Old Man wants a New System.

[dthor68 10+ year member]

New Here. I am by no means new to Car Audio. In the 90's, I ran Alpine & PPI. That system, my first, was stolen. Next system was Alpine, Linear Power & JL Audio. I got married & wrecked my lowrider S10. I kinda stopped caring about cars and car audio. Well I just bought my daughter a car and a cheap Kenwood CD player. Installing her CD player was so much fun, brought back good memories. Now I want a new system for my Honda CR-V.

Things have changed so much since I last got into this. PPI looks like crap and on paper does not even come close to the numbers in the ninties, except wattage. Linear Power, GONE?. Sondstream bought out by Power Acoustic? A/D/S gone! Orion and Zapco still look good and there are a hunderd brands I have never heard of.

What I want is one amp, 4 channel, for two sets of 5.25 componants. One 10" sub with a second amp later. No longer do I listen to Snoop or NWA. I listen to Steely Dan, Rush, Linkin Park, old and new rock. I do not care for loud levels anymore, well sometimes. I guess about $350.00 for the amp and $125.00 for each set of componants to start worry about sub later.

So I have a couple questions? Is this new Soundstream Reference Series just like the old? Back in the day the Soundsream Ref & Rub were kick butt. I would start here if I could trust this "New Soundstream". Who is the reputable online dealer? Of the new crap what is good? Any recomondations for amps and componant speakers would be appreciated.

Derek

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[E-Rock 10+ year member]

Soundstream makes some okay stuff. You will hear a lot of recommendations for AudioQue, Sundown, DC, SSA and more.

Good online dealers are: SonicElectronix, WoofersEtc, SoundSolutionsAudio, AudioSavings, VMInnovations and then there are the Reps on this site.

You have a good budget, you will get some quality stuff.

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

hey derick ,welcome ,ok the soundstream is owned by power acoustic [garbage] but the new reference amps are still pretty good and still expensive.i can give you all the prices for these amps.component wise ,cdt is a very good company in which i am a dealer for ,so i can help you there also ,as far as sub and amps ,i would need to know how much power that you are looking to run ,american bass is a very respectable company that makes high end competition equipment ,they also have a lower and mid level line ,i can give prices there too.alot of the online dealers sell products dirt cheap ,but some are old products and some are refurbs in both cases there is no manufacture warranty ,at best it will be a warranty offered by the seller .all my equipment is fully warrantied by the manufacture .

 

[nutxo 10+ year member]

New Here. I am by no means new to Car Audio. In the 90's, I ran Alpine & PPI. That system, my first, was stolen. Next system was Alpine, Linear Power & JL Audio. I got married & wrecked my lowrider S10. I kinda stopped caring about cars and car audio. Well I just bought my daughter a car and a cheap Kenwood CD player. Installing her CD player was so much fun, brought back good memories. Now I want a new system for my Honda CR-V.
Things have changed so much since I last got into this. PPI looks like crap and on paper does not even come close to the numbers in the ninties, except wattage. Linear Power, GONE?. Sondstream bought out by Power Acoustic? A/D/S gone! Orion and Zapco still look good and there are a hunderd brands I have never heard of.

What I want is one amp, 4 channel, for two sets of 5.25 componants. One 10" sub with a second amp later. No longer do I listen to Snoop or NWA. I listen to Steely Dan, Rush, Linkin Park, old and new rock. I do not care for loud levels anymore, well sometimes. I guess about $350.00 for the amp and $125.00 for each set of componants to start worry about sub later.

So I have a couple questions? Is this new Soundstream Reference Series just like the old? Back in the day the Soundsream Ref & Rub were kick butt. I would start here if I could trust this "New Soundstream". Who is the reputable online dealer? Of the new crap what is good? Any recomondations for amps and componant speakers would be appreciated.

Derek

Dude. All the **** you couldnt afford back then is cheaper now!

 

[mylows10 5,000+ posts]

Dude. All the **** you couldnt afford back then is cheaper now!

this is true ,but most of it is garbage or not in business anymore

 

[audiobaun 5,000+ posts]

View attachment 26534707View attachment 26534708View attachment 26534709View attachment 26534710View attachment 26534711 Well,I still run all old school amps,and have a few sitting,so if you see something in my pile, just let me know..ill be fair,but lowballing is a killer!! LOL..Im fair,and even do trades.Welcome old man..Im an old man myself,//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif,and still enjoying..Just PM me and see what I have for whatever sub/components you have/or decide on.I should have something if you want good old school power.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Soundstream has one or two products worth using... kind of... None of the good stuff is worth MSRP and it's definitely not a shadow of what you remember.

FS: ZED AUDIO Minotaur and Draconia - DIYMA Car Audio Forum

You ought to grab this on the DIY forum. Zed Audio is one of the few that's still in the game and who is still top quality... also still innovating. (He made about a dozen good brands back in the day, including original: Hifonics, Lanzar, ESX, Crunch, Autotek, US Acoustics, Alphasonic, Rodek, etc. etc.)

Also as has been mentioned, if there was anything in the 90's that you really wanted and couldn't afford, a lot of it can be had used for peanuts these days.

 

[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

I'm selling my a/d/s/ PQ10.2 for $120 shipped if you are interested. Very clean and underrated 40w x 4 @ 4 ohms

http://www.caraudio.com/forums/amplifier-classifieds/552096-d-s-pq10-2-a.html

 

[dthor68 10+ year member]

Thanks for the replies. I have had bad experiances buying used equipment in the past so I will not be doing that. Thanks for the dealer info, woofersetc.com is a great site.

From the bit of investigating I have done I have come up with three amps so far the Orion XTR5004 and the PPI PC400.4, turns out this PPI amp has the same #'s that the old ones had. Dont really care for the way it looks. I am stil cosidering a SS REF just because it looks so good and is a perfect color match for my CR-V and the #'s are great(THD .02% & S/N Ratio of 105!).

Some amps I have looked at that I am unfilimier with are Cadence, powerbass and JL, all have pretty good #'s but I know nothing of them, except JL has good speakers.

I guess you all have to go through this crap. So much easier to pick a camera, Nikon or Canon.

 

[Sleeklsc 5,000+ posts]

To keep things simple I'd look into a good solid 5 channel. 350 should get you one with a good sub section as well. Then just 2 sets of mid grade comps and a stout ported 10 or 12.

Cadence and Powerbass are on the cheaper side/slightly overrated. Not to say their bad but with your budget you can do better.

 

[shpatb 10+ year member]

Take a look at Alpines new F4, 4 channel amp, I love mine, 118 x 4 rms per channel birth sheet for 300 dollars, you can't beat that.

 

[nutxo 10+ year member]

this is true ,but most of it is garbage or not in business anymore

This not not the full truth. Theres a freakin TON out there thats still good and most of it can still be serviced thruogh some of the places that the new "manufacturers" use as their service centers.

 

[quackhead 10+ year member]

Precision Power PC400.4 4 Channel Amplifiers at Onlinecarstereo.com

Image Dynamics I4500 4ch

Alphasonik PMA640HCE 1920 Watts, 4-Channel High Current Amplifier with Remote Bass Booster Control

CDT Audio SQA-4075 - Vertex Audio

ZED Draconia-III - Vertex Audio

Infinity KAPPA FOUR Kappa Series 4-Channel Amplifier

Clarion XH5410 640W Max XH Series 4-Channel Amplifier

Alpine PDX-F4 PDX Series 4-Channel Amplifier - Sonic Electronix

Zapco is still in the ORIGINAL packaging //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Zapco ST X Series Amplifier ST-4X 4x75 Watts RMS 4 Ohms 20% off sale

JBL GTO1004 600W RMS, 4-Channel Grand Touring Series Car Amplifier

 

[Ge_off_me 5,000+ posts]

Just FYI Linear Power is still in business, and they are releasing new amps within a month or so.

 

[gunz4me2 10+ year member]

Just FYI Linear Power is still in business, and they are releasing new amps within a month or so.

Only downside... their MSRP //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif