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Yamaha PC5002M extremely rare

I wonder how much energy they use as well. Maybe I'll try to borrow one of those plug-in usage meters. At idle, the PC5002M's heatsinks run at room temperature, but they're so large they could still be dissipating a fair amount of heat and you'd never know. And of course you have the rest of the surface area of the circuit boards that could be dissipating some power as heat, too. If you think about how much heat a 100W lightbulb generates, it's hard to believe that the amp is wasting much more than that. Mark, I'm assuming you've had a similar experience, but what's the MX-10000 like?
The MX-10000 runs fairly cool like the PC5002M. Undoubtedly part of that is due to having a massive chassis to dissipate the heat. I think it's possible that these amps use 100 watts while idling.
 
One has to be a little bit careful when getting down into the VERY low bass regions. In addition to all the technical challenges and difficulties which Theophile has mentioned, once you go below the audible threshold and into "infrasonic" sounds, especially the area around 6 to 9 Hz (IIRC), there are serious health risks. Nausea, vomiting, and at higher SPLs, physical damage to internal organs and even death may result from infrasonic sounds. We aren't designed/evolved to cope with such waves; in nature, they occur only in rare situations, such as in certain types of earthquakes.

Note: Elephants, though, can and do produce sounds as low as 4 Hz, which can travel through the earth even farther than sounds can carry through the air. The elephants actually "hear" (sense) those vibrations with their feet, and sometimes use them to locate each other over distances of a mile or more, even when they cannot see each other! This was discovered a few years back, entirely by accident/coincidence, as we cannot hear these sounds except by shifting the frequencies into the audible range. Those infrasonic waves don't seem to bother the elephants at all, although if you picked them up and amplified them through the air, they would be extremely unpleasant for people.

Even if you had a system with transducers capable of reproducing everything from DC (dead cold / zero Hz), you'd STILL want a filter switch that would lop off everything below about 10-12 Hz. Otherwise, your first listening session with material that actually went that low would likely be your last one.

I do think that music is much enhanced in systems that can reproduce frequencies down to, and a bit below, the 20 Hz point, though. Just don't go TOO low down! :no:
 
The MX-10000 runs fairly cool like the PC5002M. Undoubtedly part of that is due to having a massive chassis to dissipate the heat. I think it's possible that these amps use 100 watts while idling.

My Yamaha B-2x was measured at 98 watts at idle while "healthy".
 
One has to be a little bit careful when getting down into the VERY low bass regions. In addition to all the technical challenges and difficulties which Theophile has mentioned, once you go below the audible threshold and into "infrasonic" sounds, especially the area around 6 to 9 Hz (IIRC), there are serious health risks. Nausea, vomiting, and at higher SPLs, physical damage to internal organs and even death may result from infrasonic sounds. We aren't designed/evolved to cope with such waves; in nature, they occur only in rare situations, such as in certain types of earthquakes.

Note: Elephants, though, can and do produce sounds as low as 4 Hz, which can travel through the earth even farther than sounds can carry through the air. The elephants actually "hear" (sense) those vibrations with their feet, and sometimes use them to locate each other over distances of a mile or more, even when they cannot see each other! This was discovered a few years back, entirely by accident/coincidence, as we cannot hear these sounds except by shifting the frequencies into the audible range. Those infrasonic waves don't seem to bother the elephants at all, although if you picked them up and amplified them through the air, they would be extremely unpleasant for people.

Even if you had a system with transducers capable of reproducing everything from DC (dead cold / zero Hz), you'd STILL want a filter switch that would lop off everything below about 10-12 Hz. Otherwise, your first listening session with material that actually went that low would likely be your last one.

I do think that music is much enhanced in systems that can reproduce frequencies down to, and a bit below, the 20 Hz point, though. Just don't go TOO low down! :no:

I think it'll be hard to find transducers capable of producing serious SPL for these infrasonic frequencies if not impossible. Some subs can reproduce down to 10Hz or less but needs multiple in order to feel such low frequencies.

I know Rotary Fan Sub is capable of producing 115db down to 1Hz since it uses mechanical power. Most of the earth moving equipments can produce these low frequencies. I agree a prolong exposure to such low frequencies can post a serious health threat. I think some pipe organs can produce down to 10Hz (may be 9).

I don't use subsonic filters on my HT system since I have 8 subs in the room and can produce down to 10Hz in room response. While I listen to classical or instrumentals, it's important to feel as well as hear so I have subsonic turned off. My subs can come down to 15Hz.
 
