Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

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Lancester
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Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Lancester » Mon May 08, 2023 5:20 pm

Hello.
Our church is getting ready to move into our new building and we will be adding two cabinets to our dual 3-hang of versarray's.
Each side will now be a 4-hang and I am looking for recommendation's on how to properly wire these for proper impedance and amplifier size.
Thanks for your responses.

Bartman
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Bartman » Tue May 09, 2023 9:31 am

Best would be to match whatever is currently powering the 3-hang per side. Are you running one amp channel per cabinet, or two or even three cabinets on one amp channel?

Lancester
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Lancester » Tue May 09, 2023 5:49 pm

Right now we're running all of the mid's with one amp and the high's with another. My thought is that another cabinet will drop the impedance too low to continue to run this way.

Lancester
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Lancester » Wed May 10, 2023 7:10 am

For clarification, there is an old CS-1200 (Not an X) running 3 mid's per channel and a Behringer EP 2000 running the tweeters. My thought is I will need to go to four amplifiers and split the 4-hang that way.....

Bartman
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Bartman » Wed May 10, 2023 9:48 am

The old CS1200 were rated 4 ohms per channel, so you are already overloading it with three woofers on one channel. Also, being that it is 600 watts per channel (at 4 ohms) that would be 300 watts per speaker driving 2 speakers, and 200W or less driving 3 (overloaded so not an accurate calculation). In either case, they are a bit underpowered already, so yes, getting more amplifiers is the way to go. I believe the ribbon drivers are 16 ohm each, so that side is safe, and you could still drive 4 of them on one channel.

It may be hard to find a good used old CS1200 to match the one you already have, but if you can find, then you would be ok with that setup and split the loads like you mentioned. Alternatively, if you can't find matching amps, you could get a single CS4000 which is rated down to 2 ohms per channel, then it could power 8 woofers (4 per channel). Then use your existing old CS1200 amps for all the ribbon drivers and sell the Behringer amp. (or other way around)
The CS4000 outputs 2000 watts per channel at 2 ohms, so 4 woofers per channel would get 500 watts each, which is right at the continuous power rating.

Lancester
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Lancester » Thu May 11, 2023 7:22 am

Thanks so much for the help. I think we know what we will do now.

Lancester
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Posts: 27
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Lancester » Wed May 17, 2023 5:49 pm

Another question if I might. Trying to decide what to do for cabling. Do we go with a 6 conductor cable, or would it be better to go with three, 2 conductor cables per side? Not sure what to use on a permanent install. Thanks

Bartman
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Re: Versarray 4-hang reccommendations

Post by Bartman » Tue May 23, 2023 3:18 pm

Best performance is that each driver gets it's own wire pair all the way back to the amp (and use 12 gauge wire). This is in order to maintain maximum dampening factor, and secondly to minimize power loss over long runs. 6-conductor cable may be hard to find, and maybe not the most economical choice (I haven't checked prices in a while). I ran cable a couple years ago for a church install and I used multiple runs of 4-conductor cable. The best performance for your setup would be four 4-conductor (2-pair) cable runs per side, one 2-pair per cabinet (LF driver gets one pair, HF driver gets second pair). That's a LOT of copper though. If money is tight, You could at least half the runs, do two 4-conductor runs per side, and do two lows and two highs per pair. A single 4-conductor cable to run all 4 cabinets (all LF drivers on one pair, all HF drivers on the other pair) would technically work, but performance would be compromised (but might still sound acceptable to you). This would mean a 2 ohm load over a single 12 gauge pair run, which is a big enough issue to start noticing power loss through the cable, let alone dampening factor being practically gone (if the cable run is long, say 100ft. or so).

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