Mayur Patel

hey guys,

i finally got my RF 12" HX2 dvc sub and amp installed on saturday. it sounds absolutely great. the guys that did the job are notorious for their work. they have worked on many of the Dallas Cowboys players and many others. When i went on saturday, they had a Lexus LX470 sittin there, and i asked Kevin(one of the installers) what are yall going to do on the LX, and he replys we are putting a $30,000-45,000 system in it. Its going to be the best system we've done our whole careers. I was in shock...... well enough of me giving props to these guys. they made me an awesome box for my sub. it was custom made and the technical term for the box is tune ported, slot loaded cabinet. the box had a port at the top so no air could be lost, and it was shooting through the hole where the old 10" sub was located. the custom box added 6-9 db easily. after getting it installed i was amazed how one 12 hit in a lexus. i asked the guy if we could test it out on the db meter. and to my amazement, it peaked at 131.5 db. i was in shock.. no components were added yet. just the 12" sub and amp and box. the amp was turned all the way down and it still hit that hard.

i may sell the whole system, because its just a little too loud for my taste. sounds absolutely amazing though. please give feedback. thanks

mayur

LeXusBoy

What place is that, that you went to?

Mayur Patel

the place is called Withrows... its in Corsicana, Texas.

they are one of the best custom installers. u prob haven't heard of them but well worth spending money there.

mayur

Percy

I'd like to find out what they were installing for 30 to 45k! If it doesn't have McIntosh, Dynaudio or Velodyne, then it wasn't meant for extreme high end sound quality. However, you can load up a system with that much $$$ and have a ultimate in AV...screens in headrest, 5.1/ac3/dts, etc. Real easy to crank up the bucks that way.

Percy
Sound Quality Supercarrier

retrodrive

LaJolla Audio in San Diego takes your credit card and insalls the system that best suted for your tastes. You do not ask questions like: "How much would it to...". Their installs are best "shop installs" in San Diego and not many custom ones can beat it.

Lexus_IS300

hey percy, long time no talk! my e-mails were all canceled and i lost a lot of address. anyways, that's not nescessarily true. take a look at alpine's m3, A LOT of man hours put into it! and im sure if u were to do it, it'd cost something like that. mcintosh amps dont impress me much though. i guess its just the name of it after all these years.

Percy

John,

That's what most people say that haven't experienced them. Steve Brown's M3 is a showcar, not the ultimate Sound Quality car. Never was. Most of the cost involved in that vehicle is due to labor, not equipment. Since Steve is sponsored out of Alpine, he's not allowed to run anything other than Alpine and he acts as a "mouthpiece" for the company.

McIntosh amps are still one of the best built and designed amps out on the market. CSR did a review on the piece (MC4000M) and Ken C. Pohlman has YET to test another piece that will beat out the McIntosh in terms of sound quality and overall measurements. Remember that McIntosh rates their equipment conservatively in that a 100x4 amp will put out in the range of 115 to 120x4 easily. Their distortion rates are measured from 20 to 20khz, below rated power (where more distortion occurs than at rated power) and at a 12 volt power supply. Signal to noise ratio as well as channel seperation are also excellent.

In contrast, Alpine will measure their power ouput at 14.4 volts (2.4 volts higher), at an unspecified frequency for distortion. They won't measure the distortion rate at 20 to 20khz at below rated output, but instead, will measure the distortion at 1khz at rated power. This is the lowest distortion number in the entire bandwidth...at 1khz and measuring at rated power will generate the lowest numbers for their sales literature. Signal to noise ratio and channel sep are lower than Mc's.

I used to have a MRVF300 and a MRVF400, both "V12" amps. The 300 was bad out of the box while the 400 I only had for a total of two weeks before upgrading to McIntosh. KCP (Ken C Pohlman) does numerous reviews on amps and so far the Mc has the highest signal to noise ratio and an amazing channel seperation number, somewhere around the low 90's for channel seperation. The PPI Pro 650 will have a channel seperation in the mid 50's as well as many other amps. Alpine will be similar in measurements to the Pro 650. Same thing with Zapco, though they are a little better, but nowhere near the low 90's in channel sep. The nice thing about KCP is that all of the amps are measure in a lab with everything else being equal. All measurements are referenced to 1 watt and distortion, channel seperation, signal to noise ratio, etc are measured at that level. MUCH more objective than some sales literature CLAIMING to be "the best" with "custom filters in the power supply" and the picture of the Lambo or M3. (Alpine)

Channel seperation is an important number, much like signal to noise ratio. Without good channel seperation, the imaging and overall definition of music suffers.

Also, McIntosh is a bit more than just a name. Take a look at most of their amps...some of them have been playing for 40 years! Just change out the tubes every once in a while. Some of their solid state equipment is class A rated (very tough!) in Stereophile with excellent and objective measurements. As for their car amps, I haven't seen anything yet to surpass them with the Hammer Labs (Ken C. Pohlman) measurements. Overall sound quality is excellent out of the box and you'll have an amp that will last a long time. They sound even better when modified and are fairly easy to modify.

If you have a dealership near you, take a listen to one of them. But, make sure the head unit is a good one and that high end speakers are being used as well as good interconnects. McIntosh is much more than just a name and they've proven themselves since 1949.

Percy

Lexus_IS300

we use to have mcintosh home amps, very nice indeed, but the krells being used now are better IMO. i recently sold my pc2600.1 and pc4200.1 for a very cheap price. i didnt know you were into car audio too percy. you have too many hobbies man!

Percy

John,

In terms of car audio, Mcintosh is still the top end, both in repeatable test bench measurements and sound quality. Now for home I'd go with the Krell FPB600/650 in a heartbeat. Couple that with Transparent Audio Reference XL cables and interconnects with the Dynaudio lineup of speakers. Though the Mark Levinson Number 33 monoblocks can give them a run for the money. Scarry! In terms of a CD transport, no holds barred, I'd go with either the Krell KPS25 or the Linn. Both at 20k$. The Linn is more refined but the Krell has more of an "organic" heft in the bass.

Which Krell are you running?

Been into car audio for quite a while. Experimented and toy'd with companies that claimed they were "the best". Started off and tuned with MBQ (yuck), Alpine (ok), Infinity (ok), Boston Acoustics (sorta muddy), ADS (smooth!), Diamond HEX (very nice) and a few others. Finally got to the point of the system that I have now. Krell, McIntosh, Dynaudio, Velodyne, Monster M Series (home), Sony ES, Optima and Deflex/Cascade audio engineering are the components that I'm using now. Plenty of experience and I'm more than willing to share that with the guys/gals here on this board!

Percy