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<blockquote data-quote="hispls" data-source="post: 8530136" data-attributes="member: 614752">Any amp that&#039;s well built and reliable will sound fine.&nbsp; &nbsp; I&#039;d recommend checking out Zed Audio lineup if you liked his Lanzar amps back in the day (he also made the Crunch, ESX, Rodek, Autotek, US Acoustics, Alphasonic, Hifonics, Planet Audio, and a few others in that era).&nbsp; They have great on-board crossover options, are very efficient, and have performed very well for me.&nbsp;&nbsp; Otherwise, as you say there&#039;s plenty of brands you&#039;ve never heard of that&#039;ll do well.&nbsp; Many of them are just the same circuit in different heatsinks with different brand names, but with the internet, it&#039;s pretty easy to figure out which companies have a good or bad reputation.The reason certain size subs or types of boxes never sounded good 25 years ago was largely due to design.&nbsp; Anemic motors trying to control 15&quot; cones (outside of PA application) perform poorly, and subs built with no care about the alignment were hit or miss.&nbsp;&nbsp; Power is cheap, space is at a premium.&nbsp; The trailblazers in the industry have been gearing towards a tradeoff of efficiency for space saving, thus we have 1200W 12&quot; woofer that&#039;ll perform in 2-3 cubic feet.&nbsp;&nbsp; Designing subs to work optimally in ported alignment has been the way this is achieved.&nbsp; &nbsp; That said, there&#039;s still a handful of good sounding options that&#039;ll perform in sealed but with modern designs there&#039;s almost no reason to go there.Alpine actually makes some pretty decent stuff these days (head units are still in the top tier).&nbsp; Their class D full range amps are nice and their type R component speakers and subwoofers sound great.&nbsp;&nbsp; About 8 years ago they had a type X that was really top end audiophile tier speakers.&nbsp; You missed the boat on that, but the R series is still good for big box store brand.&nbsp; IMO you can do better for the price, but if you want to stick to one of the more widely available/known brands Alpine is all around quite nice.... not going to win you competitions or do extreme duty, but sound good and will perform as advertised.&nbsp; JL is still very good (and still horrific MSRP), Rockford has some low end stuff that&#039;s a little janky but their higher end stuff is quite nice.&nbsp; JBL/Infinity also has a pretty nice lineup as far as mainstream brands who do their own R&amp;amp;D still.&nbsp; Phoenix Gold has gone through some phases, but they have a few good&nbsp; lines of amps today.November always has some sick deals from online vendors and late December you can pick up used gear on these forums for stupid cheap.The only examples of hearing the difference were a couple obscure/obsolete designs and one cheap amp that had specs so horrid that it should have never been sold to begin with.&nbsp;&nbsp; As Richard Clark (and others) have stated, issues with frequency response should be handled with EQ anyway.&nbsp;&nbsp; Otherwise&nbsp; I didn&#039;t see any O-scope pictures of where different amps amplify a signal differently.Also, you must have no self respect at all to post your atrocious typing and grammar errors.&nbsp; Even a cell phone has auto correct these days and if you can&#039;t be bothered to make even a half arsed effort to express your point articulately, why would you expect any of us to take you seriously or put any more effort into dealing with you?&nbsp;&nbsp; I&#039;m far from a grammar policeman, but FFS the gibberish you post and expect us to try to decipher is just plain insulting.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="hispls, post: 8530136, member: 614752"] Any amp that's well built and reliable will sound fine. I'd recommend checking out Zed Audio lineup if you liked his Lanzar amps back in the day (he also made the Crunch, ESX, Rodek, Autotek, US Acoustics, Alphasonic, Hifonics, Planet Audio, and a few others in that era). They have great on-board crossover options, are very efficient, and have performed very well for me. Otherwise, as you say there's plenty of brands you've never heard of that'll do well. Many of them are just the same circuit in different heatsinks with different brand names, but with the internet, it's pretty easy to figure out which companies have a good or bad reputation. The reason certain size subs or types of boxes never sounded good 25 years ago was largely due to design. Anemic motors trying to control 15" cones (outside of PA application) perform poorly, and subs built with no care about the alignment were hit or miss. Power is cheap, space is at a premium. The trailblazers in the industry have been gearing towards a tradeoff of efficiency for space saving, thus we have 1200W 12" woofer that'll perform in 2-3 cubic feet. Designing subs to work optimally in ported alignment has been the way this is achieved. That said, there's still a handful of good sounding options that'll perform in sealed but with modern designs there's almost no reason to go there. Alpine actually makes some pretty decent stuff these days (head units are still in the top tier). Their class D full range amps are nice and their type R component speakers and subwoofers sound great. About 8 years ago they had a type X that was really top end audiophile tier speakers. You missed the boat on that, but the R series is still good for big box store brand. IMO you can do better for the price, but if you want to stick to one of the more widely available/known brands Alpine is all around quite nice.... not going to win you competitions or do extreme duty, but sound good and will perform as advertised. JL is still very good (and still horrific MSRP), Rockford has some low end stuff that's a little janky but their higher end stuff is quite nice. JBL/Infinity also has a pretty nice lineup as far as mainstream brands who do their own R&D still. Phoenix Gold has gone through some phases, but they have a few good lines of amps today. November always has some sick deals from online vendors and late December you can pick up used gear on these forums for stupid cheap. The only examples of hearing the difference were a couple obscure/obsolete designs and one cheap amp that had specs so horrid that it should have never been sold to begin with. As Richard Clark (and others) have stated, issues with frequency response should be handled with EQ anyway. Otherwise I didn't see any O-scope pictures of where different amps amplify a signal differently. Also, you must have no self respect at all to post your atrocious typing and grammar errors. Even a cell phone has auto correct these days and if you can't be bothered to make even a half arsed effort to express your point articulately, why would you expect any of us to take you seriously or put any more effort into dealing with you? I'm far from a grammar policeman, but FFS the gibberish you post and expect us to try to decipher is just plain insulting. [/QUOTE]

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