Peavey Forum

I may be posting this in the wrong location. I just created this account.... Anyhow, my boyfriend just opened a high end club venue. During the first few events the system kept "crashing". He showed me the room that the "amps" were stacked in... apparently they had "overheated" and caused the whole system to shut down.

Now my question is this: The people who set it up stacked what looks like 12-15 amps right on top of each other, literally. I asked my boyfriend if that was the way it should have been done, as it seems to me that it would highly contribute to them overheating. One on top of the other, I can only imagine in the center how hot they must get.

Shouldn't they be stacked with a gap in between each one, to allow the air conditioning to circulate through the middle? Again, I apologize if I'm posting incorrectly.

Thank you, I look forward to your feed back.

You did not state the model of the amplifiers in the installation. Pro audio amplifiers are designed to vent the excess heat via of internal fans. Some models blow front to back, while others back to front. It is for this reason that they should not be mixed.

It may be a matter of improperly accounting for the heat in the equipment room itself. Pro audio amplifiers have ratings published for the BTU's of heat radiated, and it is up to the system designer to calculate the total BTU's and to provide for ample cooling within the equipment room.

Of course not everyone who sells and/or installs sound equipment knows about BTU requirements. In a free enterprise system, failure is allowed.

I have 12 amplifiers, all Peavey's, in my club install stacked right on top of one another. They've been in use for 4 years now and never had an overheating problem. Either you have a mix/match of amps, as Marty mentioned in his post, or the amps need to be cleaned out.

Tom in Baltimore

Are they just in the middle of a room with no ventilation circulating the same warm air over & over?

tmbrandis wrote:I have 12 amplifiers, all Peavey's, in my club install stacked right on top of one another. They've been in use for 4 years now and never had an overheating problem. Either you have a mix/match of amps, as Marty mentioned in his post, or the amps need to be cleaned out.

Tom in Baltimore

**I hope I'm replying to you correctly. I've never used this type of website. Any how I will take a look at the stack of amps. When I seen it, they looked identical to me and they were over 5 feet tall. But I will check tomorrow night to see if that it really the case.

Johnny Rattlesnake wrote:Are they just in the middle of a room with no ventilation circulating the same warm air over & over?

They are in a "closet" space. He showed me where there is an air conditioning vent into the tiny room, however like I mentioned, it just seem like stacking them in that fashion isn't a good idea.

Marty McCann wrote:You did not state the model of the amplifiers in the installation. Pro audio amplifiers are designed to vent the excess heat via of internal fans. Some models blow front to back, while others back to front. It is for this reason that they should not be mixed.

It may be a matter of improperly accounting for the heat in the equipment room itself. Pro audio amplifiers have ratings published for the BTU's of heat radiated, and it is up to the system designer to calculate the total BTU's and to provide for ample cooling within the equipment room.

Of course not everyone who sells and/or installs sound equipment knows about BTU requirements. In a free enterprise system, failure is allowed.

Thank you for your insight. I will be taking a look to see exactly whats going on with how they are set up and what models they are. I'll post my findings.