Budget minded amps

[WVRam06 10+ year member]

Upgrading my amps soon. Back in the day the Soundstream Reference amps were great. Anyone had any dealings with the Rubicons or Picasso Nano's. If their RMS is accurate and Soundstream still is doing something my budget says yes. Wasting money?

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[zako 10+ year member]

My subjective opinion on Soundstream amps is that the new Soundstream Reference series are very high quality products. If you buy and install them, I wouldn't look at anything else. The only issue is that they're not "nanos" and appear to be more power hungry than newer Class D amps (I think Refs are either A/B or G). I started paying attention when I saw a THD vs watt output graph of the REF1.1000. The THD does not change between 2 and 4ohm, and through most of the usable bass region stays below 0.01% which would have been outstanding for a full range amplifier, you wouldn't expect this level of cleanness from a subwoofer amplifier. I can only imagine how good are the full range references. My overall impression of Soundstream line, such as STL or TN-D series, is that they're well executed, great bang for buck amplifiers. As for power output, most seem to do just the rated power at 14.4V and not much more, so you probably get what you see. Rubicon series also have a good reputation. The TN-D series are basically clones of PPI Phantom, which had a good feedback. I think each line of Soundstream amps is a value leader in it class, but Refs are probably a level above all others.

 

[naughtyca 10+ year member]

i give this link a lot, you also might look at audiopipe, they do rated and very inexpensive apsm 1500 $135

I have $300. What sub amp should I get? - Car Audio Classifieds