When I worked for Roger Quested (in the mid-eighties), we used to assemble our monitors at Hill's pa facility behind their factory near Maidstone in Kent. I never used Hill's pa stuff, except their awesome DC3000 poweramp. Yep. 3000 Watts. 1500W a side into - yes! -2ohms. It would also work happily bridged giving 3000W into 2ohms. Each channel would run into 1ohm. This is the only power amp i ever saw that came with a 30Amp Mains cable! Seriously! These amps were the most damped and controlled that we ever found for the bottom end, except the ridiculous Yamaha PC5002, which would only run into a measly 4 ohms - and cost twice as much - and you would need 2 for a 4 bass driver system. We used them into the 4x12's, and eventually into the 4x15's(heHeHe!) Unbelievable! - Except they kept overheating due to faulty fan control circuitry. Crazy boxes, only 3u high, and dissipating 3000 Watts! Shame they were too deep to fit into a normal rack, and were'nt very reliable. I do remember a Hill studio console, and a Studio Sound Blind Shoot-out with a plethora of current consoles in the late eighties. If I remember, the Hill came top! Ahead of Neotek, Neve, SSL, etc, and created quite a stir. They didn't sell many tho' . . .
I have a story relating to Hill, that still raises a smile . . . I had installed one of the aforementioned DC3000's at Battery studios, and it had been left on over the weekend. On monday morning, a maintainance engineer discovered that it was SO hot that it took a whole day to cool down sufficiently to get it out of the rack. Absolutely true! When I turned up to collect it and spirit it down to Maidstone, little did i know that, for a laugh, the maintainance engineer in question had stuffed the amp with pages torn from an absolutely filthy porn mag. So when I arrived at the Maidstone factory, and Malcolm Hill, who is a born again Christian, was protesting most vociferously that there could not possibly be anything wrong with one of HIS power amps, his gaze was set on me as he raised the lid. His 8 year-old son, who was with him at the time, delved immediately into the amp, and removing the first thing he saw, upon opening a scrumpled piece of magazine-print chimed, "Daddy, Daddy, - what's the nice lady doing to the donkey?" . . . . .
I nearly choked . . . just like the "nice lady" . . .
ANdyP