the t.amp E-1200

I bought the E1200 to drive a couple of JBL Marquis MS112 as wedges to supplement the powered wedges I already have. The Thoman amp specs are very vague, no mention of RMS or continuous power figures so I took a risk on what the power really was, assuming that for £205 delivered they probably over-state their specs. My main amps are a pair of Yamaha P7000S for FoH so I thought I’d do a direct comparison. Using the sinewave generator in my digital mixing desk I set up a standard config into my Yamahas (set to max gain) into a dummy load, and measured the voltage at the load. The power equation V squared over R gave a power of 180W RMS, bearing in mind the signal output of the sig gen was low-mid level that’s OK. With the same set-up but using the E1200, again set on max gain, the power was over 700w RMS. My dummy load actually started to smoke before I turned it all off. The frequency was a fixed 440Hz, the load was resistive not inductive and I didn’t try any variations, so the power across the frequency range may be quite different. Also, I’m not sure how the input spec varies between the two (-4/+10 dB etc), but my A&H mixer outputs it’s ‘standard’ voltage level regardless the spec of the amp it is feeding, so if that simple test is anything to go by the E1200 seems like a beast, just glad I didn’t bother with the E1500. I’ll probably keep the amp gain levels at half way for the JBL monitor wedges. I also put some music through it connected to speakers but being in my garage at home in a residential area couldn’t crank the level up much so an inconclusive test. Sounded OK to me though. On quality, I immediately noticed that the Chinese ‘speakon’ connectors are not a slick fit like Neutrik connectors. And the XLRs aren’t Neutrik either so expect them to fail, or do as I do and fit a short sacrificial Male-Female XLR cable permanently to the amp so you aren’t continually inserting/removing plugs in your amp, I have found that 1) female XLR pins always fail, and 2) Neutrik connectors last 10x as long as cheap ones.

Ok, had it for a while now…this is basically same power as my Yamaha P7000S but has a 0dBu sensitivity compared with the Yamaha +8dBu, my mixer has a 4dBu o/p so I was feeding the E1200 too high a signal and my Yamaha too low a signal. This is a basic, cheap, heavy amp., but it is fantastic value for money.