After all the dust has settled there will still be some questions about the durability of the new Orion HCCA DSPLX series. Just read some stuff posted on FB by a alleged tech who says the components of the Orion's are suspect over the long-term. He went into some detail explaining his concerns and didn't come off as a SD fanboy with a bruised ego.
We may be entering into a period where new models come out every 8-10 weeks as the SPL Power Wars heat up. You can credit Youtube and Amp Dynos for it. However, even Dereck will say that the dyno doesn't tell the whole story.
As a SQ-oriented enthusiast it is pretty fun to watch the emotional reactions of guys who are obsessed with a Term Lab number.
The HCCA looks pretty well built to me, I've been looking them over recently with all the hubbub. I also looked pretty closely at the internals of my XTR2500.1 and I was pleased with the quality and finish right down to the solder joints, because the joints usually tell the story if the components don't. More than that, it actually sounds very good! Better than my old 1500w Clarion class G/H amp that was aimed at SQ guys.
Edit: I just saw post
#111 above so the following paragraph may not hold any weight.
I think the durability will only come into play for those who are truly abusing them, insisting on running at 1 ohm or below while allowing them to see low voltage, or long periods of constant-tone driven songs at full tilt (right at clipping) without giving the amp a proper breather. The rest of the failures will be the percentage of failures that were going to happen statistically no matter what. I think it would also help if people would view the XTR and HCCA the way the old stuff was intended to be used, the HCCA for the low impedance setups and the XTR amps at 4 or 2 ohm. I wouldn't run the XTR at 1 ohm over the life of the amp because it's not built as stout as the HCCA line, and I feel like that what's Orion intended.
I couldn't agree more with your last statement there, just testing for a few power numbers is far from the whole story and I wish someone would develop the tests that correlate why we like and dislike the sounds of some amps, and I'm not talking about clipping
at all. Things like how many triangle wave comparitors, full bridge/half bridge, regulated/unregulated and with how many rails/auxiliary rails, low bias/high bias or low/high/no negative feedback loop(for other class amps), or why subsonic filters can destroy the overall sound quality in a good sub setup. A few people are like WTF on that one but time and again I choose the subjective performance of amps without subsonic filters. SPL guys or guys tuned high can disregard any of that for obvious reasons, lol.
this is more about youre post
#70 and where you referenced it later, but i think the nail in the coffin for the SA amp would be derek sending these to ryan and having him run the same tests. derek has clearly shown the serial numbers of both amps, while i know that the bottom place can be swapped by some seriously shady mofos (which neither of them are), i think that this would make the SA people really stand at attention to the issue we all are aware of here. Jacob might listen for real if it was duplicated on anyother dyno run
I agree, I think it would carry even more weight than it already does. But I also just want to see how close the results are between these two guys who are very thorough with their approach. I believe it would highlight any if & why reasons there may be a slight variance out there in the field of testing, altogether. I suspect the grouping between any variance would still be pretty tight, though.