Old School vs. New School

[O.G. D-Wet 10+ year member]

I've pretty young (20) and fairly new to car audio. I LOVE the old school stuff but I obviously dont know much about it. I constantly see guys bashing new products saying saying how the old stuff is so much better and "back in the day" or "when car audio was in it's hayday"... I envy these guys cuz I would have LOVED to have followed car audio from the day it was born to what it is now. I'm just curious on how the products compare. What's so bad about today's products? There has to be advantages and advancements in technology that you just don't get with the old stuff. I'm not choosing one over the other... I just wunna learn a little sumthin new today lol

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[Jh8909 10+ year member]

in a nutshell some older products were underrated so that you could enter lower classes at comps and now some or most over rate everything just to sell it.

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

Most old school were made by hand, and (from a sound quality standpoint) most of them had no processing built in.

No crossovers, no "bass boost", nothing in the signal that might screw up the sound.

 

[O.G. D-Wet 10+ year member]

no crossover? so you needed external crossovers? so any amp would play at any frequency as long as you crossed it over at that desired frequency?

 

[Jh8909 10+ year member]

yes external cross overs and some of those old head units sent a good clean signal.

 

[O.G. D-Wet 10+ year member]

Well there's all these great guys handbuilding subs... why doesn't anyone start a biz handbuilding amps? bringin the oldskool back?

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

The whole old school vs new school argument is total crap. This subject has been debated on this forum for quite some time and it's getting old. Yeah there are some great old school products (amps, woofers, head units, etc) however there are also some great new school products (amps, woofers, head units, etc) and if I my choice I would stick with the new. I have used many different products since 1988 and in my opinion believe newer stuff is better. Not all but the quality new school vs quality old school, new school wins easily.

 

[Jh8909 10+ year member]

harder than you may think.

 

[kmanian 5,000+ posts]

it is like saying the cars from the '50 and '60s were the bomb and the new stuff is crap! the new cars will blow the doors off the old ones, but if you look at the effort put into the old ones, the fact that they are still here and will be for many decades to come, and the new "crap" will be in the junk yard in 5-10 years. it is much the same. In the old days, there were no 3000w+ amps, there was no 85%+ efficency, bairly any onboard processing. You got a raw class A/B amp that got hot as hell, and put out clean power at 60% efficiency. You would ask is that a good thing? I personally think so, it is a situation where I have OS amps that have value almost 3 decades later that the amps being sold today wish they had the day they were made. How much would you pay for a new 25x25 watt 2 ch. class A/B at best buy? hell you wouldn't even give it a second look. you would probably say why did they even bother making it, all it can do is run some tweets. Well back in the day, I ran 2 HCCA 225's for an entire car, posted 135db's and scored just under perfect SQ numbers. And I can sell these 2 almost 30 year old amps for close to $400. No, I would never hit 160 db or be able to do some of the things the 10kw amps of today can do, but if I had to chose old or new and only old or new, I am going old!

That us tge magic of OLD SCHOOL.

I hope that helps

 

[O.G. D-Wet 10+ year member]

thanks! very informative! hmmm...

 

[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

The whole old school vs new school argument is total crap. This subject has been debated on this forum for quite some time and it's getting old. Yeah there are some great old school products (amps, woofers, head units, etc) however there are also some great new school products (amps, woofers, head units, etc) and if I my choice I would stick with the new. I have used many different products since 1988 and in my opinion believe newer stuff is better. Not all but the quality new school vs quality old school, new school wins easily.

You have to admit, many of the older amp designs were much simpler and easier to work on from an amateur's perspective. You can re-cap an amp that uses entirely discrete electrolytics...good luck doing that with all SMT parts. Troubleshooting, same thing.

Discrete components doesn't make an amp better, but having that available might not be a bad thing nowadays.

why doesn't anyone start a biz handbuilding amps? bringin the oldskool back?

Some companies in 12V do (Lunar comes to mind). The problem is, most people in car audio want the most power for their money, which hand-building amps is not going to give you.

In home audio, there are many more hand-made amps because people are more willing to spend $2k on a 10 watt amp that's wired by hand with premium parts.

 

[rumblefish 10+ year member]

What I miss most from say, the earlier ninety's are the installations. I loved seeing a trunk with 3 eqt's, external crossovers, etc. I know it wasn't nearly as efficient as it is today, but all those toys were one of the main reasons I got into the hobby. It seemed like back then it was how many electronic gadgets could youhave in your car, where now it is how big of an enclosure can you get in your vehicle.

 

[TaylorFade 10+ year member]

I looooove the old school amps, but the subs... not so much. I remember when the world record was like 160. And that was with (12) 18's! My buddy had a bug with (4) 15's in it and it was freaking loud for back then and it posted a 137. You can do that with (1) 8 now-a-days. Of course, back then everybody was running sealed enclosures and subs with 90+ sensitivity.

I bought a Punch 75 (700w @ 2ohm stereo) the other day for old times sake and just for shits and giggles put an old MTX 12 on it. Sounded like ***. My brother's single Sundown e8 is easily twice as loud.

My sub amp now is easily 12 years old. It's rated @ 50w. Lol. It's 1200rms into 1 ohm.

 

[IamDeMan 5,000+ posts]

I've pretty young (20) and fairly new to car audio. I LOVE the old school stuff but I obviously dont know much about it. I constantly see guys bashing new products saying saying how the old stuff is so much better and "back in the day" or "when car audio was in it's hayday"... I envy these guys cuz I would have LOVED to have followed car audio from the day it was born to what it is now. I'm just curious on how the products compare. What's so bad about today's products? There has to be advantages and advancements in technology that you just don't get with the old stuff. I'm not choosing one over the other... I just wunna learn a little sumthin new today lol

I am an old fart and been through the many stages of car audio. I am of the opinion that these guys just can't ****ing let go. There is always a certain emotion with your first few experiences with just about anything. Even I hold more value *personally* for the gear I used back then and still uses some of it today. However, there is some great products out there and cheaper. I would say on average the quality of build may have come down, but for most brands it is still acceptable. For SPL, I think things are much better now than then. Power is ridiculously cheap and 1 or 2 drivers can get the job done. Back then you had to isobaric load multiple drivers on a wall and run high current amps that could heat a home to get anywhere.

All in all things may be different, but I certainly will never claim one better than the other. Old school and current both have their pros and cons. I mean if the products were so **** good back then, why aren't they primarily still using it in comps? (outside of sponsored teams obviously) With that beinf said, you will have to pry my RF DSM amps from my cold dead hands //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[IamDeMan 5,000+ posts]

You have to admit, many of the older amp designs were much simpler and easier to work on from an amateur's perspective. You can re-cap an amp that uses entirely discrete electrolytics...good luck doing that with all SMT parts. Troubleshooting, same thing.

There is two ways to look at this. Your way which is very valid for those with that know how and/or enjoy it. However, the manufacturing of these boards has gotten so much cheaper, that for the price of having someone fix an amp (if you lack the skills) you just replace the **** thing. You take the good with the bad with anything and this is no exception. Back then boards were more expensive because there was more human handling in the manufacturing process. Now not so much and the cost reflects it. Just like with most things, they build them to throw away when done.