Bench tested Hifonics???

[Jeepjones85 10+ year member]

I like Hifonics myself never had any trouble out of them...

it's all I use for my subs

 

[DonH 5,000+ posts]

Hifonics = meh... But its ok. If it is in your price range then go for it, just dont look for rated power!!! look for less! also they get extremely HOT EXTREMELY HOT! at 1ohm daily just to let you know

 

[DBBOOM 10+ year member]

Meh, only 3+ years old..... I laugh at that smidgen of a useful life:laugh: I have a Linear Power 1752 from the 80s that is still going strong! I am about to put it on midbass duty in my Mustang!

3 years is funny to me too, i still have some of my VII Hifonics (16yrs old). Hifonics peaked with the VII & VIII and went downhill from there. At least the XX & XXV are quality. The other lines are marginal budget amps.

 

[smd4life 5,000+ posts]

http://www.caraudio.com/gallery/showimage.php?i=7362&catid=508

 

[01 S 10 10+ year member]

Hifonics = meh... But its ok. If it is in your price range then go for it, just dont look for rated power!!! look for less! also they get extremely HOT EXTREMELY HOT! at 1ohm daily just to let you know

x2 on that. but only my first brutus, the 2004 series or so, before they were BXI, it was just a bx1200d. it was a beast, i think better then the newer bxi1206d's i had but it did get EXTREMELY EXTREMELY HOT, never when into protect. but you literally could not touch it... at all. i heard my finger sizzle before i felt the heat.

besides that.. good budget amps

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Nope, but I have heard a difference between a Hifonics BXi 1608 and several other amps when connected to subs. Maybe its psychological or Psychoacoustics at work but the Hifonics sounded dirty compared to a Lunar 2125, Alpine PDX 1000.1 and a JL Audio 1000/1. There were a few other amps by Arc Audio, Diamond Audio, Memphis, and Crossfire that my buddy demoed for me, but I don't remember the exact models.
The whole purpose of the test was to prove why I SHOULD NOT purchase a Hifonics Brutus amp:crazy: because in his opinion, they are CHEAP JUNK! After an afternoon of demos in December, I would tend to agree with him. Of course, I am jealous of my buddy's collection because he has worked at just about every custom shop and chain store in town as a MECP certified installer and picked up his amps for next to nothing, or even free when swapping out equipment in his customer's rides:crying:

With that said, the Brutus line is what you get for the money spent, and that is CHEAP, OVERRATED POWER! Nothing more, nothing less.

So do you think old school Pyrimid legacy amps are junk? I know a guy who switch heatsinks on his pyrimid amps then all of the sudden he got mad props and people said it sounded "better" even on a competition level:laugh: Good installers can even make "junk" sound good.

What puts out the same or more power in the brutus's price range? All the amps you listed cost a lot more:laugh:

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Meh, only 3+ years old..... I laugh at that smidgen of a useful life:laugh: I have a Linear Power 1752 from the 80s that is still going strong! I am about to put it on midbass duty in my Mustang!




As I said, it is CHEAP, AFFORDABLE, POWER!

Of course, sounding good is subjective. What sounds good to you may be too bass heavy or not as fast and accurate for me, while at the same time lacking mids and highs. OTOH what sounds good to me may not have enough bass for you and probably has way too much on the mids and highs

you said it was cheap and OVERRATED. Little bit different calling them affordable..I have also listened to a hummer Hifonics had done and it didn't sound all the terrible. I couldn't tell you which lines of amps were in it but they were not the XXV or XX. Being that the distributor that was doing the show sells the two lower lines and crunch I would venture to say it was powered by the amps you say are dirty. I find it hilarious that you bring up high dollar Lunar units vs entry level hifonics...I do not think the same people would be looking at an entry level class d amp vs a Lunar, tru tech, or sinfoni amp...seems kind of like comparing a cobalt to a cadilac. If it were just like that I am sure more people would be driving caddies LOL

 

[Johnny Law.Lulz 5,000+ posts]

Hifonics is a great amp, its not the best and its far from the most expensive and thats what makes it great. People think they are cheap so they **** and it pisses me off. Hifonics are over rated which is why they say buy one a step up, if you need 1200 get the 1608 and so on. I will always run Hifonics unless i do a matching system. I just ignore people who say stupid stuff from now on.

 

[groove269 10+ year member]

Hifonics is a great amp, its not the best and its far from the most expensive and thats what makes it great. People think they are cheap so they **** and it pisses me off. Hifonics are over rated which is why they say buy one a step up, if you need 1200 get the 1608 and so on. I will always run Hifonics unless i do a matching system. I just ignore people who say stupid stuff from now on.

x2 . I have 2 12" kicker comp vr's in kicker ported box...i purchased the BXI 1608D because i want a bit over 1000wRMS running to them. Do i need a $500-600 amp? No, my lil $150 dollar D class amp would do fine.

