LINEA RESEARCH 44M06

At Illawarra Production Services we like to stock the best gear possible, and we are always keeping an eye and ear out for quality equipment. When my old friend Scott Angove suggested we have a listen to Linea Research amps, I was interested. A bit of research showed that the designers of these amps were the crew behind BSS Soundweb – I was now very interested. A demo confirmed the immediate need for purchase.

When our four units arrived, we racked them up and put them through their paces straight away. My first thought was WOW. My second thought was how much depth and detail comes from these amplifiers. The way they convey a sense of performance is remarkable. They sound marvelously open and clean. No matter how hard we drive these things we cannot get them to go into power compression. So, when they say they are rated at so many Watts per channel, they really mean it, driven across all channels. We’ve been running them with some big 15″ subs, just to soak, and they haven’t come within cooee of limiting.

Having recently invested in Adamson speakers, it was important that the two paired well. I’ve found the 44M06 a perfect match for the M12A monitors. The sound is very open and there’s no need for any drastic EQ on any stage because it is just so clean.

These amps do have DSP inside them but I’m bypassing that at the moment and using the Adamson FIR files. Wouldn’t it be great if manufacturers could use the FIRs of other brands?

Build quality wise, they are very nicely constructed. They come with a 32A powerCON connector that you have to terminate yourself. We put tails on them, hooked into our power distro and away we went. They are not very deep so fit comfortably in a 500mmm rack. I’m using spacers between amps to manage the thermal load but so far, they haven’t got too warm. The best bit is they do a self-interrogation on startup, and check loads, fans, everything. Which means the power up sequence takes about 25 seconds. But you know they are very ready to go when it’s done.

The GUI is very simple. Getting access to any particular channel parameters is very easy but we’ll probably hook up a laptop for monitoring. One fantastic thing – if you are in a certain state on a particular channel, and you want to move to the next channel, it will stay in that state. The front panel filter also looks easy to clean, which is big for us with our gear going into some dusty environments.

We are currently quoting on a racecourse installation and are specifying the Linea Research 88C amplifiers. Because the speaker runs are so long with such a site, we run a high risk of VHF interference. Which is one reason why we are choosing Linea Research – their VHF and general RF protection regime is second to none. Short circuit protection adds icing to the cake for reliability and safety.

Scott has been working at Audio Brands Australia for some time and gives me top support. I always get prompt responses and he and Don are great guys to deal with. We all go back a very long time and the relationship is excellent. I’m happy for them to have such an excellent product. They also provide good lollies.

I can see these amplifiers appearing on riders and there are very good technical reasons why. I can thoroughly recommend them.

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Distribution:

Audio Brands Australia audiobrands.com.au 02 9659 7711

Illawarra Production Services ipsonline.com.au 02 4226 5595

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The Specs

• Four channels of sonically pure Class D amplification
• Unique, precise, 96kHz digital signal processing
• Over-designed switch mode power supply
• 85V to 240V Auto-sensing PSU
• 6,000 watts RMS total output (1,500 per channel)
• Full front panel user interface
• Ethernet network for system operation and monitoring
• Analogue, AES3 and optional Dante/ AES67 digital network audio
• Audio inputs: 4x Analogue, 2x AES3 and 4x Dante/AES67 (factory fitted option)
• Volt-free relay and contact closure port
• Power-save modes: Standby after user defined time, instant wake up on audio/ Deep ECO sleep after user defined time, wake up on command

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About Tim van den Berg

Tim van den Berg has always had a passion for electronics and audio and began working in the field in 1977. In 1986 he started Mrs Burns Sound which was the beginning of what is now Illawarra Production Services. IPS now have staff from live music, theatre and corporate AV backgrounds, bringing a wealth of experience to your event or production.