What is it with Old School Amplifiers?

[Keyboard_Rambo 10+ year member]

Linear Power tried to migrate to a "modern" design similar to all the rest and bought the farm.

Linear Power is the brand that pushed my cousin Chris over the edge. For two years I watched him collect those amplifiers while telling him that he should look into something else for all the money he was spending, but he didn't want to listen. He kept pulling this "They were awesome when I was in high school" routine on me every time I tried to tell him something to the contrary.

Well, the day finally came where he was out a fortune for purchasing them and having many repaired, so he installed them. Man was he ever disappointed and pissed off at the same time. He had noise issues that couldn't be resolved, he had horrible efficiency issues that caused extreme dimming with the 5002 and was totally bummed that his 1502IQs cut out on him at high volume. He literally pulled them out of the vehicle and listed a huge for sale ad on another forum and on eBay.

He replaced the 5002 with a Lunar L2125 and was shocked at the difference in output. He replaced a pair of 1502IQs with a pair of Lunar L60x2s and again was shocked at the clean raw output and lack of noise. In fact, he was able to buy three used Lunar amplifiers with the money that he made from selling ONE Linear Power!

If all goes well this weekend, I am going to help him install his Lunar L450 and Clarion DPX1851 in his Mustang for a full active setup. If time allows, I will post a review. Otherwise, I'll be back in 6 months when I get back in the USA!

 

[Louisiana_CRX 5,000+ posts]

I'm gonna install a couple of nice old school setups soon....I have several directions to look at....

 

[grimreper912003 5,000+ posts]

Linear Power is the brand that pushed my cousin Chris over the edge. For two years I watched him collect those amplifiers while telling him that he should look into something else for all the money he was spending, but he didn't want to listen. He kept pulling this "They were awesome when I was in high school" routine on me every time I tried to tell him something to the contrary.
Well, the day finally came where he was out a fortune for purchasing them and having many repaired, so he installed them. Man was he ever disappointed and pissed off at the same time. He had noise issues that couldn't be resolved, he had horrible efficiency issues that caused extreme dimming with the 5002 and was totally bummed that his 1502IQs cut out on him at high volume. He literally pulled them out of the vehicle and listed a huge for sale ad on another forum and on eBay.

He replaced the 5002 with a Lunar L2125 and was shocked at the difference in output. He replaced a pair of 1502IQs with a pair of Lunar L60x2s and again was shocked at the clean raw output and lack of noise. In fact, he was able to buy three used Lunar amplifiers with the money that he made from selling ONE Linear Power!

If all goes well this weekend, I am going to help him install his Lunar L450 and Clarion DPX1851 in his Mustang for a full active setup. If time allows, I will post a review. Otherwise, I'll be back in 6 months when I get back in the USA!

Is this him?

http://www.caraudioclassifieds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11360&highlight=Linear

 

[dB-r 10+ year member]

I never understood the fascination with the Linear Power amps... They looked industrial, and I guess because they had metal can TO-3 transistors in them people thought they were just "tha ****".

 

[traksta15 10+ year member]

why do people collect old cars? Newer ones are more comfortable, have more conveniance options, smoother rides, and generally perform better.

Its for the feel of a well built machine, its more than saying "I have a brand new amp", its about having something thats not mainstream, that you know is well built and will last.

 

[dB-r 10+ year member]

Same goes for A/D/S... Have you ever taken one of those apart? Freaking child science project inside....

Give me an old Pyramid PB700 Gold anyday and a pair of C-15's and I will show you what's up...

 

[atsaubrey 10+ year member]

Same goes for A/D/S... Have you ever taken one of those apart? Freaking child science project inside....
Give me an old Pyramid PB700 Gold anyday and a pair of C-15's and I will show you what's up...

Oh crap we have him on a roll now, or maybe he's drinking. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

 

[dB-r 10+ year member]

Laughing that's all....

It's late, and I am on here talking about PB700's... need to rest soon so I can finish these ****ed SAE-1200D's, and the 40 other amps here in my shop.....

 

[ciaonzo 5,000+ posts]

Oh crap we have him on a roll now, or maybe he's drinking. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif

Lol.

 

[Keyboard_Rambo 10+ year member]

Is this him?http://www.caraudioclassifieds.org/forum/showthread.php?t=11360&highlight=Linear

Nope, my cousin Chris was gunz4me on this forum. He was nice enough to let me crash at his place for the few weeks I was in. If he ever does come back to this forum, I highly doubt he will be preaching the old school.

 

[eutechnyx 10+ year member]

A thing I look at is,Back in the day the amps werent so freely built and they made less so the time and quality was put into them.Alot of them as stated were underrated and built with 100% USA components Hand built even.Its kind like comparing an old 67 gto to an 08 altima or something.Also Its a good feeling to have a set of amps in your vehicle that people ask questions about and have never heard/seen of and when they hear them they are amazed.Stuff like mmats and even old old rockford,precision,US amps,old hifonics and stuff like that are not normally seen in a build these days and have great potential,aswell as alot of the older stuff can handle insane ohm loads.One other thing is,alot of older stuff had big power in a small package and is very unexpected.Compare most 1400 rms amps these days to a mmats d300hc.My d300hc is smaller than most peoples mids/high amps and will produce awesome clean power and very efficient power at that.

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

I too learned this lesson about my old punch 250.1 power amp and discussed my misery at length with gunz4me. My bubble was busted as well about the myth of old school amps being much better than today's stuff. Not true and I let go of that thinking a while ago. Old school definitely has it's place but just not to compete with today's newer technology.

 

[dB-r 10+ year member]

Stuff like mmats and even old old rockford,precision,US amps,old hifonics and stuff like that are not normally seen in a build these days and have great potential,aswell as alot of the older stuff can handle insane ohm loads.One other thing is,alot of older stuff had big power in a small package and is very unexpected.Compare most 1400 rms amps these days to a mmats d300hc.My d300hc is smaller than most peoples mids/high amps and will produce awesome clean power and very efficient power at that.

Wrong, Wrong, and Wrong.

Your D300HC is NOT old school. The older amps put out LESS power in a BIGGER package more often than not. The old amps that people CLAIM would handle lower impedances were never designed, intended, nor did they handle well lower impedance loads than todays amps. For example, the old famed HCCA 250, or 2100 HCCA Orions for example. People called them "cheater amps" back in the day because they would make a lot more power at say, .5 ohm or 1 ohm bridged than their rated 2 x 4 ohms power. TRUE. However they would get SO HOT you could literally cook an egg on them. That is not something special and most modern amps would handle 1 ohm bridged or .5 ohm and double, even triple their power just as good as an old Orion HCCA. I have proven this here at my shop doing testing. I can squeeze triple the output out of most amps here bridged at 1 ohm, just like the did back in the day. The difference is that MOST of the newer amps will handle it, whereas MOST of the older amps WOULD NOT handle it and would blow up.... They all however get extremely hot and head toward going into thermal protect.

 

[tribexp]

I have heard that the guys from phenoix glod have a company called Exile Audio. They say there taking it back to old school audio. I went to there web site. The amps look good..... Im waiting to get to hear one. It would be nice to see a company go with a no frills approach to car audio. no more pretty box crap..

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

What ever happened to gunz4me? He was a buddy of mine.