Very confused

[kingjd7 10+ year member]

Alright I may sound like a complete noob, but I have been out of the car audio game for years. Recently I just hooked up some stuff I had in my garage, a Us amps usa-100 and a Audiobahn AW1500Q 15" sub. now I know audiobahn ***** for sq but this thing gets pretty loud with the USA-100 it blurrs my vision in a empty econoline van, plus I bought the sub for dirt cheap many years ago. Anyway I wanted more power so I picked up a diamond D3 600.1. The specs on the Diamond show it being 400 watts rms@ 2 ohms, the USA-100 specs say 315 watts RMS@ 2ohms. I disconnected the USA-100, and hooked up the Diamond. I was very disappointed in how the Diamond was not even close to being as loud as the the USA-100. I probably spent 45 minutes messing with the settings on the head unit, and the Diamond amp trying to make it louder. So do you need to really push a Mono amp to one ohm to get performance even though it states 400 watts rms @ 2 ohms? Is the USA-100 That much under rated, or is the Diamond just that much over rated? I have been researching the Diamond, and from everything i've read they are really good amps. The USA-100 is one of the really old ones with only wires coming out of it, no terminals.

Thanks for the help.

Click to read more...

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

The old ones where rated at a stupid low Thd and voltage. They are that underrated.

 

[kingjd7 10+ year member]

So is the Diamond what 400 watts actually sounds like, and the USA-100 is just that good? Sounds like I need to learn to clamp amps. I'm really curious what the us amp is putting out.

 

[hispls 5,000+ posts]

Yeah, the 90's US Amps were that good, and most of the Chinese mono blocks really don't do squat until you get them down to very low impedance.

 

[kingjd7 10+ year member]

I was thinking about buying a 8" 2 ohm dvc sub for my daily driver. Maybe i'll just hold on to the Diamond for that. I was thinking about getting 2 different 15's for my van. Now i'm afraid to buy a newer amp...lol. the last loud system I had was 4 12's on a Audio art 100hc back in the late 90's. I should have never sold that amp.