100v Line Amps

You should not hook normal speakers directly to your amplifier.

Normal speakers work at low voltage and high current, 100V line equipment works at a much higher voltage and a correspondingly lower current and then uses a stepdown transformer at the speaker. Trying to connect a normal speaker directly to a 100V line amplifier could lead to damage to the speaker, the amplifier or both. You might get away with it at low volume settings but I wouldn't risk it.

You can buy the the transformers seperately if you want to use your existing speakers.
 
Amnzero said:
Hey all

I have what is probably a dumb question, but I have a 100v Line amplifier :
Redback A4037
https://www.altronics.com.au/p/a4037-redback-phase5-40-watt-100v-public-address-amplifiers/

And I'm wondering if this can be safely hooked up to speakers that are not specifically 100v without blowing them or causing damage ?

Cheers
Click to expand...

With that amp, no.

You need either some 100V line to *X Ohm transformers, or proper 100V line speakers.

* where X = the impedance of your speakers.

There are some 100V line amps I use which include a low voltage output suitable for 6-8 Ohm speakers, but looking at the hi-res pics of that amp it doesn't have the same facility. It's 100V line or nothing I think.
 
Fantastic thanks all for your replies.

The company I work for had ordered these amps for a couple of new retail spaces, one of which was fitted with 100v Redback in ceiling speakers, the other was fitted with standard non-100v speakers. Hence I wanted to make sure before hooking the amp up to the latter hah.

Cheers for confirming my suspicions !
 
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