B2 Audio Riot 1200.1

RIOT 1200 – PURE PERFORMANCE

Insane power at dirt cheap prices & a small footprint, ever heard that before? It’s an old story of 2 different topologies, one is the more traditional half bridge design, the other is the gaining full bridge design. But what does it actually mean?

STRAPPING

Simplified, the half bridge amplifier is able to link with another identical amplifier to obtain twice the power of a single unit. How is it possible, well one amplifier deals with the positive voltage output, the other deals with the negative output. So instead of a single amp being able to provide  a 50 V output wave from positive to negative (25 V on the pos and 25 V on the neg) you will simply put, have 2 amplfiers where one deals with 50 V on the positive side, the other deals with the 50 V on the negative side. Total voltage swing is then 100 V.  That configuration is more known as strapping amps, but it is basically bridging.

FULL VOLTAGE

So what happens if you decide to base your design on an even higher voltage swing in a single pcb and run it bridged internally? FULLBRIDGE, that’s it! The higher voltage across the pcb enables for less components used, thus smaller size, but the achilles has been low ohm stability and distorted sound. Surely plenty of non car audio brands has had it locked down for decades, but still to this day we have these issues in car audio! The RIOT 1200 has taken a stab at it and came out victorious with revisions based on the best of proven designs. Small sized, immense power & reasonably priced all aplies to this amplifier. The RIOT 1200 can’t be strapped or bridged as the design is already bridged inside the amp, thus FULLBRIDGE!

BARELY SUFFICIENT

The small footprint did require an adjustment of  the slick, smooth & well known B2 audio heatsink. It features fins, they are there to increase the surface area of the cooling mass on the amplifier. Heat is yet another killer known on plenty of the popular suppliers of this type of amp. Instead of overbuilding, it is commonly based on barely sufficient due to person calculating sales margins in the office.  Basic Ohm’s law applies, how do you intend to feed an amplfier with 500 +amps of current from a single 0 AWG cable? In peaks it might fit the barely sufficient term, but B2 has never been about that!

The RIOT 1200 is equipped with single 4 AWG inputs and multiple cooling fans to deal with heatwaves. Any ohm configuration on an adequte lithium power source (below 13 V) will be within reach of the rated power. Should you worry about clipping this amplifier has a clip indicator on the amp and it even comes with a neat bass knob that has the indicator built in, Pure Performance indeed.

Due to the output inductor circuit design of the RIOT 1200, (optimized for greater power), it is not recommended to power up the amplifier WITHOUT a load on the speaker terminals. Failure to doing so could potentially cause a circuit malfunction  which will leave the amplifier stuck in protect. 

Valmistajan sivu