Theres no other amp out there that can compare with Hifonics on price and value. i would however suggest to spend on a better quality amp for your highs so you can enjoy your music....just my 2 cents

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

you said it was cheap and OVERRATED. Little bit different calling them affordable..

When I said CHEAP and OVERRATED, by cheap I meant inexpensive, not junk. If that is all one can afford, then that is all one can afford.

My main dislike for Hifonics is what Maxxsonics has managed to do with the name..... I actually owned a Zeus V1 back in the day! Then again, I also don't like what DEI has managed to do with the Orion name either, but that is another gripe for another thread

I have also listened to a hummer Hifonics had done and it didn't sound all the terrible. I couldn't tell you which lines of amps were in it but they were not the XXV or XX. Being that the distributor that was doing the show sells the two lower lines and crunch I would venture to say it was powered by the amps you say are dirty.

Ahh, this falls under another topic that I learned the hard way from messing around with car audio over the years...... The install itself will make or break you! In the past, I have made so called "cheap" stuff sound good but the install took more effort.

Hell, just recently, I have done the same with my 1997 Civic coupe. I never thought that a CDT TW-25 tweeter mismatched with an Alpine Type R 6.5 woofer would sound so good off of a TIPS modified Linear Power 1502IQ through a passive crossover, but it does! My single dd1010 tuned to 35 Hz sounds pretty phenomenal off of 25 to Life Punch 150 too

I find it hilarious that you bring up high dollar Lunar units vs entry level hifonics...I do not think the same people would be looking at an entry level class d amp vs a Lunar, tru tech, or sinfoni amp...seems kind of like comparing a cobalt to a cadilac. If it were just like that I am sure more people would be driving caddies LOL

As for the comparison to the other amps, when I told my buddy that I was thinking about buying a Hifonics BXi to run on a pair of dd1508s, his first question to me was "Are you high?" Then he said he would call me when he wasn't busy to run by the shop he used to work at to demo some other amps side by side with the Hifonics both on their soundboard and in a vehicle. He also mentioned something about me having a stack of Linear Power amplifiers in storage and aske me if I was going to be buried with them or use them again before I turn 50:laugh:

Oh, and I learned something else by his test..... Amperage draw @ max volume is amperage draw, and if you think that a Class D amplifier is "easier" on the electrical system than a Class AB.... Boy did you ever let someone blow smoke up your ass:laugh: At lower volumes, the Class D draws a little less current, but at max volume there is little difference..... Then again, are we really going through all this trouble to listen to our systems at an ultra low volume?

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

Ahh so now we are wanting to compare old to new or class ab to class d? what class ab amplifier can you get that does 1500 watts? Why would a newb or someone on a budget want to buy an old amp without a warranty? Good amps from back in the day still failed. I have been in the hobby since 89, worked retail in the 90's, owned my own distributorship for car audio, and have been a rep. Very good amps can still fail. Also would like to add tuning an amp is not all that difficult...

 

[tenbux1970 10+ year member]

Holy Cow....I did not mean to crank people up. BUT.....it is good to hear all of the views of people that have "hands on" experience with them.Thanks for the info //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

Ahh so now we are wanting to compare old to new or class ab to class d? what class ab amplifier can you get that does 1500 watts? Why would a newb or someone on a budget want to buy an old amp without a warranty? Good amps from back in the day still failed. I have been in the hobby since 89, worked retail in the 90's, owned my own distributorship for car audio, and have been a rep. Very good amps can still fail. Also would like to add tuning an amp is not all that difficult...

1. I have the old school stuff, so I may as well use it! If it breaks, I'll fix it whereas if something modern breaks out of warranty you toss it and replace it!

2. I don't need 1,500 watts for ANYTHING, so it makes the class topology of the amp a moot point. I do like how the custom shops push Class D because it is "easier" on the electrical system.//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif

3. If it has tits or transistors, it is going to give you problems!//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/verymad.gif.3f39c5c2fd57527b671fad3efdfac756.gif

4. You really think a system install is only about tuning an amp?//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wow.gif.23d729408e9177caa2a0ed6a2ba6588e.gif

5. We have gone WAY off the beaten path. The bottom line is that the Hifonics XX or XXV is close to rated power whereas the Hifonics Brutus series is CHEAP and OVERRATED! Regardless, if you want to go loud on a budget, the Hifonics budget amps will get you there! Hell, I am even sure the Brutus line will make rated power.... Of course it will be at 20 to 30% distortion with the amp clipped to high hell:laugh:

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

Holy Cow....I did not mean to crank people up. BUT.....it is good to hear all of the views of people that have "hands on" experience with them.Thanks for the info //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Don't sweat it. I am a dissenter who likes to buck the current trend and question things! You should have seen what I did to my religion teachers while growing up

The bottom line is you will be just fine with an XX or XXV amp from Hifonics. You will also be fine with a BXi amp.... Provided you get the next model line up with regards to the power you need at a particular impedance:laugh:

 

[thegreatestpenn 5,000+ posts]

here we go again //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif