Are Hifonics amps any good to power my Morel comps?

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

Ahhhh so 20 year old Hifonics never broke down? LOL BS

Aside from capacitors, I know someone who is still running some Hifonics stuff from the 80s! Well, he was a few years ago... Anyhow, try finding someone who is willing to work on the new HiFonics versus the old... I guarantee you that most amp techs would rather work on the old stuff! I had one who said that he would not work on anything that had micro-resistors...

and your test was not very scientific at all[/b]

It was very subjective because there was no way to do a blind study on myself since I was the only one who knew how to install. I will have an o-scope soon that I am borrowing from a friend of mine who closed his electronics business. Said he has a $5,000 scope just taking up place in the closet and I am more than welcome to use it for as long as I want!

Also, I can say with certainty that the Rockford Fosgate amp in my test adds tone @ 45 Hz and somewhere around the 12 kHz mark because it seems to have its own built-in loudness contour

 

[350zspl 10+ year member]

sundown

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Also, I can say with certainty that the Rockford Fosgate amp in my test adds tone @ 45 Hz and somewhere around the 12 kHz mark because it seems to have its own built-in loudness contour

The good ol' "Punch EQ" that used to be switchable back when they cared about accuracy.

You also can't really make an accurate assessment of the long term reliability of the older amps. Do you know how many of them as a percentage lasted longer than 2 years? You also have to look a the typical consumer of the older, more expensive amps compared to the newer cheaper ones for the simple reason that there are lots of blown newer amps due to abuse rather than being of lesser quality. A technician refusing to work on a style of amp speaks more to his ability than the actual quality of amp.

You figure that before the internet, the only sample that you had was what was going on in your immediate circle of friends. Now you hear about every problem all over the world. I wonder how the problems rate as a percentage of amps sold? I'd argue that it's probably a pretty small number.

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Aside from capacitors, I know someone who is still running some Hifonics stuff from the 80s! Well, he was a few years ago... Anyhow, try finding someone who is willing to work on the new HiFonics versus the old... I guarantee you that most amp techs would rather work on the old stuff! I had one who said that he would not work on anything that had micro-resistors...


It was very subjective because there was no way to do a blind study on myself since I was the only one who knew how to install. I will have an o-scope soon that I am borrowing from a friend of mine who closed his electronics business. Said he has a $5,000 scope just taking up place in the closet and I am more than welcome to use it for as long as I want!

Also, I can say with certainty that the Rockford Fosgate amp in my test adds tone @ 45 Hz and somewhere around the 12 kHz mark because it seems to have its own built-in loudness contour

You can talk durability and components being worse in MANY AMPS today..so it is just a never ending loop that any person may place upon an older amp brand still in existance.

95% of the reason why people cringe at hifonics amps in SQ is purely as a status symbol. Just like in the late 90's when Audio Art was not though of as highly as Sound Stream. Some of the best systems I heard in that era were not even "top of the line" amps. Zapco AG series, PG M series, Purple and silver Type 1 RF amps heck I even know of a guy who used shrouds off of xtant amps to cover his Pyramid amp boards...that car won 4 shows back when "small" single point shows drew 70-100 cars JUST in SQ that is when DB Drag was the side show LOL.

Hell my teammate took top 5 at finals with entry level alpine amps. 1997 regional and mid west regional champion used 2 pioneer GM50 amps in 100 watt consumer or pro class in IASCA (it was a black lumina)..amps are nice and sure if you are looking at prestige sure go spend 700-1100 on a european amp that sounds within 1% of the amps you think are junk..key point is if you know wtf you are doing and take the time to do it the differences would not be night and day.

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

The good ol' "Punch EQ" that used to be switchable back when they cared about accuracy.
You also can't really make an accurate assessment of the long term reliability of the older amps. Do you know how many of them as a percentage lasted longer than 2 years? You also have to look a the typical consumer of the older, more expensive amps compared to the newer cheaper ones for the simple reason that there are lots of blown newer amps due to abuse rather than being of lesser quality. A technician refusing to work on a style of amp speaks more to his ability than the actual quality of amp.

