and half a bit more congested, too. They could have a glaring midrange paired with the wrong speaker. Some JBL's 4300 and 4400 series monitors for instance. 2300's got along well with Altecs if you didn't push them and Like Klipsch could be a disaster pushing fragile systems with the small drivers. All woofers become non linear when they reach about 30 to 60% of their power rating. Klipsch by almost for to 4.5 db. JBL anywhere from 2 to 3 db and Altec depending on the series from about half power. Consumer Brands mostly don't tell us things like that. So unless your speakers are designed to handle big power a 2300 is not the amp you want. I now how some guys are. They like to see those meters bounce and most speakers just can't contend with the 400+ watt capability of a 2300. Oh and when they clip its a very hard clip which will destroy drivers diaphragms. Where a 3500 that can almost reach 490 watts at 2% has a smooth clip as I call it. I could push 3500's till the meter lamps started to dim and the meter would sit a + 1.5 dd indicated for moments on end and yet the sound coming out was still very listenable driving either big Altec horns with Multiple drivers or big JBL horns using Aluminum diaphragms. JBL and Altec drivers using phenolic diaphragms began to sound weird is the best way to describe it. Where 2300 had this hard cracking sound when pushing phenolic diaphragms while on the verge of clipping the amplifier. We used to stack 3 or 4 203 B's with 290 drivers or stack two 803B or 1003 B's with wye throat adapters and drivers for out door voice only systems being pushed by a 2300. But we always put a Urei 1176 limiter in front of the amp to protect the drivers. 2300 would put 70.7 volts across 16 ohms so we would use them that way with 70.7 transformers for long speaker runs where we did n't want large loss of power in the transmission speaker lines. Or we would use them in mono driving 70.7 volt transformers. . They were a very versital amp for commercial applications. You just had to be careful. The older tube amps had floating commons so you could wire channels in series to get high voltages if necessary. You can only wire 2300's in parallel in mono so your choices are smaller. Because the the Common terminals are tied to ground. 240's and 275's had their own rather different ways of driving 70.7 volt or 600, 150 ohm lines. Some floated but some were single ended and tied to ground on one side. It simple now days. 8,4,2 and some cases 1 ohm taps and 16 ohm taps as I remember on the 2300.
Crown had this adapter rack piece for the DC 300 A where you could combine the two channels and drive 70,7 volt lines at 600 watts. A 2300 out performed the Crown set up hands down. It also out performed BGW amplifiers, too. Crest was another company that couldn't keep up. But like I said for big Power its the 2600 for me. Roger used 2500's and 2600's to check his line arrays. With the amps either in Stereo or in Mono for the big XR 290 for instance. He would let them run 24 hours with the Power Guard lights flashing 50 % the time was his way of determining how much a speaker could handle. Its like turning a 1.2 or 1.25 K amp loose on a speaker today. But remember a 2600 was fan cooled and ran with the power guard flashing 24/7. None of the new amps can do that will out some extra cooling air across the heat sinks. But then consumers don't use their systems that way. Its about peak power now days and not 24/7 operation. If 400 watt peak capability is all you need with a warmer less defined sound then a 2300 should be more than enough. Just don't peg the meters.
Crown had this adapter rack piece for the DC 300 A where you could combine the two channels and drive 70,7 volt lines at 600 watts. A 2300 out performed the Crown set up hands down. It also out performed BGW amplifiers, too. Crest was another company that couldn't keep up. But like I said for big Power its the 2600 for me. Roger used 2500's and 2600's to check his line arrays. With the amps either in Stereo or in Mono for the big XR 290 for instance. He would let them run 24 hours with the Power Guard lights flashing 50 % the time was his way of determining how much a speaker could handle. Its like turning a 1.2 or 1.25 K amp loose on a speaker today. But remember a 2600 was fan cooled and ran with the power guard flashing 24/7. None of the new amps can do that will out some extra cooling air across the heat sinks. But then consumers don't use their systems that way. Its about peak power now days and not 24/7 operation. If 400 watt peak capability is all you need with a warmer less defined sound then a 2300 should be more than enough. Just don't peg the meters.
