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Post subject: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Thu Oct 01, 2015 8:07 am
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I've been using P250 for outside car shows playing oldies from my laptop, some, pretty large venues. I have 2 P250 systems & a PD250 system. 2 weeks ago I was using a P250 with 4 speakers, the 2 from the P250 & the 2 from the PD250 . Something blew out my P250 amp,protect light came on 3 times ,after the 3rd it stayed on . I couldn't find a problem with anything ,14 gauge speaker cables until after it was dead . One speaker had the plug pulled out just a click . The only other thing was on the first time it shut off I had the microphone turned up too loud.I thought that was why it shut off the first time . Could the speaker plug being pulled out have caused the problem ?
That was 2 weeks ago,
Now this past weekend,I had an even larger show ,with a long skinny parking lot and me in the middle So,
I used P250 with the 2 system speakers & I used 2- P150 speakers that I have . Then I connected the PD250 via the audio out rca jacks from the P250 and ran the 2 system speakers from the PD250.
So 4 speakers from the P250 & 2 speakers from the PD250 with PD250 connected to the P250 from it's audio out rca jacks.
Well it didn't work ! Just playing music it shut off twice. I unplugged the P150 speakers that I had connected to the P250 along with the regular P250 speakers and I played the rest of the day with no problems.
Was my problem the P150 speakers ? An ohm problem ?
I have used 4 speakers with the P250 on many occasions but it's always been the large speakers that come with the P250 & PD250.
I use 14 gauge speaker cables,I learned a while ago that you need speaker cables, not instrument cables.

Any help with these problems?
Can having a speaker unplugged cause my amp to blow when using 4 speakers with the p250 ?
Is using the P150 speakers with the p250 and it's speakers a problem ?

Thank you


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 9:13 am
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First, be glad that Fender built that heat-triggered self-protect system into the P250. It shut down the P250 for a day, and then later, you used it again. This suggests that it works now. Be happy. Certain other companies put out gear that doesn't shut itself off temporarily. It burns out permanently, with no warning.

As for using speakers from a Passport 150, the danger is to the speakers, not the amp. The amp can put out more wattage than the speaker can handle, and the speakers don't have self-protect lights. They just blow. Maybe you can hear them clip and get noisy before blowing. Maybe you won't notice. Pfffsst. Silence. Forever. Or maybe really ugly sound forever. The classic "blown speaker" sound.

Sound in speakers is driven by watts. Most of the time most amps are putting out much less than the wattage they are rated at. Push them to their limits and they heat up. Heat up too much and the self-protect circuit kicks in.

Think about the math. A 250 watt amp driving two speakers delivers 125 watts per speaker. That's kinda loud, so you'll turn it down some and not actually make the amp work so hard. Hook it to four speakers, and it delivers 62.5 watts per speaker. That's not so loud, so you'll probably crank it up closer to its limit, and the amp works too hard and heats up until it shuts off to protect itself.

But link two 250 watt amps to four speakers and each speaker gets 125 watts. That's kind of loud, so you'll turn it down some and the amps don't have to work so hard.

Does this make sense?


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Mon Oct 05, 2015 12:50 pm
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I thought you might reply to my questions.
So ,,,, I can run 4 P250 speakers thru a P250 at a rather high volume with no problems but running 2 P250 speakers & 2 P150 speakers causes my amp to heat up at approx the same volume ?

And the previous problem of the P250 with 4 P250 speakers and yelling into the mic at tooo high of volume (by accident) would blow amp ? Or was it the un-pluggged speaker ?
I've tried to safely use my 3 systems to their capabilities with good speaker cables .

Just seem to have some issues I don't understand & I don't want to blow any more amps.

Thanks for your help.
I plan on discussing with with the Fender repairman when I take it to him for repair. Hopefully I can learn some more about these systems. Luck for me ,he lives about an hour away and will take time to discuss these things.


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 6:15 am
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I don't think I'm successfully communicating. Let me try again:

The amp provides all the wattage. The wattage creates the volume of sound. Speakers use the wattage to make that sound.

So, if you put one powered mixer with two speakers really close together and play recorded music at a set volume, and then you add two more speakers to that same powered mixer, in close, right next to the speakers you already have, the music won't get any louder because you haven't added any watts. Each of the four speakers will be playing half as loud as each of the two speakers had been playing, so the overall volume will be roughly the same as it was.

You won't notice that as much with four speakers right next to each other, but if you spread those out so that you can only hear one speaker at a time, you'll tend to think, "This isn't loud enough" and you'll turn up the amplifier. Turning up the amplifier cranks up the watts. Increasing the watts increases the heat, and do that too much and the amp shuts down.

But if you hook up a 250 watt powered mixer with two speakers right next to you and play recorded music, and then you patch that into another 250 watt powered mixer with its own two speakers also right next to you, with the volume on the second mixer set to the same as the volume was on the first mixer, now the music will be playing twice as loud. Spread those four speakers out so that you can only hear one of them, and since each speaker is twice as loud as in the previous scenario, you'll be less likely to think it's not loud enough, and you'll be less likely to crank up the volume higher, and you'll avoid asking the mixer to pump out too many watts, and since you aren't increasing the watts, you aren't increasing the heat, and the amp is less likely to turn itself off.

