Enjoy Sonic Sound with the Crest Audio Pro 9200 Professional Power Amplifier

By Neil Bethtodd

If you want an amplifier that has real professional power coupled with the kind of sonic integrity that is the standard of Crest, then you will be pleased with the Crest Audio Pro 9200 Professional Power Amplifier.

This professional power amplifier is encased in a compact 2U package that weighs under twenty-five pounds. It's hard to believe all the power that comes in a small package and a low cost. The Crest Audio Pro 9200 protects connected drivers with automatic clip limiting.

Youll be able to blast everyone out of the room with the 2100 Watts per channel that the Pro 9200 boasts. The 9200 has very similar specifications as its predecessors in the Pro 200 series. Pro series have a frequency response that is within +0, -3 dB from 10 to 100 kHz, with hum and noise better than -110 dB, "A" weighted. The input impedance is 15 k Ohms, balanced.

The IGM impedence sensing will automatically modify the gain to accommodate any of the impedence outputs that are connected. The real beauty of IGM is the short circuit protection as well as loads as low as 2 Ohms and highly efficient operation.

The Pro 9200 has many special features including high efficiency heat sinks. The heat sinks are tunnel cooled using variable speed DC fans that will extend the amplifiers life by monitoring its operating temperature. It won't be long before you realize that you can really crank up the volume on this professional power amplifier thanks to its wide-band outputs, latest generation of high speed, an a host of other features. Many of the features on this amp enhance Crest's sonic integrity.

The air temperature of the 9200 is measured by an efficient automatic temperature sensing system. Next it is funneled to the front panel exhaust with cooling fans that are rear mounted. If the temperature ever exceeds the specified operating limits, one of the channels automatically shuts down. When sound is blasting at such a high level, everyone and everything will be affected by the heat it generates.

The rear panel input connections are actively balanced and via XLR. There are binding post and Speak on output connections per channel to connect to the loudspeaker. The combination circuit breaker/AC power switch is located on the amplifiers front panel along with the input attenuators.

There are five front panel LEDs per channel indicate ACL on the 9200 amplifier as well as the signal and temperature protect, DC protect that lights up when sensors detect DC voltage and Active. There is a mode switch on the rear panel that determines bridged mono, parallel or stereo mode, and a gain select switch that can tell if the amplifier structure is x20 or x40. Altogether the Crest Audi Pro 9200 professional power amplifier is impressive. If you want to blast the neighbors out of bed then go ahead, just make sure that you dont blow any speakers on a piece of kit that costs around $2,000. - 18423

About the Author:

Neil Bethtodd has been a professional musician and DJ for 15 years. He is an expert on all things that are about music! His articles about musical equipment can be found in magazines and blogs around the world. To find out more information about the Crest Pro 9200, click here.

The Mp3 Bitrates Your Should Use

By Zachry Nest

If you have downloaded music from the Internet or burned a CD, then you should have heard of the term "Mp3". There are countless numbers of people all of the world who have heard of the term "Mp3", but its every safe to say that 85% of them don't know exactly what it is. Are you one of those people? If you are, then you most likely don't know that what a bitrate is either.

If you aren't aware, then don't worry because in this article you will learn exactly what an Mp3 file is, what a bitrate is, why it is important and more. By the end of this article, you should be more knowledgeable about Mp3 and their bitrates. Now here's the age old question, what exactly is an Mp3? The Mp3 is a highly efficient form of compressing audio.

What that means is that an Mp3 is a compressed version of the original audio file. The reason why audio files are compressed to the Mp3 format is because it lowers the file size of the audio without losing much of the quality. Without compressing audio files, in most cases the file sizes would be massive and unpractical to store. On the opposite end, if you decrease the file size of an audio file too much, the audio quality will be negatively affected.

The Mp3, also known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, is meant to deal with that issue by shrinking the file sizes without negatively affecting the audio quality. Here is where the bitrate comes into play. The bitrate is the number of bits (units of information) that is processed per second. Now I know that sounds somewhat technical, but just look at it like this. The bitrate is the amount of information that the Mp3 player, computer, or other device reads per second.

