TaylorFade 10+ year member
I fail.
Where the hell did Flatline go? Well, in a world of "what have you done for me lately?"... here is what they're doing for y'all lately.
This is the Flatline Audio BA3. This is their 12v 8k and it's dead ****. You might recall that I tested their BA2 7k and the FL2 3k before and I have similar expectations for this monster. Let's see if it lives up to my lofty stadards.
Overview. Sorry for the cluttered pic. Pics were not at the top of my list when I got my hands on this thing.
Nice metal pots. Strappable. I know some of you hate the angled speaker outs, but they're really not that difficult to get to. I don't mind them at all.
Dual power and ground. I usually don't make a big deal about having triples, but we're getting into some serious power here and triples would be nice, but since the people that designed this thing know more about amp design than I do, I'll trust them to make that call and keep my leads short.
Also, it's kind of a non issue since Flatline includes custom dual inputs to straighten out the angled inputs anyway. So, I guess you could say that the amp has quads. I test amps as they are designed though so I'll be using the factory inputs with leads that would resemble ones coming from a battery bank (~ 3-4ft.).
Guts. Factory photo. I didn't open it up.
On to the testing...
Setting unloaded. 95v.
Instead of testing it at different loads and what not, I just went straight to 1 ohm. And since it's a 12v amp, I wanted to see what it would do on less than optimal voltages.
That's 7,000w @ 1 ohm resistive and 11.9v. That's doing work.
Little more voltage...
That's 8,400w @ 1 ohm resisitive and 13.5v. Looking good.
I drove it into a soft clip and gave it a little more voltage.
Scope didn't catch it in time, but that wound up being acceptable to me since this is kinda beating the crap out of it in the first place. I was actually looking for the amperage draw here anyway.
That's 9,200w @ 1 ohm and 13.7v with a soft clip. That's solid power no doubt.
So 1ohm resistive...
11.9v - 7,000w
13.5v - 8,400w
13.7 soft clip - 9,200w
Amp is looking like a beast. But how does it compare to say... the Incriminator Audio 80.1? Well, I'm glad you asked because I happened to SPL test it head to head with that very amp.
This is clamp testing on a pair of HDD15's in Ryan's truck.
You may recall from the 80.1's test that on 12v it did...
80.1
Clean - 8,800w - 154.1db
Max useable - 10,800w - 154.8db
Flatline 8k
Clean - 9,500w - 154.7db
Max useable - 11,600w 155.2db
Yep. You read that right. 80.1 needed 18v to beat the Flatline. And even then, it wasn't by much. Yeah, yeah... the 80.1 is a high voltage amp and this isn't a fair fight. Or is it? For me it is since I'm a 12v guy. The 80.1 was indeed louder once it got 18v starting (while the Flatline was still at 15v), so there's that.
So, yeah. This amp is a 12v beast. It ain't cheap, but it's a quality piece. It didn't protest one time at 1 ohm resistive and any voltage. I even ran it down to the high 9v range. It also took .25 nominal like a champ. I didn't protect this amp once. And we beat up on it pretty good.
If you can swing it, this thing is big boy 12v power.
This is the Flatline Audio BA3. This is their 12v 8k and it's dead ****. You might recall that I tested their BA2 7k and the FL2 3k before and I have similar expectations for this monster. Let's see if it lives up to my lofty stadards.
Overview. Sorry for the cluttered pic. Pics were not at the top of my list when I got my hands on this thing.
Nice metal pots. Strappable. I know some of you hate the angled speaker outs, but they're really not that difficult to get to. I don't mind them at all.
Dual power and ground. I usually don't make a big deal about having triples, but we're getting into some serious power here and triples would be nice, but since the people that designed this thing know more about amp design than I do, I'll trust them to make that call and keep my leads short.
Also, it's kind of a non issue since Flatline includes custom dual inputs to straighten out the angled inputs anyway. So, I guess you could say that the amp has quads. I test amps as they are designed though so I'll be using the factory inputs with leads that would resemble ones coming from a battery bank (~ 3-4ft.).
Guts. Factory photo. I didn't open it up.
On to the testing...
Setting unloaded. 95v.
Instead of testing it at different loads and what not, I just went straight to 1 ohm. And since it's a 12v amp, I wanted to see what it would do on less than optimal voltages.
That's 7,000w @ 1 ohm resistive and 11.9v. That's doing work.
Little more voltage...
That's 8,400w @ 1 ohm resisitive and 13.5v. Looking good.
I drove it into a soft clip and gave it a little more voltage.
Scope didn't catch it in time, but that wound up being acceptable to me since this is kinda beating the crap out of it in the first place. I was actually looking for the amperage draw here anyway.
That's 9,200w @ 1 ohm and 13.7v with a soft clip. That's solid power no doubt.
So 1ohm resistive...
11.9v - 7,000w
13.5v - 8,400w
13.7 soft clip - 9,200w
Amp is looking like a beast. But how does it compare to say... the Incriminator Audio 80.1? Well, I'm glad you asked because I happened to SPL test it head to head with that very amp.
This is clamp testing on a pair of HDD15's in Ryan's truck.
You may recall from the 80.1's test that on 12v it did...
80.1
Clean - 8,800w - 154.1db
Max useable - 10,800w - 154.8db
Flatline 8k
Clean - 9,500w - 154.7db
Max useable - 11,600w 155.2db
Yep. You read that right. 80.1 needed 18v to beat the Flatline. And even then, it wasn't by much. Yeah, yeah... the 80.1 is a high voltage amp and this isn't a fair fight. Or is it? For me it is since I'm a 12v guy. The 80.1 was indeed louder once it got 18v starting (while the Flatline was still at 15v), so there's that.
So, yeah. This amp is a 12v beast. It ain't cheap, but it's a quality piece. It didn't protest one time at 1 ohm resistive and any voltage. I even ran it down to the high 9v range. It also took .25 nominal like a champ. I didn't protect this amp once. And we beat up on it pretty good.
If you can swing it, this thing is big boy 12v power.
