Before the official announcement, AV Technology's content director, Cindy Davis, sat down with Bose Professional's senior product manager of Commercial Audio, Andy Kyte, for an in-depth view of its newly released PowerShareX Amplifier Series.
"The PowerShareX Amplifier Series is an expansion of the current family of amplifiers that enable the right sizing for power," said Kyte. "They are Dante enabled for the higher end of our portfolio for our performance speakers." The new series augments Bose Professional's current line of amplifiers.
The PowerShareX series of adaptable power amplifiers comprise the PSX1204D, PSX2404D, and PSX4804D. Designed to deliver exceptional performance, these smart amplifiers, with Dante digital audio, offer 1200, 2400, and 4800 watts of rated power across four channels, providing the precise power and functionality required for a variety of applications. Building upon the success of the existing PowerShare amplifier range, the PowerShareX models bring even higher power levels and enhanced features, making them the perfect complement to Bose Professional loudspeaker systems.
"These really shine with our performance systems," said Kyte, "The PSX4804D can run any loudspeaker on a single channel. For example, you can run our ShowMatch SMS118 750 watt sub without bridging or losing a channel."
What's in a Name?
The new PowerShareX series shares power. "Currently, our Bose PowerMatch PM8500N is 500 watts times eight channels. But to do more than 500 watts, you had to bridge channels. If you wanted to run the SMS118 750 watt sub, you'd have to bridge two channels, and you'd be losing some watts because it's actually more than you need," Kyte said. "The new PowerShareX amplifiers have higher reservoirs, higher per channel symmetrical handling, and you can asymmetrically run a huge load on channel one and then a small load up to four channels." Dante connectivity to supports up to four digital input channels and four analog inputs for line-level source connections—all within a space-saving 1RU design. "With PowerShareX you're not throwing away any power," he added.
The PowerShareX series is perfect for small performance spaces, houses of worship, and medium to large commercial audio applications such as sports bars or integrated restaurants.
A Powerful Collaboration
Bose Professional collaborated with Powersoft, an industry-leading amplifier brand. "Our goal is to enable system integration of our Bose Professional loudspeakers, our amps, and our DSP so people can program from our entire control space ecosystem, ensuring that the design, the configuration, the installation, and the operation is simplified," said Kyte, "Working with Powersoft allowed us to bring amplifiers into our ecosystem to market faster than if we built it from scratch," said Kyte, "We felt comfortable working with Powersoft because they're one of the world's top audio manufacturers and they have extreme reliability, and they have a proven track record which aligns with Bose Professional and our concerns for product quality and longevity."
But those were only a few reasons for the collaboration. "We looked at Powersoft because of its power density, power sharing, and its very high short-duration peak capability on its amplifiers.
"We are thrilled to cooperate with Bose Professional, a company that shares our vision for delivering the highest quality audio solutions," added Luca Giorgi, sales and business development director at Powersoft. "The collaboration of Powersoft's proven technology and expertise in power amplification with Bose Professional's extensive sound experience and audio solutions create a benchmark for the industry."
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Bose Professional Ecosystem
"We provided a familiar experience and the rich capabilities for an integrated design using the same environment that our customers know," Kyte added. "Customers can program from the Bose Professional ControlSpace Designer software for both the DSP and the amp and do the whole setup very quickly." PowerShareX amps easily integrate with Bose Professional DSPs, loudspeakers, and the entire ControlSpace ecosystem, ensuring design, configuration, installation, and operation is simplified. Loudspeaker presets are factory-tested to optimize performance, allowing for quicker configuration, and ControlSpace Designer software provides visibility of the entire Bose Professional system from a single user interface for easy design, configuration, control, and monitoring. All this means jobs are completed quicker, saving time and increasing productivity.
The PowerShareX design tool allows you to drop-down Bose loudspeakers and determine which PowerShareX model (of the three models available) is best suited to your needs, as well as figure the capacity of each model.
Working within the same ControlSpace ecosystem as our DSP and other amplifiers is important for saving time for integrators. ControlSpace Designer 5.12 will launch at the same time as PowerShareX amplifiers to allow system designers to configure and control PowerShareX amplifier(s) in the same familiar system as ControlSpace ESP or EX processors.
The new PowerShareX family of adaptable power amplifiers will be available in the last quarter of 2023. For additional information and details on where to purchase, please visit here.
