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.

I bought this amp to run 2 achat 115 Subs.
It most definitely had the power to run them which is perfect, and it had enough headroom too.
The original setup was a sub on each channel. However, because I planned on doubling my subs in the future, I decided to 4 ohm test the amp on one channel. I felt like it struggled here, I wasn't getting the same punch as I got with running 1 per channel, I have reason to believe the 4 ohm rating of 1200w does not apply to <100hz.

Another downfall of this amp, unfortunately but expectedly, is the noticeable high THD output when being used with subs (same deal with the E800, and likely the others in the series too). You can easily hear the harmonic distortion through the unfiltered input of a sub, alongside this, there is a lack of detail in the low frequency range and the amp behaves sluggish with fast transients.

I would have preferred the same functionality of its smaller brother, the E800, in terms of Sensitivity switching and ground lift.

This amp has now replaced an E800 i used for tops in the same rack and the E1200 was replaced by a Powersoft M30D, I won't compare those two amps as it would obviously be unfair.

Overall, The E1200 seems to live up to its spec at 8 ohm and it certainly works with subs very well for the price.