Help Buying An AMP???

[philmetz 10+ year member]

I need help and advice buying an amp.

i went round shops and found a few:

My cheapest option with highest wattage is a 'Lucky Star' 1800watt amp.

...............Now am not sure cos the make doesnt sound good. Is it a completly rubbish make or would it be alright???

Also i saw a Pioneer amp that was 500watt but am not sure if thats r.m.s or just watts cos it was tripple the price of the lucky star and more then half the size of the lucky star aswell...

..............So if its 500watts r.m.s, then how to i convert that to like normal watts??

Thanks, appreciate the help.

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[60ndown 10+ year member]

stick to a name brand you recognise, pioneer alpine kenwood etc etc, if you want it to last more than 3 months.

 

[ace_800 5,000+ posts]

Never heard of Lucky Star......EVER.

Find one from someone in the for sale forum.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

a) What are you needing an amp for? (what are you wanting to power with it?)

b) I've never heard of Lucky Star myself and to me it sounds like one of the brands you're likely to see at one of those sales they hold at the Fairgrounds.

I'm not quite sure what you're meaning by RMS wattage being converted to "normal" wattage.

RMS output figures for an amp or a head unit and RMS input capability ratings for tweeters/speakers/subs is the value to go by. "Peak" wattage is an immaterial number good for nothing more than marketing purposes //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif and as such can be disregarded out of hand.

 

[philmetz 10+ year member]

wait can u explain to be as simple as possible wat is rms? because i hear this sub is 1000watts. wat is that in like rms

I want am amp to power a 2000watt sub

 

[brents 10+ year member]

There is no conversion factor for RMS. Look at it this way. You will have 2 ratings on everything, a peak, which is what it can do briefly, for no extended period of time, and an RMS rating, which is what it will do daily. What is the RMS of the sub you are looking at? What are the voice coil configurations? You want an amp that will do the subs RMS at the subs voice coil impedance, ie 2ohms/4ohms. Lets us know more about your sub, then we can help you find a right amp.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

RMS is the acronym for Root Mean Square.

In this usage it is synonymous with 'continuous.'

It is indicative of the amount of wattage one might reasonably expect to get out of an amplifier continuously (all the time available power).

The same applies to speakers whether they be tweeters, coaxial or component sets, or subwoofers but it where it applies to speakers it is representative of the amount of wattage you can safely continously input into said speaker(s).

For a novice-level enthusiast such as yourself I would suggest a subwoofer truly capable of accepting 2000 watts is likely significantly beyond what your experience level should attempt to implement. I make the assumption regarding your amount of experience based on the failure to understand such a basic car audio premise as RMS wattage.

http://www.bcae1.com

The above link can provide for a considerably time-consuming read but it will be well worth the time invested, I promise. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[philmetz 10+ year member]

cool

 

[philmetz 10+ year member]

say i have a max peak power of 1000watt for a sub. wat rms would i need to power that? wat amp rms?

 

[Notwerk 10+ year member]

Ok, let me make this really simple. Here's the deal, Phil: Peak power numbers are numbers that companies pull out of their ***** to make their products sound good. They have no significance whatsoever. They are completely meaningless.

Basically, what they do is come up with a number that the amp might conceivable pull if it had it's own powerplant, was being cooled by liquid nitrogen and the sun and the moon and the stars aligned just right.

In other words, whether it's a speaker or an amp, nothing ever hits "peak" power. There is no way to "convert" to RMS because "peak" numbers are completely bogus. The only number that matters is to look at the RMS rating. You have to find out the RMS wattage of that sub and the impedence (in ohms) that the sub is running at (if it has more than one voicecoil, we need to know that, too). That's the only way we can help you.

Do you know what kind of brand the sub is? Model number?

How much are you looking to spend on this amp?

P.S.: I wouldn't buy any electrical advice that says "Lucky" in the name (LG excepted in some cases). I'd stay away from that amp. Let's figure out what you need for that sub and we'll go from there.

 

[Prowler573 5,000+ posts]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/word.gif.64b12e39f936af3b4fff38a1c0bd0244.gif

Notwerk? Member since Mar of '04 and less than 50 posts?

You ought to come around more //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

I think you are on the same page with a great many members here...

 

[Notwerk 10+ year member]

I mostly post at ECA, but sometimes that board gets a bit snobish. It's a good board, but it can get a bit stale...