Learned something new today!!!

 

i;ve always been a die hard audiobahn fan. im currently running 1600 power to two subs very mean setup. talk about looking at the gas station signs and they look like the letters are fallin off, with all my windows down and sunroof all they way open.

 

hopefully for christmas i'll get my third sub which will bring my amp down to 1ohm crazyyyy

 

I'm not gonna burst your bubble, but I will suggest that you use the little letters JK after such a statement.

 

are you talking about my profile? if you are i dont know what happened i had some problems with it messed it up but then fixed it.

 

No. I'm refering to comment I quoted you on.

 

i second that statement.

 

soundstream makes wonderful amps, but all of their other stuff sucks. i have heard some insane stories about the tarantulas power capabilities. the human reign may look scary, but its supose to be awsome.

also dont forget about alpine, they make rock solid amps

 

First amp that I had was an Alpine V12 MRVF300 4 channel. Two channels dead, out of the box. Upgraded to MRVF400...amp did good, but then traded the amp for a Velodyne sub at cost. Then upgrade to McIntosh. No looking back from there. Modded the McIntosh internals later...incredible.

Soundstream is good when it's working. Steve Eddy wrote a very long paper on Soundstream and their cost cutting and penny pinching. Some of their older amps had seperate PCB boards and single colored wire that was HAND soldered. All of the multiple connections to the different boards were ONE COLOR. Obviously most of the workers didn't have good soldering skills. It was also cheaper to have multiple small boards for layout then it was for one nice big board. Failure rate was unbelieveably high at the factory...over 90% due to soldering errors, (cold solder connections, shorts, etc). Labor wasn't very well trained, but once when they DID get an amp working with the right stuff, it usually held up nicely.

Percy

 

I've used a McIntosh MC440 with Dynaudios for the past 18 months. This is a six-channel amp and the front woofers and tweeters have their own channel. I use an Arc 4150cxl for the rear door speakers and the subwoofer. Rear speakers are felt more than heard. Very clean, neutral sound and more power than I need.

A quick tip I read here was to use Celine Deion or another comparable female voice to check for harshness in the tweeters. I push the highs hard and the McIntosh lets me get away with it. Some rolloff is normal with any tweeter, but if you're having to significantly choke back the highs or find yourself reaching for the volume button on high passages, it may be time to listen to a quality amp.

I remember listening to a really powerful system that my installer was trying to tweak on another car. He told me he had to crank the highs back to make this expensive system tolerable. It's a waste of money to copnnect high-definition tweeters to a high-wattage, low-end amp and then dial back the upper range. You're giving up important detail. As someone wrote earlier, quality components must be matched.

 

I am using McIntosh 446 bridge to 4*110 for my A/D/S, and another McIntosh302 to my 2-10" sub (2*150).

To be honest, I have never auditioned another amp within a GS. I have no expertise to judge, but I can tell you McIntosh produces natural and clean sounds. It's like being in the center of the Stage.... Of course, you need to RTA your system.

As Johnp66 quoted earlier: Make sure your system are well matched!!! I think that's the bottom line

Good luck on your planning

 

Bumping up a kinda old thread, but I thought it would be better to do this on a thread with loads of info than start a new one.

Well i wanna upgrade my current system: Focal Access's and 2 JL 12W6's with Autotek Amps to something a little nicer, more SQ probably

I listen mainly to rock, alternative stuff, sometimes rap. The most trouble I was having is with Amps.

I looked at Zapco, but those suckers are expensive, 1200 for a 4-channel, 1500 for the sub amp I need.

So I looked into Tru Technology which I have read good things on, and you guys seem to think they are an awesome company. Well those are also about that much for amps alone



Do you guys have any more recomendations for good quality amps that dont cost 1200 dollars for a 400 watt 4-channel amp, or is that much im going to have to pay for that quality and calber of amplifier.

Another thing to add. How much difference is there between Zapco's reference and competition series?

 

No one has any comments? Any of you guys knowledgable about the best SQ sub? I've heard Focal and Eclipse, not sure which to go with...

 

Clarion APX series is almost the same on the inside as ARC Audio CXL series.

I would also look for Monitor 1 Amps.

 

Best SQ sub that they USED to make was from Velodyne....haven't touched any others in quite a while. When these were around, NOBODY could touch you in terms of SQ.

Percy