Much difference between Arc and Sundown?

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

sooo you'd rather have an Alpine MRD-605 over a JL 500/1?

Well, that would depend on the application. The JL 500/1 will make rated power between 1.5 and 4 ohms whereas the Alpine makes 300 @ 4 and 600 @ 2. You probably will be hard pressed to tell a difference between 500 and 600 watts RMS @ 2 ohms BUT you may notice the difference between 300 and 500 watts RMS @ 4 ohms!

 

[gunz4me 10+ year member]

Clean sounds, you are retarded. There is more than one way to convert an analog 10khz signal to high component 120khz to a low component 10khz signal. When you able to understand that, then open your yap.

He may have not mentioned EVERYTHING regarding the RC challenge, but for the most part, he is correct. With enough equalization one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a mass produced budget amplifier and a hand built high end amplifier. Granted, some amplifiers have higher noise floors than others and that may could contribute to a noticeable difference along with the fact that some amplifiers purposefully color the sound. In the end, if one can get them to measure the same they will sound the same!

Then again, you may have ears of gold and could be that person to take $10,000 from Richard Clark! Just think of all the bragging rights you would have plus the fact that you would be famous all over the world.

 

[mokedaddy 5,000+ posts]

Oh jeez.

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FWIW Richard Clarks test is NOT about all amps sounding the same.

They dont.

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

Well, I'm more for a clean replication of the input signal. The dampening factor and the driving frequency are major parts of consideration when designing an amp. Then comes the mosfets, blah blah blah. This may be too technical to be even mentioned, for the sake of relevance.

Simply put, compare the input signal to the output signal with an oscilloscope, a lot of the time you will see the driving frequency, or a harmonic (1/4, 1/5, etc) of it.

 

[GAM3OVR 5,000+ posts]

Since 1989, i tell you one thing, I will keep the same high quality amps, buy high quality speakers and a high quality head unit and save my money. I have heard them all and they all sound the same if you set the gains correctly. Reference the Richard Clark test.
I will no longer go out and waste my money believing for a small percentage difference one amp will sound tremendously better than the other. That is an easy way to throw money down the toilet.

Lol so the S/N Ratio on an amp and the THD really doesn't matter at all how good the amp sounds becuz they are all the same? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif:laugh://content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif:laugh:

Dampening factor? Freq responce? nothing either?

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

They determine the other factors.

 

[stopdrpnro 10+ year member]

having seen/heard plenty of sundown setups and owning that same arc amp id say it's really a coin toss. i'm almost certain u won't hear such a small difference in power. one thing you will notice is the arc has a much smaller foot print and a higher efficiency at normal volumes(about the same @full tilt) because of it's class g technology. the arc will likely cost more though so it's a trade off. i think u'll be happy either way.

 

[bose301s 5,000+ posts]

Amps do matter and they can sound different, however IMO the difference in amps is so small compared to the differences in speakers that worrying over the amp is not as important as worrying about what speakers to use, especially when it comes to amps that are of rather high quality like the SD or the Arc amps.

 

[MakeshiftAudio 10+ year member]

Amps do matter and they can sound different, however IMO the difference in amps is so small compared to the differences in speakers that worrying over the amp is not as important as worrying about what speakers to use, especially when it comes to amps that are of rather high quality like the SD or the Arc amps.

x2

 

[gotparts90 10+ year member]

I love lamp

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

Clean sounds, you are retarded. There is more than one way to convert an analog 10khz signal to high component 120khz to a low component 10khz signal. When you able to understand that, then open your yap.

Say what you want I could care less. It shows how mature you are for putting people down who have their own opinion. All I am saying is that there are too many car audio companies out there than there used to be in my day. In my day, there was RF, Linear Power, ADS, Precision Power, Soundstream, etc. The high quality car audio companies were far and few between. Today its a different story. There must be at least 100 different car audio companies. Too many to go back and forth swapping out different amps trying to figure out which one sounds better thats for sure. Its better to get a high quality brand, RF Power Series, McIntosh, whatever floats your boat, stick with it and do not waste the extra money paying for the features that you can not hear in your sound. BTW. Back in the day, I have heard cheap as$ amps like Pyramid, Unic or Majestic out sound brands like Linear Power, ADS, etc because the install was shitty on the higher brands. The difference between the high and low quality amps come down to better build quality, better components used to build the amps with and true power ratings.

I run RF Power Series and audiocontrol for signal processing in both of my vehicles. So I am happy.

Gunz4me thanks for the backup. Please give these fools a real car audio education.

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

He may have not mentioned EVERYTHING regarding the RC challenge, but for the most part, he is correct. With enough equalization one would be hard pressed to tell the difference between a mass produced budget amplifier and a hand built high end amplifier. Granted, some amplifiers have higher noise floors than others and that may could contribute to a noticeable difference along with the fact that some amplifiers purposefully color the sound. In the end, if one can get them to measure the same they will sound the same!
Then again, you may have ears of gold and could be that person to take $10,000 from Richard Clark! Just think of all the bragging rights you would have plus the fact that you would be famous all over the world.

A voice of knowledge and reason. If I owned a car audio company, I would send advertisements to the home of makeshiftaudio because he would them them all lots of money spending money on "higher name brand amps" with very minute unnoticeable differences in sound between amps.

Guys like N2Audio and RFVega who save money year after year running the same high quality amps know this already.

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

I will be laughing because I have a healthly bank account saving my money not spending it on the "higher quality amps"

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Oh jeez.
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FWIW Richard Clarks test is NOT about all amps sounding the same.

They dont.

I don't think he ever responded to when I mentioned that the last time he invaded another thread like this.

Oh, and I'd rather have the Arc.

 

[bose301s 5,000+ posts]

I will be laughing because I have a healthly bank account saving my money not spending it on the "higher quality amps"

I agree with you but you are being an *** and not helping your case at all.

And you have to acknowledge that the higher end amps actually do sound better and have better specs, but as I already said, they are so slight that they aren't worth worrying about, you are much better worrying about the speakers you run and running a decent amp, something like SD or IA.