| What are Ohms? |
Ohms are the units that impedance is measured with. Think of impedance as the measure of how hard the amplifier has to push to get current or power to flow. The lower or the smaller the impedance is, the more power the amplifier will produce. Unfortunately, the amplifier circuit wants to push against something, so that if the impedance is too low, lower than 4 ohm the amplifier will in most cases perform very badly and can damage the amplifier badly, and even overheat and stop working. Some DJ Disco or PA power amps can work from a range of 16 ohms down to 2 ohms. If you would like more information on (ohms) please call us so we can help.
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| What are Crossovers? |
A passive crossover is term for a mechanism that filters the frequencies fed to the Disco or DJ speakers so that only frequencies that the speaker is designed to produce will be passed through, and the other frequencies are ignored or passed to the other speaker that is designed to take the frequencys.
Most pro audio speaker crossovers are passive, consisting of either a capacitor for cutting out bass and subsonic, or inductors for cutting out higher frequencies.
Crossovers are used in most ready made speaker boxes, you can also get electronic crossovers for bigger more powerful systems, and these crossovers will electronically manipulate the signal before it is put thru the amplifier, you will need more amplifiers to do this and this can be very expensive but will totally change the quality of the sound.
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| What are Active Speakers? |
Active speakers are speakers that have built in amplifiers. This means that they can be connected directly to a sound source or a mixing console, without the need for an amplifier. The active speaker's input comes in the form of a low-level (line-level) signal passed along an interconnect cable originating at the preamplifier. Passive speakers can be connected to active speakers to avoid the usage and need of an external amplifier. Active speakers ease set-up issues for an audio system, at least to some extent. However since a balanced signals (cable) from a signal source and an electrical source (extension cord) must be run to each speaker. This significantly increases requirements for wires being run for each speaker.
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| What are Passive Speakers? |
A passive speaker is a speaker that does not have its own power source and draws power from an external amplifier, located outside of the loudspeaker enclosure. Passive speakers are lower in price and lighter than active speakers, and requires significantly less cables to be run to each speaker. Only a single length of cable is required to run from a separate amplifier. These speakers do not have the overhead of requiring multiple electrical outlets for each speaker. An electrical outlet would only be required for the separate amplifier. This can be desirable positioning your speaker with out worry of available electricity.
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| What are Bass Speaker? |
Bass Speakers are a loudspeaker design in which the back wave of the speaker cone is routed through a port or vent in the speaker enclosure that reinforces bass output. The port may be located on the front or rear of the enclosure. Using the speaker cone's rear sound wave is an effective way to increase bass response.
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| What does RMS Mean? |
RMS (or Continuous Power) refers to the ability of a receiver or amplifier to output its full power continuously. In other words, just because your receiver/amplifier may be listed as being able to output 100W, it doesn't mean it can do so for any significant length of time. Always make sure that when you check for specifications, that the WPC output is measured in RMS terms. This means that the listed power output is a sustained output at a specific volume level.
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| What do Monitors Do? |
| Studio monitors are loudspeakers specifically designed for audio production applications such as recording, film, television and radio studios where accurate audio reproduction is crucial. Studio monitors are made in a more physically robust manner than home hi-fi loudspeakers. Whereas home hi-fi loudspeakers only have to reproduce compressed commercial recordings, studio monitors have to cope with the high volumes and sudden sound bursts that may happen in the studio when playing back unmastered mixes. |
| What is a Power Amplifier? |
The term power amplifier has become understood to mean an amplifier that is intended to drive a load (such as a speaker, a motor, etc). Power amplifiers take a small signal (like that from the output of a CD player, mixing board, etc) and make it strong enough to drive a speaker. This is accomplished by substantially increasing the voltage of the input signal. Assuming an adequately designed amp, this will cause a correspondingly large current to flow through the load.
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| What is a Hi Fi Amplifier? |
High Fidelity (Hi-Fi) is a standard for audio equipment that aims for perfect frequency response and zero signal noise, although this is never achieved in practice. This term is used to represent the very best in audio equipment, but these days, even a sub-standard equipment is labeled hi-fi.
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| What is Clip Protection? |
An amplifier is said to be clipping when the output signal attempts to exceed the supply voltage. Since the supply voltage defines the absolute maximum peak output voltage from the amp, the signal will be clipped or 'cut off' if the input signal level is too high. Clip protection simply stops the amplifier from exceeding the supply voltage.
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| What does DDT mean? |
Peavey's patented DDT (Distortion Detection Technique) prevents the power amp from clipping without compromising the signal's tonal integrity, protecting not only the amp but the speakers as well. An LED signifies when this automatic protection circuitry engages.
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| What is 100v Line? |
100V Line speaker systems (constant-voltage systems) are the most economical way to install a multi-speaker sound system. The term 100V system relates to the maximum output voltage of the amplifier. To generate this high voltage the amplifier is equipped with a step-up transformer, which increases the normal output voltage of around 30 Volts, up to 100 Volts. In a 100V line system, a large number of single loudspeakers each equipped with a step-down transformer can be connected to one single speaker cable. With the 100V line installation, each speaker or speaker cabinet is equipped with a step-down transformer.
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| What does Stereo Mean? |
Stereo sound is the reproduction of sound using two or more independent audio channels through a symmetrical setup of loudspeakers in such a way to create the impression of sound heard from multiple directions, as in natural hearing. It is often contrasted with mono sound, where audio is in the form of one channel, often centered in the sound field.
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| What does Bridge or Bridged Mean? |
Bridging refers to combining two (four) channels of an amplifier into one (two) channel(s) with twice the voltage. A two channel amp can be bridged to one channel, and a four channel amp into two channels. Bridging the channels increases the power output. An amplifier is usually bridged to combine two channels to power one subwoofer, or to combine four channels into powering two subwoofers.
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| What are LED Lights? |
LED technology has been developed and only recently has it been able to be applied to the DJ, disco and club industry. LED disco lights now offer incredible brightness to match that of more common forms of effects lighting. LED disco lights offer very low power consumption around 5% of conventional halogen bulbs. The LED lighting effects produce very little heat making them safer and more pleasant to work with. LED DJ lights also offer a lamp life in excess of 50,000 hours meaning consistent replacement of lamps can be a thing of the past. In addition to this, LED disco lighting tends to contain few or no moving parts so from a maintenance point of view are a lot more manageable.
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| What is DMX? |
DMX is a standard for digital communication networks that is commonly used to control stage lighting and effects. DMX is the primary method for linking not only controllers and dimmers, but also more advanced fixtures and special effects devices such as fog machines and moving lights.
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| What does Sound Activated Mean? |
Sound Activated (or Sound to Light mode) quite simply means the light unit effect will change along with the beat of the music. On the back of the light unit is a microphone. The microphone will pick up the beat (bass) frequencies and alter the light display. Some light effects units include a sensitivity switch which will alter how much of the bass frequencies will be picked up by the microphone. The lower the sensitivity the less the light will change in comparison to higher sensitivity. Some machines even allow you to turn off the sound active feature and switch to automatic mode or DMX control mode.
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| What is a Scanner? |
Scanners have a body which contains the lamp, PCBs, transformer, and effects (color, gobo, iris etc.) devices. A mirror is panned and tilted in the desired position by pan and tilt motors, thereby causing the light beam to move. Scanners are typically faster and less costly than moving head units but have a narrower range of movement.
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