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<blockquote data-quote="hispls" data-source="post: 8529856" data-attributes="member: 614752">Welcome&nbsp; 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.&nbsp; &nbsp; 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&#039;t make if hit by lightning, but on the flip side, there&#039;s an easy dozen amps that&#039;ll make a legit 5000W for around 1200$ new with warranty and can be had for 700-800 used.&nbsp; Brazil is making some amps that make huge power out of unbelievably small footprint and come even cheaper!The catch being it&#039;s all old technology.&nbsp; Class A/B has been around forever.&nbsp; The companies still selling a 100X4 amp are using technology that&#039;s 30 years old now.The other great thing is that we now have woofers that&#039;ll legit handle power.&nbsp;&nbsp; The original Rockford Power sub or CV Stroker would only be low to middle of the road by today&#039;s standards.&nbsp; For 250$ you can buy a subwoofer that sound decent and will take 1200W sine wave continuously for 8 hours.&nbsp;&nbsp; Every sub worth it&#039;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&nbsp; destroy it by any measure!Processing has also gone the way of the dodo.&nbsp; Pioneer DEH PRS 80 is very affordable and packs a lot of processing power.&nbsp; Their PRS 99 is very expensive, but replaces digital processing and EQ that would have cost you double it&#039;s price in the 90s.Caps were out of style and are not back in style, but ONLY the Maxwell Supercaps, and they&#039;re primarily only good for 3 second SPL tone applications.&nbsp; IMO batteries are still the best bang for the buck.&nbsp; High output alternators have also come a long way.&nbsp; &quot;6 phase&quot;&nbsp; &quot;hairpin (square wire)&quot; has probably doubled the output and greatly improved efficiency of the big-boy alternators.&nbsp;&nbsp; Stators are hand-wound and made-to-order so they&#039;re not cheap, but there&#039;s half a dozen companies who&#039;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.&nbsp;&nbsp; Super collectible stuff like the limited edition Phoenix Gold (Route 66, Frank amp n&#039; stein, etc.) fetch top dollar, but the more common models are peanuts compared to MSRP way back when.&nbsp;&nbsp; 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&#039;s a lot of nuthuggery and trolling here but you will find a few solid members who know their stuff.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hispls, post: 8529856, member: 614752"] 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. [/QUOTE]

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