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Post subject: Music Cuts Out on PD500 Pro
Posted: Sun Sep 16, 2012 10:00 am
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I really enjoy my PD500 Pro but I often have a problem that is getting extremely annoying.

I have a laptop with about 25,000 songs on it that I connect to my PD500 using the RCA inputs on Channel 7 of my PD500 from the headphone output of my laptop.

I adjust the left and right Master Volume controls to between 5 and 6, never past these points and using the channel 7 volume controls try to get the appropriate loudness for my setting or environment which is usually a small hall of no more than 200 people. The problem occurs in that if I raise the volume on channel 7 to anything above level 6 the music starts to cut out. It happens repeatedly and without fail and the light starts flashing from green to red just before it starts cutting out.

I would really appreciate anyone's help regarding this issue as I cannot get a decent loudness because of this clipping or cutting out of sound. I have already taken it to 2 different authorized repair centers and they can't seem to find the problem.

Can anyone provide me an explanation as to what I am doing wrong or what can be going on with this unit?

Thank you so much for your time and attention to this matter.


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Post subject: Re: Music Cuts Out on PD500 Pro
Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:12 pm
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You say you have a Passport PD 500 Pro. I have a Passport 500 Pro (no PD). I don't see any PD 500 Pro systems anywhere on the Fender Web site, either among products or manuals, and they have manuals for products they don't make anymore.

I believe you. Though the 500 Pro doesn't have a Left and a Right Master Volume (it only has one master volume knob labeled "Volume"), the PD 150 and the PD 250 both have Left and Right master volume knobs (also labeled "Main" and "Monitor", since these amps work in either stereo mode or mono mode with monitors).

Meanwhile, only the 500 Pro has eight channels. The others have six or less. So, you are describing a system I've never seen and I don't have any documentation for. So I have to guess.

The PD 150 has a feature called VIP (Vocal Input Priority). The idea is that if you play music through the system on channels other than channel 1, it comes out loud and clear, but if someone speaks into the mic on channel 1, it immediately turns down the volume to everything else to almost zero so the voice can have priority. This is for announcements, etc., like at a wedding.


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Post subject: Re: Music Cuts Out on PD500 Pro
Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:13 pm
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[Got an error, so I split my long post into two.]


If the PD 500 Pro has this feature, then if you have a live mic plugged into channel 1 and it's too close to the speakers, then as soon as the music gets loud enough for the mic to pick it up, I'd expect it to turn the music down much as you describe.

That's guess #1.

Guess #2 is that the unit may have a thermal breaker that shuts off the amp if it overheats. If the music has a lot of bass, this may very well happen at higher volume levels. The more bass, the lower the volume level this will occur on.

Basically, it takes more wattage to push bass notes than treble ones. If the unit can't put out the volume you want, the next step is to get a powered subwoofer, assuming that, like the Passport 500 Pro, the PD 500 Pro has a "Sub Out" port. This offloads the bass to the "active" or "powered" subwoofer (which has its own separate amplifier), leaving the Passport to put its wattage where it's strength is, in the midrange and highs. Plug in a subwoofer, and the Passport gets louder (though it doesn't try to play those low notes, expecting the subwoofer to do that). The sub-out only gets bass notes. Technically, this is called "bi-amping", since you are using different amplifiers to play different parts of the music.

I don't use a subwoofer for acoustic music, but I do use one for "house" music played for techno-contras. It makes a big difference. I can get much higher volume levels without overtaxing the amp. I use a 400 watt powered subwoofer with a Passport 500 Pro with its output patched into a Passport 300 Pro. With the Subwoofer, that gives me five speakers and volume levels that people make me turn down. Likely, a 300 watt or 400 watt powered subwoofer would make a remarkable difference with your system as well.

You'd get the clarity you are accustomed to with this system, plus higher volume levels and more bass. The Passport is a great system, but bass really needs bigger cabinets to push at high volume. That's what the separate subwoofer gives you. Plus more watts overall, distributed in a way that makes each component do what it does best.


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Post subject: Re: Music Cuts Out on PD500 Pro
Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 5:24 pm
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You might ask, "Why can't the Passport just play the bass notes?" Well, my 500 watt passport weighs 44 pounds, including the amp and two speakers. My 400 watt subwoofer weighs about 65 pounds and its cabinet is a near-cube with sides measuring 18" to 21".

I carry the Passport in by its handle. I bring in the subwoofer with a hand truck, though two people can carry it fairly easily. One person can carry it tens of feet before wishing he had a hand truck.

That's what it takes to play loud bass. Nobody can engineer small, light subwoofers, unless they have exotic funding.


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Post subject: Re: Music Cuts Out on PD500 Pro
Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2012 8:03 pm
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Thank you Contracaller. You really made me look deeper into my application.

First of all, you are right as to the model. my model is the PD-500 and not the Pro version.

This unit does NOT have a subwoofer output like the newer Pro version so I cannot hook up an external powered subwoofer as you suggest which would be ideal. Do you know how I can hook up an external subwoofer to this unit?

My unit does not not the VIP option on channel 1 and there is no microphone hooked up to this channel other than the wireless mic which is automatically activated on channel one but is not on when I get the cutting out.

I can upload you the Manual that I downloaded from Fender.Com


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Post subject: Re: Music Cuts Out on PD500 Pro
Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:09 pm
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Okay, so the Passport PD 500 has inputs for XLR and 1/4" TS for the various channels, and maybe either RCA or 1/8" TRS, if it's like other Passports. That's the input side.

On the output side, we know you have 1/4" TS speaker outputs. This are much higher wattage than line level, so you do NOT want to plug any "active" or "powered" speakers into any of the speaker out ports. The 500 Pro has two speaker out ports. The other PD series amps have four, oddly labeled for "left" "right" and "monitors" or somesuch.

Adding a passive subwoofer won't take the load off the amp, which is saving itself from burning out by switching off (if I'm guessing correctly). I'm assuming it has a thermal breaker.

What other "out" ports do you have? Is there a headphone jack? A "stereo out" jack? A pair of "Line Out" jacks? Any of these could be patched through adapters to a powered subwoofer.

It would help some, though not as much as on a Passport 500 Pro because without a "Sub Out" there's no "crossover" electronics in the amp passing the low notes off to the subwoofer and removing that load from the main speakers.

IF the line out (if it has one) takes the signal before it goes through the treble/bass controls on the amp, then you could turn down the bass on the main amp in order to get louder sound out of the PD500 without cutting out, and let the sub-woofer take over that part of the load. If the line out signal DOES go through the treble/bass controls, though, turning down the bass on the amp will also turn down the bass on the subwoofer.

Tech support at Fender might know the answer to that. Just judging by the design of the other models of Passport, I'd expect the line out to not be affected by the treble/bass controls or the master volume control, though they would probably be affected by the treble/bass and volume controls in the control stack for each separate channel on the amp. This is just the general trend of the way Fender seems to build these things.

Anyway, does the amp have any form of line out?


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