Does this make sense yet?

For all the other distracting details of things you did, the one single thing that probably made the self-protect mechanism kick in is "How loud was the input signal, how high was the master volume cranked, and how long did the amp have to deliver that loud signal to the speakers?"

A loud signal run through a high master volume setting for a long duration will overheat the amp. A brief loud signal probably won't do it, unless the sustained signal before it was already loud enough to have heated things up to near the limit.

Asking one 250 watt Passport to run four speakers is asking a lot. It can do it, but not at a high volume, and especially not at a sustained high volume. When I say "high volume", I don't mean "it sounds loud". I mean "The volume meter next to the Master Volume knob is lit up in the yellow a lot, and in the red sometimes".

Your ears may deceive you as to what is loud or not when you run four speakers, but that volume meter is worth looking at. It's telling you something important. It's telling you how hard the amp is working.


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Tue Oct 06, 2015 1:19 pm
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I understand what you say about the speakers. BUT , there is no volume meter on the P250 or the PD250 so I can't monitor anything.
I have read on here before that you could use 4 speakers with a P250 without having any problems.

There is another individual that uses 4 speakers on her P250 approx every weekend 8 months of the year , with no problems . She's been doing it for the past 6 years.
Also she runs her line in from her music into both of the stereo 1 & 2 inputs via way of a splitter on each line ,so there is 2 left & 2 rights . This greatly increases the volume ,output from the speakers .

So if you could, explain what she is actually doing by using both 2 lines in , instead of just 1. It would seem she is doubling her output ,correct ?
It definitely is a lot louder !
Thank you


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Wed Oct 07, 2015 8:43 am
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I apologize for my ignorance. All the 300 watt or above versions of the Passport have VU meters and/or LED dots that change color depending on the volume level. I did not know that the 250 lacks these meters. The 250 versions are older models, engineered years earlier, before experience taught Fender that it's a good idea to have meters.

The one thing I don't understand is why, since you have two mixers and you know how to patch them together, and you know that you can get more sound out of the two of them than you can using four speakers out of one of them without overheating the amp, why don't you just use both mixers and enjoy not having the problem of an amp that overheats? Why suffer the stress of unnecessary discontent by continuing to try to figure out how to get loud volume out of four speakers from one amp, getting frustrated when you don't get your wish?

I used two Passports patched into each other for years. I had a 300 and a 500 and my standard setup used both of them. I used the mixer on the 500 and patched the 300 into it, putting the 500's speakers nearer the center of the stage and the 300's speakers out closer to the side walls, and if I chose to use a subwoofer, I plugged it into the 300, so that the built-in crossover would relieve the 300 of the burden of trying to play low bass notes out of its 8" woofer. Hooking up two Passports and linking them is pretty simple. You know that.

You have a solution. You just don't like it. You prefer to do things in a way that is not reliable, and then you feel bad because it isn't reliable.

I understand that you know someone else who seems to get better results with one mixer and four speakers than you do, therefore you believe that you should be able to do the same thing. Meanwhile, the word "should" is the source of your frustration. Maybe she's cruising the edge of burning out her amp. Maybe her amp won't last as long as yours if you use two amps instead of one. Or maybe her amp is performing better than it was ever supposed to because she happened to get a mutant amp that performs well outside the curve of the norm, by random chance.

You have a solution. If you choose to not use it, own up to the fact that you are ignoring the obvious.


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Thu Oct 08, 2015 12:04 pm
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ContraCaller, One last question . Can I add a 3rd Passport P250 from the audio out of the second Passport P250 and use all 3 of them ?
I realize I should just sell everything and invest in a larger system but I only really need the BIG system a few times a year. Must of the time one Passport is enough.
Thanks


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Fri Oct 09, 2015 6:24 am
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Technically speaking, each time you add another amp in series like this, maybe you are adding a little noise to the signal, but more than likely it's still well below the threshold of anything anybody would notice. It should work fine to string all three Passports together. Just avoid having the "send" volume and the "receive" volume levels way out of balance, with one turned way up because the other isn't turned up far enough.

If you don't need more inputs than you already have, you don't have a reason to go through the hassle of selling off the old to buy the new. I'm a proponent of right-sized systems, and if you have different sized venues, I think you are better off with smaller systems that can be combined than you are with a big system throttled back most of the time.

I like having the option of using more speakers to spread sound across a wider area at lower volume, instead of having fewer speakers, deafening the people standing next to them while not quite getting to those at greater distance.


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Post subject: Re: Passport P250 - Problems ?
Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2017 4:27 am
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Contracaller,
Can you please describe how to connect the output from one pd250 system to another ? I would like to use the second system as monitor speakers. Thx


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