Me too.I use a turntable as my Source component(without headshell damping).Neither do I run an infrasonic replay system.I do however have the ideal for the purchase of equipment capable of achieving that ambition.Parallel tracking/Linear tracking tonearm.With the correct headshell and a trough the means to damp the arm cartridge resonance is available and easy to optimise through manipulation of the individual elements.
There are superb infrasonic reproducers on the market.They are extremely expensive,however they may be worth-it.We read of many an audiophile who has spent a fortune trying to optimise the lowest audible and the subaudible bands.The lowest frequencies require the most electrical power to reproduce.If we want to reproduce music to a high resolution level,the requirement is not merely power,but low distortion.Traditional approaches have proven to have the highest levels of distortion in the replay chain within this region.Look at the anechoic chamber tests of subwoofer replay distortion levels.The lower the frequency,the higher the distortion.

These regions matter,are difficult and expensive to optimise.For digital,the subsonic resonance isn't an issue.The replay distortion,which almost entirely all transducers have whilst attempting to track the waveform in the lowest audible and sub-audible bandwidths,remains the gross limiting factor in those regions.
That of course is looking at the contribution of the components.The room is an altogether different topic of discussion,co-related,supplementary to having the necessary transducer system.
Having the ideal replay in these bandwidths would be the most difficult challenge in audio.

I've seen turntables in the range of 6 digits and one turntable cost many times more than my humble system. :tears: Heck, even a cartridge or a tonearm is worth as much as my whole HT setup. :D These are serious audiophiles with money no object for the Audio. I can only envy them from a far distance. :drool:

And yippee, the room shapes how the equipments sounds in it so make sure you pick a good room or install room treatments.
 
I think it'll be hard to find transducers capable of producing serious SPL for these infrasonic frequencies if not impossible. Some subs can reproduce down to 10Hz or less but needs multiple in order to feel such low frequencies.

I know Rotary Fan Sub is capable of producing 115db down to 1Hz since it uses mechanical power. Most of the earth moving equipments can produce these low frequencies. I agree a prolong exposure to such low frequencies can post a serious health threat. I think some pipe organs can produce down to 10Hz (may be 9).

I don't use subsonic filters on my HT system since I have 8 subs in the room and can produce down to 10Hz in room response. While I listen to classical or instrumentals, it's important to feel as well as hear so I have subsonic turned off. My subs can come down to 15Hz.

Regarding to your words,
If my speaker cannot reproduce down / equal to 10Hz, the subsonic button dosen't make any affect when turned on or off ??
 
Regarding to your words,
If my speaker cannot reproduce down / equal to 10Hz, the subsonic button dosen't make any affect when turned on or off ??

Not true, it will make it so that your amp cannot output below 10Hz. Even if your speaker isn't rated to play to 10Hz, it still can reproduced the mechanical movements of very low frequencies.
 
in that case, AFAIK, your speaker is not going to play any musical info either way. but without the filter it could still pass through some noticeable rumble or feedback from your turntable, assuming that noise has a high enough amplitude to compensate for the speaker's natural low-frequency rolloff. since it's subsonic you wouldn't hear it, of course, but you might feel it, and you can often see it by the way the woofer moves.
 
One has to be a little bit careful when getting down into the VERY low bass regions. In addition to all the technical challenges and difficulties which Theophile has mentioned, once you go below the audible threshold and into "infrasonic" sounds, especially the area around 6 to 9 Hz (IIRC), there are serious health risks. Nausea, vomiting, and at higher SPLs, physical damage to internal organs and even death may result from infrasonic sounds. We aren't designed/evolved to cope with such waves; in nature, they occur only in rare situations, such as in certain types of earthquakes.



Even if you had a system with transducers capable of reproducing everything from DC (dead cold / zero Hz), you'd STILL want a filter switch that would lop off everything below about 10-12 Hz. Otherwise, your first listening session with material that actually went that low would likely be your last one.

I do think that music is much enhanced in systems that can reproduce frequencies down to, and a bit below, the 20 Hz point, though. Just don't go TOO low down! :no:

A lot of this is a myth and it got busted: http://www.meyersound.com.au/brownnote.shtm

There where some test made by the US army, but there gear was quite lager than several PC5002M stacked :)

Mark: the 101M use a tremendous amount of power when idle, 200W!
 
cdfac I am working on some Yamaha info (for quite some time now) and found the power usage spec for the European model; idle 200W, full power 3,3kW (no link yet).

