Old School to now

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

I got some install detail stuff to do over the holiday. Techflex, more foam, wire wraps, shrink wrap. Should clean it up a bit. I was waiting till I was satisfied enough to leave it alone.

think I'm going to experiment with a 4th order alignment for the mids gonna be really tricky but I'm gonna build some pods later. as for now I want to just do a basic drop-in. which I'm not sure they are going to fair well but they should be decent there.

lets face it dropping a midbass/range in a door will almost NEVER get you ideal results so I built the mids to use small low tuned ported boxes and I have a pretty sweet set of ceramics that can be crossed around 2500. guess there is only one way to findout..

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

think I'm going to experiment with a 4th order alignment for the mids gonna be really tricky but I'm gonna build some pods later. as for now I want to just do a basic drop-in. which I'm not sure they are going to fair well but they should be decent there.lets face it dropping a midbass/range in a door will almost NEVER get you ideal results so I built the mids to use small low tuned ported boxes and I have a pretty sweet set of ceramics that can be crossed around 2500. guess there is only one way to findout..

Just dropping them in, no. Treating the door, yes you can get ideal results. Better if they are far forward. Most are using doors over kicks now.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

Just dropping them in, no. Treating the door, yes you can get ideal results. Better if they are far forward. Most are using doors over kicks now.

the drivers aren't ideal IB or sealed but I want to see how they do. I'm not just building low distortion drivers I'm trying to build drivers that will get loud as **** and still have low distortion. if I can get a 2 way setup to keep up with a tuned flat 15 with 3500 ill be good. granted tuned flat with a 1.1 Q will be probably low 130s to mid 130s from 25 to 80hz. I doubt I can but ill try. Id expect them to do nicely though ported and with some tuning.. the ceramic tweeters are super efficient and have a fairly low fs of 1700hz. the inductance on the midrange is .15 so technically electrically it can play well past 5k. just going to have to do lots of other testing to get it just right.. with the ceramic tweeters I need to cut alittle around 5khz but id rather cut than need to boost or have to apply 100 watts per tweeter to keepup.

 

[wew lad 5,000+ posts]

Best friends 4ever!!

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

I’m glad I found this forum!
Although I’m a newbie to the forum, I’m not new to car audio, at least not old school car audio, as I used to work as an installer in the early 90’s. As I got the bug a week ago to research upgrading my factory system, I’m a little confused by what I’m seeing as it relates to amplifier power.

First, a little history. When I was installing, I worked at a shop that sold Phoenix Gold, Lanzar, Alpine, Kicker, Denon, Oz Audio, Sony and Blade (although we sold very little Blade). We would sell a ton of MS275 & MS2125s, Opti100s and 200s, Kicker Competition and Solobarics (original round) along with Oz Audio driven by Alpine, Denon or Sony head units. For our larger systems, we would install upgraded (175 amp+) alternators along with banks of Optima batteries and stiffening caps. 1,000+ watts of power was a big deal, expensive, and needed substantial upgrades to the charging systems to handle it.

Fast forward to today and I’m seeing crazy power ratings for minimal costs. Is this due to most manufacturers going to all digital amps? In my day amplifiers were all class AB and while the Blade (Class D) was ahead of its time it sounded terrible. While I assume the same marketing games are played, selling an amp’s power based on a 1KHz sine wave at 14.4 volts and between 1 and 10 % distortion, if most of the current amplifiers ratings are realistic this is incredible.

If everyone’s going digital, then I assume the audio quality is better? The best sounding system I had in one of my cars was a Denon head, Precision Power parametric equalizer, Phoenix Gold crossover, Lanzar amps (sounded better than Precision Power, Phoenix Gold, Rockford Fosgate, Soundstream in my opinion), Oz Audio components and an Oz 12 – maybe I should just find those old components? //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif In 2006 I did an upgrade to my Nissan’s Bose system adding a pair of Punch Series 1 12’s along with a P3001 amp and was impressed – Rockford subs were never “musical” in the past and were always used to create SPL.

My goal is to add to my factory Honda system in my Accord Coupe, initially with a single 12” and a mono block amp. Of course, once I start I’ll end up replacing all the OEM speakers with a 4 channel amp while leaving the factory head for cosmetics.

As I’m looking around I see that Class A/B amps are still available and used for mids/highs (or full range) which Class D amps are used for subs? As a company like Zapco is doing this it must be how the industry has gone? Additionally, the price of these amps is substantially less than I expected!

-Eric

Welcome back to the hobby!

First and foremost, most of the brands you remember being great are not the same, and mostly are just the old names only riding the coat tails of their reputations from the days when mullets and a Z-28 were cool. Zapco still has high quality amps and Zed (who made the Lanzar and numerous other greats of that generation) still has a great lineup and designs some amps for other companies.

Yes, there are still the flea-market brands that claim power ratings they wouldn't make if hit by lightning, but on the flip side, there's an easy dozen amps that'll make a legit 5000W for around 1200$ new with warranty and can be had for 700-800 used. Brazil is making some amps that make huge power out of unbelievably small footprint and come even cheaper!

The catch being it's all old technology. Class A/B has been around forever. The companies still selling a 100X4 amp are using technology that's 30 years old now.

