System Cooling

[MickeyVee]

Hi All..
Just made a switch to the new Rotel 1560 AVR and a Parasound A23 to drive my Clarity's. The Rotel drives the center & surrounds. The combo is awesome and am very pleased with it. The Parasound though generates a lot of heat and is in a closed cabinet (with plenty of holes for air to flow but there is no flow). It's the same cabinet shown in my system profile.

So, I will need some sort of cooling. Been scouring the internet and have come up with some options:
- can get a cheap fan and manually switch it on/off
- can get a set of three thermally controlled custom cabinet fans (thin) that kick in at about 90 degrees
- found the Parasound ZBreeze fan with a trigger input, three fan speeds, auto off or auto off after 10 minutes with the trigger

I'm pretty much leaning towards the Parasound. It would sit on top of the amp and according to the online manual, will also cool off the Rotel which is right above it. It forces the nheat up and out the back which is pretty much what I want.

Before I pull the trigger, just wanted to know what other people are using or if I missed any good options.

Thanks.. Mark

 

[JMAUSGP]

If you want a truly silent fan, chill pads work really well. They can sit on top or under tha Amp and draw or blow air.

The ones that come with fully adjustable fan speed are the best and they can be turned down low enough that they are virtually silent and yet they draw air continuously from the amp or heat source. They are called Chill Pads or Lap Cool 1 thru 5 depending on what model you want and how much you want to spend. They are used for Lap Tops but you can find them on the net.

You can also get a Super Silent Computer Fan and attach it to the back of the cabinet and draw warm air out and up. IMO these are not actually silent but they do move a lot of air and work quite well. You can get them on the Net or at Radio Shack.

I currently use both. Chill Pads for my music system and Super Silent large fans on the back of my HT cabinet for the HT. When using the HT you don't really notice the fan.

 

[Feltran]

http://www.pctoys.com/840556082224.html

I installed this kit in my cabinet. It is not silent (which I would like it to be), but it is not very loud either (my cabinet has no doors on the front. If it did, the fan noise would probably be barely audible, if audible at all). Installation was pretty easy, and it seems to me that it was very reasonably priced.

 

[amey01]

Can you just leave the cabinet open when running the amp, or better still - leave the amp out of the cabinet.

As for cooling the room, I have three low-flow oversized diffusers running from my main air conditioning system to the listening room. It is errily silent and means there is no draughts or hot/cold spots either.

 

[MickeyVee]

Thanks for the options/links..
I really don't want to mount a fan on the back of the cabinet as it would obstuct my cabling though some of the options looked really nice. I think I have to go with an interior fan that can circulate air between the AVR and the amp.

If you take a look at the cabinet, even with the door open, It's pretty much still dead air. The amp is sitting on the shelf below the AVR. I had the door open during my initial setup and testing and it still got quite hot. Much hotter than my old Rotel ever did. My Rotel 1067 is in for repair and I got a call yesterday that it's ready and they replaced a processor board. I'm thinking failure due to heat and dont want to go there with the new electronics.

The Parasound seems to generate a lot of heat and I need to get some flow in there. Also, due to limited space (hence the cabinet) I really cant move it outside.

 

[JonFo]

MickeyVee, while just moving the air will help reduce hot spots, it still won't do much for the general heat rise in the cabinet.

Seems you really need to find a way to evacuate air, or a way to chill the air in the cabinet (water cooler?).

I'd suggest an air extractor fan mounted into the cabinet, even if it means cutting new holes for it.

Cooking your expensive electronics is, well, expensive

 

[MickeyVee]

Agreed Jon.. that's why I like the idea of the Parasound ZBreeze.. it can sit on top of the amp and force the air out the back. With the front door open, there should be sufficient circulation to keep things cool. Just waiting on a quote from my dealer.

BTW.. my initial week of testing was with the Rotel only driving everything.. the Class D got slightly warm even after driving the system relatively hard for hours. I much prefer the sound of the Parasound; it's much more open and dynamic.

 

[Len44]

http://www.pctoys.com/840556082224.html

I installed this kit in my cabinet. It is not silent (which I would like it to be), but it is not very loud either (my cabinet has no doors on the front. If it did, the fan noise would probably be barely audible, if audible at all). Installation was pretty easy, and it seems to me that it was very reasonably priced.

This is the same kit that I use (different vendor), and it works quite well. It is barely audible, and sits on top of the amplifier. I use another at the rear of the cabinet to extract the hot air that has been extracted from the amplifier. I have it set to automatically kick during the start-up sequence, so is on whenever the amplifier (Arcam) is on. They also offer a unit with three fans, that looks like it might fit better across the back of a cabinet.

Not to go off-topic, but what causes the rather significant disparity in heat generation among different amplifiers? I'd rate my Yamaha MX-1000 about 5-6 (on a 1-10 scale), my Yamaha MX-2000 (I know, old stuff) about a 3, and the Arcam P7 about a 12.

 

[JonFo]

...
Not to go off-topic, but what causes the rather significant disparity in heat generation among different amplifiers? I'd rate my Yamaha MX-1000 about 5-6 (on a 1-10 scale), my Yamaha MX-2000 (I know, old stuff) about a 3, and the Arcam P7 about a 12.

I'll keep it breif: amp temps are correlated to their topologies.

A Class A amp essentially runs at full bias and full power all the time. These are the hottest of the bunch.

Tube amps, even non-class A topologies run hot, well, because they are ancient old things, akin to a coal fired steam engine. :devil: Yes they are hot because the tubes even have heater elements.

Class A/B amps (the majority of SS designs) vary in idle or operational heat depending on their basic biasing current. The higher the biasing, the higher the idle and op temp.

Class D amps are supposed to run cool, and usually they do, but when asked to flow a lot of current (as when connected to a current sink like an ELS), then they can get warm.

Even the class G amp topology in Sunfire amps, which usually runs stone cold on magnetic speakers, can get warm when pushing big ESLs.

So there you go: it depends

 

[Len44]

Great explanation. Thanks for the info!:bowdown: