TaylorFade 10+ year member
I fail.
Ok, I know you guys are going to think I've lost it testing a Jensen, but bear with me here...
I started thinking about the shittiest amps out there. Pyle, Boss, Pyramid, Jensen... I looked at all of them and honestly, I can't believe how many amps these companies make. They were all GROSSLY overrated and cheap looking and nothing really piqued my interest to waste money on. Then I figured I'd see what Jensen had been up to. I came across these "POWER" series and a couple things caught my eye. The first was adequate onboard fusing according to rating and the second was this certificate/birthsheet thing...
Now, the amp I got didn't come with one and that certificate is from their 4 channel, but at least it's SOMEthing. There's obviously some sort of quality control going on over there. And that's a good thing. It's kinda fishy that it made *exactly* rated power on all 4 channels, but I figure they just put the rated number if it passes, so whatev.
Anyway... I searched around for the best price on the mono. They only make one in the "power" series. It's called the "2000.1d" but you know how that goes. It's a 1k and it's not the first time I've seen an amp advertised by "max" power. AudioSavings has 'B' stock ones for $105 shipped. Sure... why not.
It's actually a decent looking amp. I usually don't care for "shiny" anything, but the gloss finish is pretty sharp. I didn't investigate the sink material, but it's a little beefier than other budget 1k's I've handled. It weighs in at a tick over 6lbs.
4awg power and ground. 8awg speaker terminals and (4) of them. And by golly... look at that. 105A worth of fusing on a 1k. Now, that doesn't mean a whole lot on it's own, but it's a start.
Input side is... whatever. The usual suspects here. Cheaper plastic pot adjustment. Can't ask for a whole lot at this price point, I guess. It comes with a bass remote that's a 3.5mm jack. More on the bass knob later.
Here be de' guts. As usual... I'll let you guys play amp expert here.
On to the testing...
Setting it up unloaded. Hold the eff up... 51v? That can not be right. Anybody know how to tell if an amp is full bridge? Because that's a lot of voltage. I'm told the little black box in the lower left hand corner of the guts is a switching transistor. So... half bridge. Sheesh. That's a lot of ACV for a half bridge 1k. Well... whatever.
I only had 1 ohm nominal available today. I fully intend on beating it up later.
Here we have 457w rising to 3.6ohms at 13.2v. Staying pretty clean here.
Getting rise down we get... 789w rising to 2.3ohms at 13.3v. This is where, unfortunately, we pick up a little distortion.
So, rated and apparent power.
Rated power ---- Apparent -
- 450w @ 4 ohms --- 457w @ 3.6 ohms
- 725W @ 2 ohms ---- 789w @ 2.3 ohms
Measured efficiency at 2.3 ohms - 73%
Little guy is getting pretty **** close. Now, let's talk about the wave in the last pic. I am going to do something I never do- and that's to cut an amp a little slack. I'll grant you that it's not the prettiest wave in the world. But first... the amp is rated at 2% THD. And second... it's not so much clipped as it is... distorted.
Since I know this little amp at this price is going to be compared to the AP/VVME stuff, I'll go ahead and do it for you.
Here's a side by side of the guts for your convenience.
Here's a side by side of similar apparent power clamps. Both doing ~ 780w. The VVME needing 1 ohm reactive to get there (but at 12v) and the Jensen doing it at 2.3 reactive (13.2v). What you'll notice here is the wave between the two. One is "clipped" and one is distorted. One is going above and beyond it's capabilites and the other is kinda... noisy.
I'll leave my personal opinion out of it and let y'all draw your own conclusions.
I started thinking about the shittiest amps out there. Pyle, Boss, Pyramid, Jensen... I looked at all of them and honestly, I can't believe how many amps these companies make. They were all GROSSLY overrated and cheap looking and nothing really piqued my interest to waste money on. Then I figured I'd see what Jensen had been up to. I came across these "POWER" series and a couple things caught my eye. The first was adequate onboard fusing according to rating and the second was this certificate/birthsheet thing...
Now, the amp I got didn't come with one and that certificate is from their 4 channel, but at least it's SOMEthing. There's obviously some sort of quality control going on over there. And that's a good thing. It's kinda fishy that it made *exactly* rated power on all 4 channels, but I figure they just put the rated number if it passes, so whatev.
Anyway... I searched around for the best price on the mono. They only make one in the "power" series. It's called the "2000.1d" but you know how that goes. It's a 1k and it's not the first time I've seen an amp advertised by "max" power. AudioSavings has 'B' stock ones for $105 shipped. Sure... why not.
It's actually a decent looking amp. I usually don't care for "shiny" anything, but the gloss finish is pretty sharp. I didn't investigate the sink material, but it's a little beefier than other budget 1k's I've handled. It weighs in at a tick over 6lbs.
4awg power and ground. 8awg speaker terminals and (4) of them. And by golly... look at that. 105A worth of fusing on a 1k. Now, that doesn't mean a whole lot on it's own, but it's a start.
Input side is... whatever. The usual suspects here. Cheaper plastic pot adjustment. Can't ask for a whole lot at this price point, I guess. It comes with a bass remote that's a 3.5mm jack. More on the bass knob later.
Here be de' guts. As usual... I'll let you guys play amp expert here.
On to the testing...
Setting it up unloaded. Hold the eff up... 51v? That can not be right. Anybody know how to tell if an amp is full bridge? Because that's a lot of voltage. I'm told the little black box in the lower left hand corner of the guts is a switching transistor. So... half bridge. Sheesh. That's a lot of ACV for a half bridge 1k. Well... whatever.
I only had 1 ohm nominal available today. I fully intend on beating it up later.
Here we have 457w rising to 3.6ohms at 13.2v. Staying pretty clean here.
Getting rise down we get... 789w rising to 2.3ohms at 13.3v. This is where, unfortunately, we pick up a little distortion.
So, rated and apparent power.
Rated power ---- Apparent -
- 450w @ 4 ohms --- 457w @ 3.6 ohms
- 725W @ 2 ohms ---- 789w @ 2.3 ohms
Measured efficiency at 2.3 ohms - 73%
Little guy is getting pretty **** close. Now, let's talk about the wave in the last pic. I am going to do something I never do- and that's to cut an amp a little slack. I'll grant you that it's not the prettiest wave in the world. But first... the amp is rated at 2% THD. And second... it's not so much clipped as it is... distorted.
Since I know this little amp at this price is going to be compared to the AP/VVME stuff, I'll go ahead and do it for you.
Here's a side by side of the guts for your convenience.
Here's a side by side of similar apparent power clamps. Both doing ~ 780w. The VVME needing 1 ohm reactive to get there (but at 12v) and the Jensen doing it at 2.3 reactive (13.2v). What you'll notice here is the wave between the two. One is "clipped" and one is distorted. One is going above and beyond it's capabilites and the other is kinda... noisy.
I'll leave my personal opinion out of it and let y'all draw your own conclusions.