The other great thing is that we now have woofers that'll legit handle power. The original Rockford Power sub or CV Stroker would only be low to middle of the road by today's standards. For 250$ you can buy a subwoofer that sound decent and will take 1200W sine wave continuously for 8 hours. Every sub worth it's salt these days is designed to play best in ported alignment, we use bigger boxes these days, but then again, say we used to shoehorn a single 15 into 2 cubes back in the day, today a single modern 10 in the same size box would utterly destroy it by any measure!

Processing has also gone the way of the dodo. Pioneer DEH PRS 80 is very affordable and packs a lot of processing power. Their PRS 99 is very expensive, but replaces digital processing and EQ that would have cost you double it's price in the 90s.

Caps were out of style and are not back in style, but ONLY the Maxwell Supercaps, and they're primarily only good for 3 second SPL tone applications. IMO batteries are still the best bang for the buck. High output alternators have also come a long way. "6 phase" "hairpin (square wire)" has probably doubled the output and greatly improved efficiency of the big-boy alternators. Stators are hand-wound and made-to-order so they're not cheap, but there's half a dozen companies who's alternators will perform as advertized.

Lastly if there was any amp you ever really wanted back in those days you may be able to find it on eBay for cheap money. Super collectible stuff like the limited edition Phoenix Gold (Route 66, Frank amp n' stein, etc.) fetch top dollar, but the more common models are peanuts compared to MSRP way back when. The caveat there being that electrolytic capacitors on the boards have a limited life expectancy and a 20+ year old amp is prone to failure.

Anyway, there's a lot of nuthuggery and trolling here but you will find a few solid members who know their stuff.

 

[The_Quiet_One 10+ year member]

no thats EXACTLY the point. i can get a autozone amp to do the same as a arc sig within it limits but how if actually controls the load is a WHOLE different story.. we dont listen the amp we listen to electromotive transducers. i can build a 100x2 with a ultra low THD that actually has terrible dampening and a terrible sonic signature after parts get hot and you start to drive it to its limits etc... AND NO head room isn't always the answer its simply properly designing the amplifier to SOUND GOOD not to have low THD or high dampening factor etc....

You're backtracking and changing your argument. I just asked for waveform pics of 2 different amps playing 35 hz....ya know since you claimed that there would be a difference without any further context...

Also you shouldn't be driving an amp to it's limits anyways...If the gain is set right and voltage is good any decent amp should be happy and sound good to 99.99% of people. Psycho-acoustics explains the remaining 0.01%

OP try to ignore all of our bickering...that's one of the "endearing" quarks of this forum. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif....

Lots of legitfull range D class amps...I've enjoyed the new Alpine PDXs I've used.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

You're backtracking and changing your argument. I just asked for waveform pics of 2 different amps playing 35 hz....ya know since you claimed that there would be a difference without any further context...

Also you shouldn't be driving an amp to it's limits anyways...If the gain is set right and voltage is good any decent amp should be happy and sound good to 99.99% of people. Psycho-acoustics explains the remaining 0.01%

OP try to ignore all of our bickering...that's one of the "endearing" quarks of this forum. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif....

Lots of legitfull range D class amps...I've enjoyed the new Alpine PDXs I've used.

there will be. approach the amps output limitations and also play several frequencies at once..

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

Best friends 4ever!!

naw hes from Florida. i hate him almost as much as the guys that rep bama.. WHO DAT

 

[The_Quiet_One 10+ year member]

there will be. approach the amps output limitations and also play several frequencies at once..

You can't approach the amp's limitations without clipping and causing excess heat.....Your argument seems to be mainly based on intentionally abusing your equipment....

Show me some comprehensive, objective measurements taken at 100 Hz proving your point and I'll shut up about a frequency being the same regardless of the the amp sending the power assuming processing is turned off.

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

naw hes from Florida. i hate him almost as much as the guys that rep bama.. WHO DAT

I'm not from Florida. Just stationed in this **** hole.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

You can't approach the amp's limitations without clipping and causing excess heat.....Your argument seems to be mainly based on intentionally abusing your equipment....
Show me some comprehensive, objective measurements taken at 100 Hz proving your point and I'll shut up about a frequency being the same regardless of the the amp sending the power assuming processing is turned off.

That's exactly my point.

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

Intentually abusing equipment and running equipment near its limits even 1% is pushing it.

It's easy.. get two amps same out put.. say a good old rf power and a Lanzar set them to 1%thd and I bet you hear a difference at that output level..

 

[Papermaker85 5,000+ posts]

I'm not from Florida. Just stationed in this **** hole.

Where are you from slow?

 

[The_Quiet_One 10+ year member]

Intentually abusing equipment and running equipment near its limits even 1% is pushing it. It's easy.. get two amps same out put.. say a good old rf power and a Lanzar set them to 1%thd and I bet you hear a difference at that output level..

I've done a hearing test using bookshelf speakers on a bench using a Phoenix Gold M25 (Triple Darlington as well), a Pioneer Premier Class A, an Eclipse EA4000, Zapco C2K, and a RF Punch 45. Listening to the level at which I normally listen, I had a hard time hearing a difference even with the unequal power. Even if you're right (which you're not) your point is moot. There are hundreds of other factors which have a more substantial bearing on a setup.

 

[Jeffdachef 5,000+ posts]

If you go class D, dont cheap out. A good class D will sound just as good as a class A/B. However a budget to lower tier class D will sound really lacking even with hours of tuning.

You wont hear a difference between expensive quality amps but you will definitely hear a difference from a 100-150 dollar amp vs a 400 dollar amp.