Are 90% Of Today's Car Amps The Same

[Grinder1989 5,000+ posts]

So much for technological advances in just about everything else under the sun except car audio
I do have a question for you though. What would you do, as a Sundown dealer, if a big chain such as Wal*Mart started selling generic Zenons for significantly less than what you sell your Sundown amplifiers for? Technically, they could do that to "make money" too:greedy:

Regardless, I can't wait for my cousin to do his Air Force tour in Korea because he said he is going to purchase all the Zenon generics he can get his hands on as well as a some Abyss amplifiers. Guess who gets to hang on to them until he makes it back state side

I would love technological advances as much as world peace, but in reality, there will be none soon because upgrading technology isn't a cheap process, so once again, why should the build houses change their products when they are making a ton of money?

How would I feel if Walmart did that? Probably pretty pissed off, however, that won't happen. Walmart does not have a huge part in the car audio market, that's why they don't have nice stuff. Bad choice of a store. Now if a chain store like Tweeter or BB did that, they might be successful, but only on massive amounts of orders with thousands of dollars spent. BB and Tweeter sell name brand products. Normal people are not informed well enough to walk in a store and pick a generic zenon bored over a JL. It more than likely won't happen.

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

I would love technological advances as much as world peace, but in reality, there will be none soon because upgrading technology isn't a cheap process, so once again, why should the build houses change their products when they are making a ton of money?
How would I feel if Walmart did that? Probably pretty pissed off, however, that won't happen. Walmart does not have a huge part in the car audio market, that's why they don't have nice stuff. Bad choice of a store. Now if a chain store like Tweeter or BB did that, they might be successful, but only on massive amounts of orders with thousands of dollars spent. BB and Tweeter sell name brand products. Normal people are not informed well enough to walk in a store and pick a generic zenon bored over a JL. It more than likely won't happen.

The only reason I mentioned Wal-mart is because they perfected going straight to the manufacturer and cutting out the middle man. Granted, just about any chain automotive specialty retailer could go straight to Zenon and have a "store brand" made that would SINK the smaller business guys. I am guessing the only reason they haven't done it is because there isn't enough money in it for them. In other words, :greedy:greed:greedy: does have its advantages sometimes.

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

Gone are the days with people being engineers and designing their own amps. Zeff, Fosgate, Mantz to name a few. These days anybody with a lot of money can get in touch with some of these Korean Zenon buildhouses, contract out with them slap a different name on the casing and we have a new car audio company out now. It's kind of sad. In the 80's and 90's very few amps if any had similiar boards. I know a lot of the companies have outsourced but they are losing points for originality and creativity when it comes to building their car audio products.

 

[DBBOOM 10+ year member]

as well, it has been discussed in another thread, 1 of the original hifonics designers is back doing work at Maxxsonics. in the last 3 yrs Hifonics amps have made a huge jump in power output and efficiency both. ever since they got him back //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Can you imagine how good they would be if Luke's mentor, Stephen, the actual engineer of the OG Hifonics amps was designing for them?

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

Class D takes a lot of work to build from scratch. Anyone can build a motor controller(Output stage, where the audio control takes place), but making a 1 ohm(or less) stable SMPS is difficult. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif Nuff said.

 

[mokedaddy 5,000+ posts]

Gone are the days with people being engineers and designing their own amps. Zeff, Fosgate, Mantz to name a few. These days anybody with a lot of money can get in touch with some of these Korean Zenon buildhouses, contract out with them slap a different name on the casing and we have a new car audio company out now. It's kind of sad. In the 80's and 90's very few amps if any had similiar boards. I know a lot of the companies have outsourced but they are losing points for originality and creativity when it comes to building their car audio products.

Mantz and Zeff are still designing their own amps...

And so does Fosgate it is just on the home side.

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

Who are other famous engineers that still design their own amps besides Mantz and Zeff?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

One of the things that I would be worried about if I marketed those build house amps is what would happen to my business if Zenon flooded the US Domestic Market with their generic amps and sold them for build cost plus 5 or 10%? DO NOT underestimate the greed of these build houses!

http://www.formulaxaudio.com/

 

[bdawson72 5,000+ posts]

http://www.formulaxaudio.com/

Honestly squeak I dont think alot of people knew about this. I wonder if a boner could be started?

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

It's quite possible, if their prices are cheap. Those amps quite closely resemble a couple of others..

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

http://www.formulaxaudio.com/

Another carbon copy company. The outside of the amps resemble RD Audio.

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

It's quite possible, if their prices are cheap. Those amps quite closely resemble a couple of others..

You seem to know a little about engineering so I will ask you a question too. What do you think about these heat sinks that are just solid chunks of aluminum/cast/whatever that function more to look cool versus allowing heat to escape from the surface?

My Crossfire BMF 1000 has the crappiest heat sink in all the amps I currently own for dissipating heat. That little fooker runs HOT but it looks cool!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[RAM_Designs 5,000+ posts]

The outside of the amps resemble RD Audio.

Add Atomic to that list as well.

 

[GAM3OVR 5,000+ posts]

Another carbon copy company. The outside of the amps resemble RD Audio.

Looks just like atomic

 

[GAM3OVR 5,000+ posts]

Add Atomic to that list as well.

You quick bastard!!!! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crying.gif.ec0ebefe590df0251476573bc49e46d8.gif