I do know this, I have a stack of Linear Power amps from the Late 80s/early 90s and only ONE needed to be repaired.... The gain pot went bad and the speaker relay was sticking! The rest of them are still going strong.

My first experience with the newer Chinese/Korean stuff was the Memphis PR series of amp and it had some transistors that broke off of the circuit board requiring a replacement within the first 90 days. Lucky for me I got that one from the local Memphis dealer. I purchased another Memphis amp online that had the transistors break off during shipping! I had to file a UPS claim to get my money back.

You figure that before the internet, the only sample that you had was what was going on in your immediate circle of friends. Now you hear about every problem all over the world. I wonder how the problems rate as a percentage of amps sold? I'd argue that it's probably a pretty small number.

Hence the reason I drank the Rockford Fosgate and Orion Kool Aid back in the late 80s early 90s!

But getting back to my HiFonics comments, I came close to going all HiFonics for my daily driver Civic. I came out cheaper by purchasing the used Linear Power 1502IQ ($165 shipped) and Rockford Fosgate P5002 ($90 used from a friend). Next week, I am going to replace the P5002 with a 25 to Life Punch 150 ($150 on this forum)//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

I just can't see myself spending the money required for Morel components and running a budget HiFonics amp to power them. Would it be wrong to do so? Certainly not, but I wouldn't do it! I would use my Soundstream Reference 700s instead

 

[1hawaii50 10+ year member]

I just can't see myself spending the money required for Morel components and running a budget HiFonics amp to power them. Would it be wrong to do so? Certainly not, but I wouldn't do it! I would use my Soundstream Reference 700s instead

AGAIN,

I didn't buy a Hifonics amp...I was just wondering if the brand was one of the "good" brands, or one of the "cheap" brands. I think I've figured it out.

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

AGAIN,
I didn't buy a Hifonics amp...I was just wondering if the brand was one of the "good" brands, or one of the "cheap" brands. I think I've figured it out.

Ahh, so now my burning question is what amp are you going to use?

 

[1hawaii50 10+ year member]

Probably either Diamond, Arc, or Helix.

 

[02accord 10+ year member]

Probably either Diamond, Arc, or Helix.

Isn't Helix really expensive? If you are going high high end, look into some audison too //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Or just go with Sundown and save a lot of money.

Transistors breaking off the board sounds like an issue with rough handling during shipping and vibration breaking the legs. A better design might have alleviated that problem or not. Had nothing to do with the actual construction of the amp but might have been an issue with quality control. The construction/QC is only going to be as good as the company with their name on it demands it to be. Same with the quality of the components used in the amp. There is nothing inherently inferior about amps made in mainland Asia. A machine there solders just as well as a machine here considering that they're the same make and model machine.

How do you figure using Rockford and Orion in the early 90's was drinking the Kool-Aide? That implies that you were believing lies about a lesser product. Those were both excellent brands back then. The bulk of my o/s amp collection is 3rd gen Orion HCCA amps with some MS and MPS series PGs thrown in for good measure. There was nothing lacking on those amps at all at that time. Can't say the same for those brands now, though.

 

[joshualittle]

Probably either Diamond, Arc, or Helix.

If your still interested in the arc amp, I'm getting mine for $299, and I can tell you where to get one for around the same price if you pm me. I'm getting a deal on it cause I'm getting my whole setereo from the same guy but I'm sure he'd give you some kind of a deal on it. I'd say you wouldn't pay more than $350 for it and maybe closer to the $300 price range. He can also get diamond stuff and will beat onlinecarstereo.com's prices on those. Also he can get audison if your interested in that, if you wanna check out audison amps I recommend going to woofersetc.com and finding an amp and then having him match or beat their price if he can.