Proel is on of those nice Italian pro-audio companies that creates nice electronics and speakers, but gets very little notice in North America. So when I received a HPD3000 power amplifier for review, I had to hold my skeptic hat in my hands until I could see this quad channel power amplifier in action.
The Gear
Coming in at two rackspaces with 24.3 pounds of weight, and 16.2 inches of rack depth; the bar is set pretty high for me. The reason is, is that most legacy quad channel power amplifiers are traditionally very wimpy, and mostly used for install ceiling speakers and not for live sound gigging. Even with class D amplifiers and two switcher power supplies.
The Proel HPD3000 has power ratings for stereo 4 and 8-ohm loadings plus a bridged 8-ohm loading, for per channel operation. At 4-ohms, each channel of the HPD3000 offers 750 watts, with 370 watts at 8-ohm loading. When two channels are bridged, the 8-ohm rating is the obvious 1500 watts. Now 350 to 370 watts per 8-ohm speaker is not going to get the nod on concert wedge biamp duty, but it would be very nice in club rig monitor racks on four passive crossover wedges, or at least on biamp horn drive duty in the big system world. Certainly something I would of bought a few years ago, when all I could get in quad channel amps was a QSC CX400 with 400 watt/ch amps for 4-ohm loads.
So the HPD3000 fits right in the middle of the current crop of quad channel amplifiers, and if half the channels are only required, there is a HPD1500 in a dual channel configuration in a lighter chassis available. Looking at the front panel, we have two cooling air inlets with a basic control panel in the middle in a metal grey over black finish. Besides the obvious power on/off switch, four level controls with detents and reasonable attenuation markings are provide per channel. Above each level control, three LEDs indicate signal present, limit, and protect status for each amplifier channel. Four more LEDs are used near the on/of switch for the switcher supplies and bridged amplifier configuration status.
On the rear panel, the white legends over black paint, looks sharp. Each side of the rear panel has warm air exhaust vents with a trio of Neutrik NL4 Speakon jacks for the speaker connections per channel or bridged jacking. No binding posts are provided on the HPD3000, but that’s not much of a liability these days. The center of rear panel has the mains cordset (120VAC, NEMA 5-15P), along with four pair of XLR connectors for the amplifier channel inputs. Each channel has combo (TRS/XLR-F) jack plus a through XLR-M jack for daisy chain input wiring. Eight switches adorn the center of the rear panel, with slider switches for Biamp/Flat selection where a 100Hz frequency split is provided for easy professional biamp tasking. Two more slider switches are for channel paired stereo/bridge/parallel modes of operation. Each pair of channels also gets a common ground lift push button switch and a 37dB/32dB gain selection push button switch for system matching.
The Proel HPD3000 provides the above mentioned power ratings at a conservative 1kHz and less than 1 percent THD set of ratings. The (0/-1dB) frequency response is the normal 20Hz to 20 kHz rating, and normally provides less than 0.5 percent THD plus noise when not on the verge of clipping. Maximum power consumption is a big 4000 volt-amps (like 4000 watts), but in real-world 1/8th power at 4-ohms per channel, it sips about 1020 volt-amps. So two HPD3000 amplifiers could easily share a 20 amp, 120VAC circuit with a bit of margin to spare.
The Gigs
In shop tests, the Proel HPD3000 was flawless in operation and nice and quiet from an audio standpoint. Gathering up a quad of passive wedges and hitting the gigging venues is nice, in that standard Speakon cabling could be used without problems, and a quad of XLR patches for monitor mixing is easy patch in on the amplifier. I noted the HPD3000 has extended side panel tabs which can make rear rack rail fastening an easy chore.
I put the Proel HPD3000 through two gigging venues, one with a quad of passive wedges, and the other gig I used tour-grade biamp wedges (EV Xw12/Xw15) with the HPD3000 handling the horn-side of the biamp mixes. (For information, the biamp low frequency wedge mixes had a Lab Gruppen FP6000Q) In both road tests, the HPD3000 worked very well; even under grueling club stage/rock band demands with passive wedges. I even paralleled up a fifth passive wedge on one channel and the amplifier took on the extra duty without showing any issues in clipping or headroom.
In summary, the Proel HPD3000 is a wonderful quad channel amplifier for mid-power applications. The size, weight, and power ratings all combined for excellent compactness. Looking for niggles, there was nothing to report given the design aspects for this amplifier. Yeah, I could bitch about not having more power for touring biamp wedge mixes, but this is not the market for this model and plenty of stereo amplifiers are available for the task.
Proel HPD3000 Power Amplifier
What It Is: Four-channel power amp.
Who Its For: Anyone who needs a lot of power in a little space.
How much: $1800 MSRP
Pros: Good Cosmetics, Clean Sound, Versatile, Lightweight.
Cons: None.
Web site: www.proel.com
