Cleanest Amplifier

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

I love pure sound and I can't seem to fit a quality home amp in my car? Good chance. I have heard these amps first hand and if I had the cash would buy one in a second. I love them. Just a great overall sound to them. If you can get ahold of one. Do it.

FYI - the technology of home audio amps is WAY behind what's used in car amps. What gets great sq in your home setups is an infinite amout of enclosure space and speakers perfectly designed to use that space.

 

[bigrio]

McIntosh is in a league of its own.

Other real nice amps...um

PrecisionPower

ADS

Soundstream Davinchi

Xtant

 

[Pl8er 5,000+ posts]

FYI - the technology of home audio amps is WAY behind what's used in car amps. What gets great sq in your home setups is an infinite amout of enclosure space and speakers perfectly designed to use that space.

Way behind? How do you figure that ? Most car amps are being designed for, hate to say it, 16 year old kids who don't give too cares about quality but to blow there friends out of the water with power. I can't think of any 50,000 dollar car amps either, but I could name a few dozen home amps. I will agree that incredible enclosures do help to make incredible sound in home audio. But pick up a stereophile magazine and go through some of the amps in there. They make the amps we use in our cars look like NOTHING. Check out the Halcro dm58 and find me any car amp at ANY price that can match that.

Oh yeah--I like chesse puffs.

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

Way behind? How do you figure that ? Most car amps are being designed for, hate to say it, 16 year old kids who don't give too cares about quality but to blow there friends out of the water with power. I can't think of any 50,000 dollar car amps either, but I could name a few dozen home amps. I will agree that incredible enclosures do help to make incredible sound in home audio. But pick up a stereophile magazine and go through some of the amps in there. They make the amps we use in our cars look like NOTHING. Check out the Halcro dm58 and find me any car amp at ANY price that can match that.
Oh yeah--I like chesse puffs.

Price Price Price Price -- If it's expensive - it's GOTTA be the best!!! //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif

people like you are the reason they can charge thousands of dollars for an amp that performs exactly the same as a couple hundred dollar amp.

Here READ

I especially found this quote interesting:

Originally posted by Richard Clark: ...when the technology in home amps catches up with car amps they too will have HF switching supplies instead of the 80 year old power supply designs that they currently have-------and when they do they will suddenly become much lighter...........RC

Here's another link that you might find interesting:

http://www.carsound.com/UBB/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=021628#000002

 

[DiB 10+ year member]

Zapco are nice clean car amps But you missed some other main reasons home amps are better. They get a lot more power and they are stationary. Car amps usually get limited power and have to be able to take a few bumps.

 

[ss3079 5,000+ posts]

Clean as in how ? Is the Zapco 'cleaner' than my Arc ? Is US Acoustics 'cleaner' than Phoenix Gold ?

I don't get it.

- Steve

 

[n2audio 5,000+ posts]

Clean as in how ? Is the Zapco 'cleaner' than my Arc ? Is US Acoustics 'cleaner' than Phoenix Gold ?
I don't get it.

- Steve

yeah, my optidrives are kinda dirty - they're mounted up against the back seat in my trunk - really hard to get to so the dust just kinda builds up on them - really really dirty - it's a shame //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

 

[awalbert88 10+ year member]

Bah, you should see my Eclipse 33250... it's dirty as a mofo. But I think while it's out of the car, I'm gonna polish it up real nice.

 

[bri487 5,000+ posts]

my old PPI amps were pretty beat up lookin, so i chromed the body of them. it looked pretty good.

 

[denim 5,000+ posts]

now this is getting silly

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

i think its funny how people think home amps are more powerfull. people say tube amps are the best..hello they have been making tube amps since the 40's (prolly before that) and the sound differences you hear are in the tubes !!! regular home amps are what maybe 500-100 watts at the biggest? then you move up to 4000 watt rack mounts. power is power either way you look at it and if your car sounds like a home system you have done better things with the car than you did your home..why ? car environment is alot harder to work with than a 20'x26' room and a room you can really decide where you sit in a car its pretty much predetermined

 

[awalbert88 10+ year member]

Home amps don't have to be more powerful (though there are quite a few that are just crazy powerful, such as the high-end Crown amps). If we could build wood enclosures for all our speakers (and not just the subs) in our cars and have the room for them, then we wouldn't need as much power either. A good home theater/stereo setup can take advantage of having a lot of space to work with, but this is also a hinderance at times. Having a predetermined seating location is beneficial in pure SQ environments, because you only have to make sure it sounds "perfect" at one location. Whereas in a home stereo setup, you need it to sound "perfect" almost anywhere. Wood provides the best medium for a speaker enclosure, but if you think about it, the speakers in our cars are enclosed in plastic and metal, which really aren't ideal sound conductors.

 

[DiB 10+ year member]

Clean as in how ? Is the Zapco 'cleaner' than my Arc ? Is US Acoustics 'cleaner' than Phoenix Gold ?
I don't get it.

- Steve

Never said it was cleaner. Clean is a relative and subjective term and you know that. Seeing as how the thread title used that term it only seems fit to use it again instead of getting hung up on semantics. Allthough chrome chassis amps do shine up quite nice //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[ss3079 5,000+ posts]

Allthough chrome chassis amps do shine up quite nice //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Smart *** //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

- Steve

 

[vurtrider 10+ year member]

I notice the argument is that a watt is a watt and any amp will only produce the sound that is sent to it so there is no difference between higher end amps that produce the same power. . . (even stated by one of the moderators) this is true in a perfect world but not a true statement. you have all kinds of factors that go into the production of a "clean" watt. and to say that you need twice the power of what you think you need is crazy, all you need for good sound quality at the 90 to 98 db. range is 1 watt!!!! that is right "ONE WATT" so what makes one amp clean and another not? well for one thing it is the amps ability to keep the signal seperated into individual insturments and vocals. to be able to produce energy burst that are fast enough and powerful enough to keep your highs crisp while producing deep rumblling bass at the same time. DON'T BE FOOLED, NOT ALL WATTS ARE THE SAME!!!! you can take a 500w xtant amp and it will not be as "clean" as a 30w Mcintosh or synfoni. if you doubt this come over and I will personaly pull my mcintosh amps out and put in a top of the line Us Amps tu475 and you will hear the difference as soon as it plays. then i will put in a Hifonics followed by a Mtx and each time you will hear a degradation of sound due to that fact that these amps can not produce the fast transiant sounds that the mcintosh can. once i put the mcintosh amps back in you will fall over in your seat and never state "A watt is a watt" again.