OLD Schooler Needs Schoolin'

[Mad Mac 10+ year member]

OK since I am the oldschooler of sorts and I am now getting into the new school stuff, What is all the differances in amps (watts and class), I am used to the old school underated stuff so are your now paying for the wattages, dollar to watt or something like that? I also have no Idea on this class junk? class a, b, c, d, and so on whats all that about? I was used to " ya got what ya paid for". I think the classes refer to sound quality right?

So I may sound dumb now but hay I have been out of it since 96 or so, I had kids and other hobbies, but now I have an hour drive to work one way so I have time to enjoy it again.

Ok so I asked about the amps now on to Subs and stuff, I see all these super high wattage Subs and speakers how are these thing rated now? I never saw the need to have a sub I couldn't come close to maxin'out in power, when I got out of the CA stuff JL was hittin it big and had some monster stuff, Soundstream and Kicker were all big players then to. I got out right before the db drag race's started up. I just wana know how all the speaker ratings add up to what I am used to:eyebrow:

The last system I had when I competed was in a 1991 Laser, Black if anyone ever saw it?

It was respectable even today I think, But that was back when SQ was king in 1994 -1993 area. I ran in the under 250 watt class with all kicker components and subs.

spec's were:

4 Kicker Comp 12's Sealed Enclosure

4 Kicker 6.5's

4 Kicker 5.2's

4 Kicker tweets ( don't remember which)

Alpine HU 5140

Alpine 11 band passive EQ with sub adj.

2 RF punch 40I DSM's

2 RF punch 60I DSM's

2 1 Farad Caps

Sounded AWSOME!!!!!!!!

and about 300 pounds of Dynamat and I still had the back seat

250 watt and under class = 1600 watts //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/up2something.gif.dd110ecf3ae4b76050d87598f2f8de7c.gif

Those were the good old days

Highest spl I got was 142 DB

I was 18 Y/O:naughty:

So all you guys can call me old school now but I feel like an *** now cause all the tech has changed:blush:

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[PatFitz9 10+ year member]

man there is so much info that can be explained here... i say do some searching and get out them reading glasses. or just read the new posts and you will be surprised about all the info you can absorb

 

[loserpunk 10+ year member]

i'd say check out a number of different forums and just read as much as you can, http://www.carstereos.com, http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com, http://www.elitecaraudio.com are just a few that i suggest you check out

a few terms that will help keep you up to speed

re = Resonant Engineering, sub, amp, and component speaker company in vegas, started internet only, now has dealerships and makes some pretty decent products(sub lines include xxx, sx, se, re, and mt)

aa = adire audio or ascendant audio, both different companies that do mostly subs

si = stereo integrity, sub company

ia = inciminator audio, sub and amp company

ed = elemental designs, sub, amp, speaker company, has a pretty bad rap on some forums, so mention w/ care

as far as underrating amps goes, it's mostly a thing of the past, today you'll have a good deal of cheaper amps overrated and most of your medium to high quality amps a rated pretty dead on or just slightly under, as far as classes go, i know the basics, but am by no means knowledgeble enough to explain that so i'll leave it up to someone else

as far as system suggestions i'd suggest say what you're looking for, space(car), and price limit should get you pretty far here

good luck

 

[stratusrt01 10+ year member]

I'm with you though man. I used to compete back in 51-100 class in IASCA in 1992 with two Autotek 7050XX's running at 1/2 ohm making about 900 watts. They don't make cheater amps like that much anymore, the old school Orions, Autoteks, U.S. Amps, were so freakin awesome compared to what's out today. Speakers are leaps and bounds ahead of what we had though, and amplifiers, although the cheater amps are gone, it's nice to have a Class D amplifier that you can bump for 4 hours straight and it doesn't even get hot, compared to those old school RF's you had, which would be so hot after 20 minutes you couldn't touch them. I've just been trying to relearn everything, there's a lot of knowledge around here.