Sunboy, Sir.Byrd, the problem is not the speakers but the amp! If no filter is applied to the audio signal going to the power amp, it will try to reproduce any freq. in that signal. So if a subsonic signal is there the amp will try to make the speakers reproduce the signal and low freq. demands a huge amount of energy. So depending on the setup there will be no power left for the higher freq. and this lead to distortion. The typical tweeter death, where the subs suck all the power and burns the tweeters with a distorted signal. A typical sign you might have seen is the light dimming when a bass note is hit, this shows that the low freq. sucks the power supply so dry that is can't even deliver enough juce to the light diodes.

So yes, low freq. can damage you're speakers. But using the low cut filter can create a new problem if you are running an ultra high quality setup, since it is a simple EQ. Using an EQ creats phase changes and you don't whant that in you're signal since it moves things around in the sound stage - like an upright bass that usally is a bit off center to the right of the drum kit, but suddenly moves futher left/right when hitting a certain key.

The solution to this problem is vertical bi/tri amping and active crossovers, where you have a dedicated amp for the sub signal or for all units in the speakers (bi amp for 2 way, tri amp for 3 way etc...).
 
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cdfac I am working on some Yamaha info (for quite some time now) and found the power usage spec for the European model; idle 200W, full power 3,3kW (no link yet).

Sunboy, Sir.Byrd, the problem is not the speakers but the amp! If no filter is applied to the audio signal going to the power amp, it will try to reproduce any freq. in that signal. So if a subsonic signal is there the amp will try to make the speakers reproduce the signal and low freq. demands a huge amount of energy. So depending on the setup there will be no power left for the higher freq. and this lead to distortion. The typical tweeter death, where the subs suck all the power and burns the tweeters with a distorted signal. A typical sign you might have seen is the light dimming when a bass note is hit, this shows that the low freq. sucks the power supply so dry that is can't even deliver enough juce to the light diodes.

So yes, low freq. can damage you're speakers. But using the low cut filter can create a new problem if you are running an ultra high quality setup, since it is a simple EQ. Using an EQ creats phase changes and you don't whant that in you're signal since it moves things around in the sound stage - like an upright bass that usally is a bit off center to the right of the drum kit, but suddenly moves futher left/right when hitting a certain key.

The solution to this problem is vertical bi/tri amping and active crossovers, where you have a dedicated amp for the sub signal or for all units in the speakers (bi amp for 2 way, tri amp for 3 way etc...).

I am thinking how many amps and speakers got destroyed by subsonic due to over driving the amp in the subsonic region. Could it be possible that the amp is over driven into clipping for frequencies in normal hearing range and speakers / tweeters / crossover are fried before the amp protection kicks in?

For the amps to be over driven in the subsonic region, first we need to have recordings specially made to play in subsonic region. And I wonder how many recordings out there are qualify for this test. :scratch2:

Active Bi-amping or Vertical Bi-Amping is the way to go. :yes:
 
Kill a watt... you do mean killer watt right :)

I guess the old monster amps was not made for the new green wave.

I am thinking how many amps and speakers got destroyed by subsonic due to over driving the amp in the subsonic region. Could it be possible that the amp is over driven into clipping for frequencies in normal hearing range and speakers / tweeters / crossover are fried before the amp protection kicks in?

For the amps to be over driven in the subsonic region, first we need to have recordings specially made to play in subsonic region. And I wonder how many recordings out there are qualify for this test. :scratch2:

It is not the amp that goes puf, but usally the tweeters in the speakers due to distortion from the amp.

The subsonic is usally not in the recordings but is added by the gear used. Think of rumble and dust from a TT.
 
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I guess the old monster amps was not made for the new green wave.

I guess the old monster amps were built like us. Not to be efficient but to be strong, handsomely built, massively heavy, sounds awesome and be like the man who owns it.

It is not the amp that goes puf, but usually the tweeters in the speakers due to distortion from the amp.

The subsonic is usually not in the recordings but is added by the gear used. Think of rumble and dust from a TT.

I agrees! If you listen to turntables a lot, it's always a good idea to have subsonic filter on. But if you know your equipments (viny and TT) does not make these annoying noises, it's a good idea to turn off the subsonic since some classical music may have a small amount of subsonic contents. If your amp and speakers are up to it, listen to real classical with subsonic.

I think it's gears dependent.
 
I guess the old monster amps were built like us. Not to be efficient but to be strong, handsomely built, massively heavy, sounds awesome and be like the man who owns it.

So you are owned by a strong, handsome, heavy, and awesome sounding man? :D
 
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