Looking for reviews of Mini DSP plate amps before buying!!

[C-RAD]

Greeting y'all,

I've been very slowly putting together a system and I'm finally ready to buy some plate amps, but I would really like some feedback from actual users before buying.

I'm looking at buying 4 x MiniDSP PWR-ICE250 plate amps for the tops (https://www.minidsp.com/products/plate- ... pwr-ice250),
and 2 x Mini DSP PWR-DSP1 amps for the subs (https://www.minidsp.com/products/plate- ... s/pwr-dsp1).

If you've used these in your installs, I would very much LOVE to hear some feedback from you!!
Specifically sound quality, reliability, usability, DSP stability, and how they deal with being cranked.

My goal for this system is sound quality first and foremost.

This is my system plan so far (to start):

Feed signal digitally with RME ADI-2 Pro (http://www.rme-audio.de/en/products/adi_2-pro.php)

4 x DR200's (biamped, and using Dayton P2C-8 Planar Tweeters following Brent Evans example)
2 x Tuba 60's dual loaded

Source material will be mostly electronic, with some live elements mixed in. Once I work out the bugs and am happy with the way this configuration sounds, I will likely be shooting for 8 DR200's, 8 DR280's, and ~ 10 T60's.

Events will be anything from 60 people in a tiny basement, to 3000 people at an outdoor stage.

Should I hear shitty reviews of the Mini DSP plate amps, I'd likely go with
Powersoft Q4002 for the tops, Crown MA-36X12 for the subs, and Ashly Protea 4.8SP for the DSP. Not my first choice though, as it's more gear, heavier, less flexible, DSP is old, and doesn't minimize the amplified run lengths.

That being said, not super stoked about the 1% THD for the plate amps.

[Bruce Weldy]

Not my first choice though, as it's more gear, heavier, less flexible, DSP is old, and doesn't minimize the amplified run lengths.

I'll be the devil's advocate here and disagree with you. Powered speakers are by far less flexible. If you drop an amp in a powered speaker....it's done - period. With a rack of amps, you can always re-cable on the fly and keep everything working.

Cable runs are much better - one cable per box vs. two with powered speakers, leaving you searching for power or running long power cables everywhere....and the power isn't always close by where you want to place the cabinets.

With the newer lightweight amps, a rack full of amps and driveracks is easily manageable by one person. With a well-though-out rack panel, connections are simple and extremely fast.

Powered boxes are popular because the manufacturers want you to buy 'em - period. What you think you get in ease of use is obliterated by all of the above PLUS having volume and tone controls on the back of the speaker that can get turned, bumped, etc......not to mention the switches for crossover, etc that can get changed. You may find plate amps that can get around some of these issues, but the overall scale still dips heavily to separate amps and DSP.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Powered boxes are popular because the manufacturers want you to buy 'em - period.

True. Not that there aren't some advantages to on-board amplification, but IME they're outweighed by the disadvantages as Bruce noted. Manufacturers like them because there's far more profit in selling a speaker and an amp than there is in just a speaker.

[C-RAD]

Fair enough. I'm not married to the idea of built in amps.

After having a doing some reading, it would seem that if I got used/ refurb units I could consider:

2 x Powersoft m50q's for the tops
and 1 x Powersoft k10 for the subs = ~7G's.

Not cheap, but they would seemingly meet my SQ requirements and be quite flexible.

[Bruce Weldy]

Fair enough. I'm not married to the idea of built in amps.

After having a doing some reading, it would seem that if I got used/ refurb units I could consider:

2 x Powersoft m50q's for the tops
and 1 x Powersoft k10 for the subs = ~7G's.

Not cheap, but they would seemingly meet my SQ requirements and be quite flexible.

Those amps are way overkill for these boxes. Unless you plan to wire up a whole lot of boxes in series, you can use much, much less powerful amps and save thousands of dollars.