The more information the device reads per second, the higher the audio quality. But on the other end, the more information per second, the bigger the file size will be. A common bitrate of an Mp3 file is 128 kbit/s. Just in case you aren't aware, the 128 kbit represents the number of kilobytes and the /s means per second. Now consider this example: Imagine you have an Mp3 player with 20 gigabytes of storage and you have 100 Mp3 songs each with a bitrate of 128 kbit/s.

Now imagine that you have another Mp3 player with 20 gigabytes of storage and you have in your Mp3 player 100 Mp3 songs each with a bitrate of 192 kbit/s. You would have less space in the 2nd Mp3 player because the file sizes of the 100 Mp3 songs with the bitrate of 192 kbit/s are bigger.

Bitrate is important because it helps determine the audio quality of the file. Now that you have a basic understanding of what an Mp3 file is and what the bitrate is and why it is important, I would like to share with you my favorite bitrates and why.

To be more specific, my favorite bitrate changes depending on what device I will be playing my Mp3 file on. If Im going to play my Mp3 file on my Mp3 player, then my favorite bitrate to encode at is 192 kbit/s. I prefer that bitrate because it is the same bitrate songs are encoded on CD's (also known as CD quality) and the audio file size generated is relatively small. If I plan to listen to my Mp3 music on my computer, then my favorite mp3 bitrate is 256 kbit/s.

Though the increased bitrate will produce a slightly higher file size, the audio quality would be improved. If I plan to listen to my Mp3 music on my cell phone or a device with a small amount of storage, then the bitrate I would encode my Mp3 files at 128 kbit/s. Now that you know my favorite bitrates, I recommend that you use them because I believe they produce the best combination of audio quality and file size. - 18423

About the Author:

I highly recommend that you learn how to add Mp3 Album Art to your songs. My Favorite Mp3 Bitrate was provided by eSquaredMarketing.

So You Want To Learn To Play Acoustic Guitar?

By Payo W Perry

If youre planning to learn to play acoustic guitar I hope this article will serve to help you by highlighting whats really important in order to succeed that in goal. A lot of beginners suffer the same frustrations some of which can be terminal and result in you wanting to give up.

High up in importance is going to be the quality of your instruction and believe me there are some really terrible methods for learning guitar out there " online, on DVDs, in books you have to be careful. Choosing a poor method or tutor can spell disaster for your chances of learning successfully.

The obvious places to look for guitar instruction would be a local tutor or failing that there are plenty of great resources for online guitar lessons. This is generally the more economical solution and assuming the site is of good quality theres no reason why you couldnt learn to play acoustic guitar successfully that way.

Ideally, having a combination of different sources to learn acoustic guitar from is the best situation. So you would have 1-1 lessons plus online lessons plus books ECT. Its true that not everyone is good at self instruction but most people are O.K with that, supplementing your 1-1 lessons with books or DVDs will require you to have a decent level of self motivation to learn.

So how long should it take to learn? This is a generalized question but assuming you are of average ability for guitar and receiving quality tuition its going to take around 4 weeks before youre able to strum and play along to beginner songs on a basic level. How far you decide to go after that is a personal decision and honestly the sky is the limit.

Aside from quality guitar lessons the most important will be in knowing how to practice correctly. Practicing is a technique you have to learn! Learning how to practice correctly will shorten the time to takes you to learn to play acoustic guitar enormously, it may even mean the difference between success and failure. - 18423

About the Author:

The author is a successful and popular guitar teacher. His unique system to learn how to play acoustic guitar is called Guitar in a Nutshell. You can visit the website to find lots of free video tutorials and lessons plus receive a series of learning acoustic guitar secrets!

The best titles for your Xbox 360

By Larry Moon

Searching for a Xbox 360 game can be a little bit tough, because of the amount of titles that are piled on retail shelves daily. The reason there are so many titles on the shelf for Xbox is because they were the pioneer of the seventh generation gaming consoles that were released. The newest games that come out for the Xbox 360 are almost $60 no matter what the title is. So instead of going out and blowing your money on a cool game that looks awesome on the box, you should consider these titles.

