New Firehawk 1500 Video

rossyamaha

For anyone that was waiting to hear a bit more about this, we had the unreasonably talented Paul Hindmarsh down to do a video. Enjoy.

fretmeister

Is this where we annoyingly ask how L6 are getting 1500W out of it again?

Reminds me of when TC claimed 450W from a unit that was actually about 260W with Danish-blah power management.

rossyamaha

fretmeister said:

Is this where we annoyingly ask how L6 are getting 1500W out of it again?

Reminds me of when TC claimed 450W from a unit that was actually about 260W with Danish-blah power management.

I know that subject has come up already. I can't comment on it because I'm thick and know nothing about the technological stuff. Regardless of what wattage it actually is, I can say having heard it in person is that it, I believe the layman's term is, bastard loud.

fretmeister

The demo does sound nice.

rossyamaha

fretmeister said:

The demo does sound nice.

Haven't finished watching it yet. Keep getting distracted but yes, it really does. It's making me think about things again!

rossyamaha

Just going through the comments. Usual L6 bashing, sounds shit etc.

Best thing I've seen in forever is this.....

"It doens't sound any louder than the lunch box heads they demo. I call shenanigans".

Lew

Sounds like turd.

olafgarten

It looks like they are using peak wattage for the 1500w figure. From the Line6 Website:
HF- center (Amp): Class AB (Type), 153W (Peak), 80W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)
MF + HF - stereo (Amp): Class D (Type), 2 x 153W (Peak), 2x80W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)
LF (Amp): Class D (Type), 1200W (Peak), 440W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)

That 1200w LF speaker is what accounts for most of it. Theoretically you can get a maximum of 1659w, but adding up the continuous values it comes to only 680w.

It sounds okay though.

EricTheWeary

Only flicked through but I winced when the Line 6 guy said he uses Line 6 but he also has nice stuff. |) And it did not sound good but YMMV etc.
My brain went to schools on this - a make louder machine for whoever is in the room - or as an all in one box for a pub entertainer. For just electric guitar there are a lot of options for £750.

gubble

I thought it sounded great.

Not keen on the looks or the ipad controlling stuff (each to their own).

But as a seemingly very loud swiss army knife amp it ticks all the boxes.

Paul is a stunning player and to be fair if he really is going out gigging using only line 6 products good on him and that should tell us all something

BGG

I know Paul and he does indeed gig this stuff. As he says he has a really nice Marshall, Soldano which were his main gigging amps for years but now his rig is totally Line 6 and he always sounds insane live.

fretmeister

olafgarten said:

It looks like they are using peak wattage for the 1500w figure. From the Line6 Website:
HF- center (Amp): Class AB (Type), 153W (Peak), 80W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)
MF + HF - stereo (Amp): Class D (Type), 2 x 153W (Peak), 2x80W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)
LF (Amp): Class D (Type), 1200W (Peak), 440W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)

That 1200w LF speaker is what accounts for most of it. Theoretically you can get a maximum of 1659w, but adding up the continuous values it comes to only 680w.

It sounds okay though.

If you look at photos of the rear of the unit right next to the power in...

olafgarten

fretmeister;1070854" said:

olafgarten said:

It looks like they are using peak wattage for the 1500w figure. From the Line6 Website:

HF- center (Amp): Class AB (Type), 153W (Peak), 80W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)

MF + HF - stereo (Amp): Class D (Type), 2 x 153W (Peak), 2x80W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)

LF (Amp): Class D (Type), 1200W (Peak), 440W sine continuous @1% THD (RMS)



That 1200w LF speaker is what accounts for most of it. Theoretically you can get a maximum of 1659w, but adding up the continuous values it comes to only 680w.



It sounds okay though.










If you look at photos of the rear of the unit right next to the power in...

Didn't see that before, 1500w must be the maximum the speakers can output with a different amp.

fretmeister

I'm going to bet there is a power management system that is basically a charging system that releases extra stored energy when needed for dynamic peaks. 

Doesn't make it a 1500W amp, and the amp still can't put out more that it takes in, but the marketing dept won't care about that.

I love Line 6 stuff and I've used it since the very first Pod, but this sort of thing really boils my piss.

When TC got caught in marketing bollocks on the RH450 they lost a lot of customers. 

And yet when Mesa did it with the Dyna-Watt system in the 20/20 power amp they actively marketed the technology as allowing more dynamics and lower weight. They made the 20/20W rating a positive thing and made customers interested in the tech itself.

welshboyo

What I will say is Chappers looks like Ricky Gervais with his haircut...

olafgarten

fretmeister;1070916" said:

I'm going to bet there is a power management system that is basically a charging system that releases extra stored energy when needed for dynamic peaks. 

Doesn't make it a 1500W amp, and the amp still can't put out more that it takes in, but the marketing dept won't care about that.

I love Line 6 stuff and I've used it since the very first Pod, but this sort of thing really boils my piss.

When TC got caught in marketing bollocks on the RH450 they lost a lot of customers. 

And yet when Mesa did it with the Dyna-Watt system in the 20/20 power amp they actively marketed the technology as allowing more dynamics and lower weight. They made the 20/20W rating a positive thing and made customers interested in the tech itself.

The issue with something like that would be that the sound level wouldn't be consistent. If you are playing loudly for an extended period of time it would run out of extra power and the volume would drop.

Travisthedog

The bit where he first plays the strat is pretty much the tone in my head

Sporky

olafgarten said:

The issue with something like that would be that the sound level wouldn't be consistent. If you are playing loudly for an extended period of time it would run out of extra power and the volume would drop.

That's not actually going to be the case.

Music has a pretty low power density compared to (for example) pink noise. So if you ran pink noise through you would probably find that you did drain the power system, but with recorded music that's much less likely and with the output of an instrument (which is even peakier) it's just not going to happen.

The upshot is that if you had one of this amp, and one where you'd replaced the power amp with something that could pump out 1500W continuous, the latter wouldn't be louder for this application over any time period.

This is also why professional speakers often have multiple power ratings, typically one for recorded music and one for pink noise - they often also state a duration for each type. The ratings for pink noise will be lower than for anything else because it has a higher power density. One of my current employer's loudspeakers, fer instance, is rated for 180W continuous programme audio but only 90W for 2 hours for pink noise.

So there's a degree of perception here; you can say "it can't be a 1500W amp if it only takes in 600W", or you can say "this can match a 1500W amplifier for output with a guitar signal going in". Depends how angry you are with the world, I s'pose.

The other approach would be to massively upgrade the power supply stuff so that it could output 1500W continuous which would make it a lot more expensive and heavvier for no benefit whatsoever.

thecolourbox

This is of no benefit to the discussion (though for what it's worth it sounded quite alright too me) but should I be worried that I watched the video for a full two minutes before I realised Paul was from the north east and not Dutch?!

Cabicular

He's a work Geordie

monquixote

It is quite an interesting and practical looking piece of kit. 

The monitor ins mean you could use it as a mini PA for singer songwriter gigs, you could use it as a stage monitor, or as an acoustic amp. It would also be pretty decent for when you had a party. 

It's also cheaper than buying a Firehawk and a Stage Source separately.

I do also like the idea of being able to assign pickup settings to patches with the Variax.