Review: DAS Audio PS-2400

DAS Audio is a Spanish company founded by Juan Alberola in 1970 as ‘Dynamic and Sound’. The company produces equipment for a wide range of sound reinforcement applications, and has developed a solid reputation in recent years for its quality of manufacture and no-fuss design. The DAS PS-2400 is a powerful new amplifier which adds its (considerable) weight to the PowerPro series and is intended for any permanent or mobile audio installation where high power is required. Rated at 800W per channel into an 8Ω load, or 1200W per channel into a 4Ω load, this is one powerful amplifier.

NO BEAUTY QUEEN

The PS-2400’s purposeful, no-extras design approach certainly won’t win it any beauty contests, but the amplifier has a strong chassis and only occupies two rack units of space. It’s quite deep at nearly 40cm, and the rear of the chassis has mounting brackets for securing the amp to the rear of a rack to avoid the chassis bending. At over 27kg, the 2400 is heavy and even though most of the weight is at the front, it will certainly require secure rack mounting, especially during transportation. Stacking multiple 2400s on top of one another in a rack is also possible.

The front panel contains the power switch with delayed turn-on and LEDs to indicate power on, signal present, clipping and protection. If the signal level is too high, the clipping LED will indicate the automatic limiting system is in use. If overheating is detected, the amp’s output will be disconnected temporarily until it cools down, after which time it will automatically be reconnected. There’s also protection provided against excessive DC levels and weak load impedance at the outputs.

GAINING AN INSIGHT

The PS-2400 also has two input level pots with indents centrally located on the front panel, but visually there’s no indication what level change each of these indents represents. There’s simply a widening spiral graphic around the knob, which isn’t very informative. It surely couldn’t have made any difference to the manufacturing cost to label these indents in decibels. This would help installers no end when setting up systems, and provide operators with definitive settings in situations when the input pots aren’t being used at their maximum level. The other limitation is the lack of meters to indicate power level. Knowing that the amp is running somewhere between ‘signal present’ and ‘clipping’ not only doesn’t indicate what the exact level is, but also makes it impossible to tell if both sides of the amp are operating at the same level. I regularly check my amp levels at live shows, especially loud gigs or outdoors where the power dissipates more readily, and I use those meters as a guide to how the system is running. Level meters are also handy for testing systems and general trouble-shooting.

FANFARE

The PS-2400 has an in-built, front-to-back, variable-speed cooling system with fans located on either side of the rear panel that directs cooling air across the amp’s internal parts. They’re the same fans commonly used in amp racks and, while they do provide plenty of airflow, they’re also noisy. The front panel has large grilles to exhaust the warmed air from the amplifier. This design also means the amp rack doesn’t require a cooling system.

The rear panel has XLR and 1/4-inch sockets for input connections. Speakers are connected by either Speakon NL4 sockets or chunky binding posts that are easy to use and will take the thickest speaker cable. Three sunken switches vary the input mode between stereo, parallel or bridged, as well as lift the ground to cure ground loops and vary the input sensitivity between 0.775V, 1V and 1.44V. A big, fat, captive power lead connects the amp to mains power via a 15A plug, and with a current draw of around 10 amps, you’ll need plenty of mains power to drive a rack of them.

A feature of the PS-2400 is its Class-G output circuitry. The amp has several power rails set at different voltages and switches between them as required. This increases efficiency by reducing wasted power at the output transformers and reduces overall power consumption.

POWER TO BURN (OR MELT)

In practice, the PS-2400 is easy to use, provides lots of power to the speakers and I have no reason to doubt the output claims. Connected to a small PA, the 2400 felt as if it was going to melt the speakers if I wasn’t careful with the level, but the sound was loud and clear. A better test was using the 2400 to power the subs in my PA at an outdoor show. The increased power over my usual 600W per-channel amp was immediately noticeable and it ran all day, seemingly effortlessly, but without meters it was hard to tell exactly how hard it was running… and I wasn’t game to turn it up until the clip lights came on.

The PS-2400 is an industrial strength amplifier and I suspect it would run day after day for a long time. If you need ‘big power’ and good value from an amplifier then I’d recommend you check out the DAS PS-2400. It won’t win your setup any awards for ‘best dressed’ but there won’t be any shortage of clean and powerful amplification.