I talked to Lonnie and he said he did not think it was a cooling issue. I have plenty of breathing room above, behind, and below, so that should not be an issue. He did say I could move one mono over to the next slot to create a little more breathing room within the chassis if I want.

After talking to Lonnie, I'm pretty confident that I was just pushing the amp to its protective mode. Since it came right back on he was sure there was no problem with the amp, it was just the circuitry portecting the amp. He said he could tell me how to turn that off, but he would not recommend it.

If you keep in mind that my measurements were being taken from the seated position, about 13 ft away, and I was getting peaks up to around 106-108dB's. If I move closer to the source by half the distance, 6.5ft away, that gives you and increase of 6dB or 112-114dB, then again cutting this by half to get closer to the one meter (3ft) range, your talking 3 ft with 118-120dB's. In reality, I'm sure I was hitting higher peaks, just not watching the SPL meter closely.

Based on my 95dB 4ohm Axioms, 120dB's would be pushing the 300Watt limit of the amp, so I guess it makes sense that it would shut down.

You just stated it like they are a piece of junk. I'm sure driving a 4 ohm speaker in the equation makes a difference as well.

I will do some more testing, but if I'm getting 120dBish at 1 meter, that is pretty dang loud.

^^^

lol...

Randy, a quick point about sound levels at various distances: the 6dB per doubling of distance figure takes into account only the direct sound and would be applicable to listening in an anechoic chamber. It doesn't tell the story in real-world listening situations in reflective rooms where the level of the reflected sound has to be added to the direct sound to get the total combined level and at some point(typically maybe 5-6' feet away from the speaker)becomes greater than the direct sound. This was discussed some time ago here when Gena made some level measurements. The result is that far less power is required beyond the standard one meter rating distance than the 6dB figure would imply.