Gears Of War 2 was one of the most highly anticipated games of the year. It was this highly anticipated because of the games phenomenal games of the year, because of the crazy good graphics, high speed game play, and single and multi-player action. This is a must have game for warfare buffs, and definitely well worth the money.

In 2008, Grand Theft Auto IV was given several "game of the year" awards for its lasting game play, and excellent presentation. GTA IV was one of the most highly anticipated and also highly contested games of the year because of its graphic nature. But we can assure you that this game is one of the best of the year, and even has an extra episode that you can download via Xbox Live, with more due later this year.

There are not a whole lot of games that keep you on the edge of your seat anymore with the "Scary" title. Dead Space was listed last year as the "World's Scariest Game". It's a very dark and thrilling game that is a third-person shooter, leaving no room to be bored.

Gears Of War 2 was another game that was highly anticipated and rated as one of the best games of the year. This game won quite a few awards this year making this game a must have and well worth money. It offers unreal graphics, high speed game play, great single player action, as well as the ability to play with up to as much as 9 others.

If you are looking for a more economically sound game, then Evolved 2 is the best on the list. Because it is an Xbox Live arcade title you can pick it up in stores for quite a bit less than your normal brand new titles. Evolved 2 were praised as the best arcade title out there at the time of its release leaving no doubt that it's worth the money.

Another great Xbox Live Arcade game is Braid which is more of a puzzle game. In fact it is one of the more innovative games that are really worth playing no matter how old you are. The challenge is just right, the story really sucks you in, and the musical score is fantastic. Although this is much more expensive than most Xbox Live games, it should definitely be a part of your gaming collection.

Choosing a title can be hard if you really are unaware of what to look for in a game. Make sure that you do some extensive research on the gaming titles out there to see which ones fit you so that you get the most for your money. - 18423

About the Author:

See this new service where you can learn download xbox 360 games. Learn burn xbox 360 games easy and to stealth patch them so you can play on XBOX Live too. Download movies, music and software.

Can You Really Handle Learning to Play Guitar?

By John Edward

The guitar is a very alluring instrument. It is easy to understand the attraction to it. It doesn't matter what genre of music, the guitar usually plays a critical part in any song that is played.

In many bands, lead singers are able to play the guitar. You are not the only one who wants to learn how to play. There have been millions who have tried to learn to play and no doubt many more are going to want to learn as well.

Learning to play guitar will require several things from you. You shouldn't even think about wanting to play the guitar if you don't think you can handle the following facts. You'll just be wasting your money and your time.

Learning to play guitar is not something that is easy. There is nothing out there that you can do to suddenly be able to play the guitar like a real pro. It just doesn't work that way.

Sure, those guys on TV playing their 3 minute songs make it look easy. Too bad you'll never see the video tape of the thousands of practice hours they put into learning the guitar before they got to that point.

Another thing you need to know is that it takes time when learning to play guitar. Don't think within a week or two you'll have mastered the guitar. It will take a lot of work from you as well as a lot of practice. You'll need to learn about guitar tuning, the basic chords for playing, then you'll go on to some easy songs, and then you have the basis to keep going.

Another thing you'll need when learning to play guitar is a lot of patience. No doubt you'll make plenty of mistakes along the way. Some days you may be so frustrated you want to smash that guitar.

If you are the type of person who quits anytime something isn't going right for you, then learning to play the guitar probably isn't right for you. Just imagine if your favorite guitar player had quit playing the first time they ran into adversity while learning. They wouldn't be a star now.

Having realistic expectations is important when it comes to playing guitar. If you know what you're getting into, are willing to take the time to learn, and you have the patience to keep going when it is tough, then you may be ready to learn how to play. Then the way you go about learning to play guitar is totally in your hands.

Learning to play guitar quickly and easily can be accomplished by using online guitar courses. Most of these types of sites offer everything that you will need in one convenient place to learn how to play the guitar.

You'll probably have to pay to have access to the best sites for learning guitar. Of course this cost is not that much when you think about how much you would end up paying for guitar lessons. Online learning also lets you learn from home and you can do your lessons when you have the time. - 18423

About the Author:

If you would like to learn to play the guitar then make sure that you stop by John Edward's website now for some in-depth online guitar courses now.