Amp to Get The Best Out of LFSys Monza

[Obrienp]

56 minutes ago, Chienmortbb said:

I believe that the early ones had a smaller port and crossed over at  about 2KHz. @stevieis using a different compression driver now that allows the crossover frequency to be lower. Mine is an early one. 

I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll have a look at them to see if the ports are different. I won’t be able to tell about the crossover, although I suppose I should be able to hear the difference. The horns look the same but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the same compression model driver attached to them. It would be a bit too much hassle to remove the grills and take the drivers out to see if they are the same.

[Stealth]

There quite different cabs The Monza is fairly “flat” as in uncoloured whereas the BF two 10 is more old school vibe and sounds great when pushed in a “Rock” environment. I used to use a U700 with 2 BF two 10 and the was loud a hell. I think you might need to go one way or the other cab wise.. Or swap them both for a Super Twin 

[stevie]

7 hours ago, Obrienp said:

I wasn’t aware of that. I’ll have a look at them to see if the ports are different. I won’t be able to tell about the crossover, although I suppose I should be able to hear the difference. The horns look the same but that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the same compression model driver attached to them. It would be a bit too much hassle to remove the grills and take the drivers out to see if they are the same.

 

The port size was increased from 4" to 5" some time ago, while the lower crossover point is a recent development, made possible by the adoption of a more powerful compression driver. These are small, incremental improvements, which the average user is unlikely to notice. The sound of the cabs hasn't changed and the larger port will only make itself felt at extreme volumes. 

 

The changes from Silverstone to Silverstone II were enough to warrant renaming the cab. That's not the case with the Monza - or the Monaco for that matter, which has also benefited from incremental improvements over time.

[Chienmortbb]

11 hours ago, stevie said:

The changes from Silverstone to Silverstone II were enough to warrant renaming the cab. That's not the case with the Monza - or the Monaco for that matter, which has also benefited from incremental improvements over time.

I have to say that my Monza is not lacking in any way. It is a very early one and  still rocks my socks.  

[Obrienp]

On 03/06/2025 at 12:11, Chienmortbb said:

I believe that the early ones had a smaller port and crossed over at  about 2KHz. @stevieis using a different compression driver now that allows the crossover frequency to be lower. Mine is an early one. 

I forgot about this until now. I haven’t taken the grills off my Monzas but I did a rough measurement against the grill. Not very accurate because both ports seem to be about 12mm, which is almost 5”. I suspect a more accurate measurement would confirm they are both 5”. This makes sense as I bought the second Monza only a few months ago.  I am assuming, therefore, that mine have the lower crossover as well. They certainly work well together.

 

I have an outdoor gig coming up in a couple of weeks, so I will be able to give them some real welly. I can’t wait to hear how the rig sounds at volume.

[BassmanPaul]

On 03/06/2025 at 06:10, Obrienp said:

Funny: a mate has a Monaco; he was round at my place collecting some speaker stands and saw I had a second Monza. His reaction somewhat incredulously: Why do you need two? 

'Cos two are always better than one! We learned that as kids!! LOL

 

[BassmanPaul]

For interest I looked up the Trace Elliot 1200. I was very disappointed to see that it is incapable of driving a 2Ω load. In my mind such a capability in a bass amp is almost a necessity!

 

[tauzero]

8 minutes ago, BassmanPaul said:

For interest I looked up the Trace Elliot 1200. I was very disappointed to see that it is incapable of driving a 2Ω load. In my mind such a capability in a bass amp is almost a necessity!

 

 

While not being in possession of any statistics on the subject, I would say that the commonest impedance for a cab is 8Ω, hence catering for 4Ω is important. I don't know what the additional cost of designing and building class D modules to cater for 2Ω would be but presumably it's not going to be zero, and may require uprated components or even be completely impractical.

[BassmanPaul]

I use Acme Sound B2 2x10 three way speaker cabinets. I own four and all are 4Ω impedance. Using a stereo power amp that is stable at 2Ω per channel, as most pro ones are, I can drive all four at once should I need to. As a statement of fact ALL of my amplifiers are happy driving into 2Ω  loads.

 

The difference between an amplifier designed for 4Ω loads and one for 2Ω loads is very little.

 

[Downunderwonder]

4 hours ago, BassmanPaul said:

The difference between an amplifier designed for 4Ω loads and one for 2Ω loads is very little.

Tell that to ICE Power.

 

The general rule is no free lunch, ever. I surmise 2 ohm operation costs something significant.

[Dan Earp]

On 23/11/2024 at 14:39, Obrienp said:

 

That is definitely on my wish list but before I went there (money permitting), I wanted to know if I was getting the most out of the one I already have. I just wondered if I would be better off with an amp with more output and therefore, more clean headroom. Consensus seems that I should stick with what I have got. 
 

Also I was wondering whether I should keep saving and stretch to a Monaco instead of another Monza but then I would be mixing 10 and 12” drivers. Just that a mate, who recently got a Monaco, was saying how much more he “felt” the bass than with his two BF One10s. I know it’s not comparing apples with apples but I can’t help but wonder if the size of the driver has something to do with that.

I have the same experience, upgraded from 2x110 bf cabs to one Monaco. Because the 110’s struggled outdoors in the way  the Monaco doesn’t 

[chris_b]

You're not comparing like with like. I would always expect a Monaco to exceed the performance of several One10's.

[eude]

8 hours ago, Dan Earp said:

I have the same experience, upgraded from 2x110 bf cabs to one Monaco. Because the 110’s struggled outdoors in the way  the Monaco doesn’t 

I replaced my two One10s with a single Monza and I'm over the moon! The single 1x10 cab is louder, goes lower and beautiful punchy way, and has better dispersion than the two BF combined!

[Phil Starr]

If you want to design an amp driving into 2ohm loads then the first thing you'd need to do would be to double the power supply unless you are prepared to see the power produced by the amp limited by the current available. You'd also need to considerably beef up the heat sinking, although the basic design of most of the amplifier module would remain the same you'd also need to increase the power handling of the output componets to survive the extra current they would be carrying.  There would be considerable expense involved in doing this right and it might well add 30-50% to the cost of production for an amp that would only appeal to a limited market. It's significant that historically a lot of 1,000W amps run parallel output stages mainly because it is as cheap or cheaper to do this than to create a 2ohm amplifier. A big beefy power supply does add funcrtionality to any amp and a well specified supply is worth having as it will also improve performance at 4ohms, to an extent you get what you pay for and power supplies are roughly as costly as amps, sometimes more so. 

 

An amp might well be advertised as 2ohm stable but if the output remains the same or is even reduced at 2ohms compared with 4ohms then what is the point?

[BassmanPaul]

I don't use regular bass amps, I use stereo power amps. That way I'm not restricted by some amp.  designers short sightedness.  LOL

 

[tauzero]

1 hour ago, BassmanPaul said:

I don't use regular bass amps, I use stereo power amps. That way I'm not restricted by some amp.  designers short sightedness.  LOL

 

 

Then you're happy, and many many other people are also happy. Everybody's happy. I don't know what you've complaining about.