Zapco Reference or Competition??

[shoprman2 10+ year member]

After looking real hard at there line its hard to decide out of the 2 choices. Can any of you testify as to which is the better. I'm looking at using a smaller 2 ch and a larger 4 ch. If money was not the deciding factor, which would you choose?

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[paikiah 5,000+ posts]

if money wasn't an option, i wouldn't go with zapco. lol.

if i only had zapco to choose from, i would get the C2K editions.

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

yup, Arc xxks are better than Zapco References and probably in the same price range, just not as flexible as the C2ks

Sounds like a budget oriented decision- they all have great buid and designed by the same man

 

[Shugarra 10+ year member]

yup, Arc xxks are better than Zapco References and probably in the same price range, just not as flexible as the C2ks

What the hell are you basing that on? "Probably in the same price range" would indicate that you've never owned one and have therefore never done side by side tests and even if you had it would have been a "This amp fit my needs better" rather than an all encompassing statement.

 

[Shinobi 10+ year member]

Honestly Zapco makes a killer products , I've onwed a few amps and they kick neevr owned ARc audio so I cant say which is better but the reference make good high's amps the CK's are geared for power //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif , but there is a reference 1000D if im nto mistaken so solely depends on preference.

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

What the hell are you basing that on? "Probably in the same price range" would indicate that you've never owned one and have therefore never done side by side tests and even if you had it would have been a "This amp fit my needs better" rather than an all encompassing statement.

Yes I've have played enough with References- my brother in law matter a fact runs a 1100.1 and a 360.4 in his Honda Passport THAT I GOT FOR HIM through my dealer!!!!

So F$%& OFF, and please throw in your OWN 0.02 cents

And what I meant by the 'around the same price' is that ZAPCO dealers are more stern w/ their pricing than ARC dealers are

My response was due to his choice will be limited to budget wether he goes Ref or C2Ks, but in the middle Arc xxk can be a choice as well- in any event he's getting a great product that he'll be content with

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

Shugarra- when you've opened up an Arc xxk4050 and a Reference 360.4 and inspected fraternal twins insides, please get back to me

Obviously this does not apply to 'every' single model.....

BTW I'm just trying to be helpful to the poster, not trying to argue w/ anyone

 

[Shugarra 10+ year member]

Yes I've have played enough with References- my brother in law matter a fact runs a 1100.1 and a 360.4 in his Honda Passport THAT I GOT FOR HIM through my dealer!!!!So F$%& OFF, and please throw in your OWN 0.02 cents

I have never played with an arc amp, so if what you say is true, and I have no reason to doubt you, then you have exponentially more experience on the subject than I. I would like to point out, however, that the zapco amps have a balanced input and from what I can tell on the arc website the xxks do not. So, maybe the arc 'sounds better', can push 1000 watts x 4 into 4 ohms stereo, have a 72db/octave crossover and cost $10. That's great and 99% of the people in the world would want to buy one but there is also going to be that 1% that want to run a fully balanced setup and the arc just isn't going to be able to do that for them. That's all I was saying.

I shouldn't have just bashed your post, either. To the original poster:

My take on the c2ks is you are buying a name and not much else. The dealer here swears he can hear the difference between a c2k and a reference, so maybe that's something to look into. The c2ks also have a clip indicator and are very overbuilt so you shouldn't have any problem with over heating. On the other hand they aren't very underrated and you pay almost double for comparable rms to a reference model. Whether those options are worth the extra money to you, is really up to you. And, as 3.5Max6spd pointed out, there are a lot of different amplifiers in that price range that are just as good.

 

[denim 5,000+ posts]

I really like the reference line, a good solid amp that have been great fromk what I have seen, the C2Ks are unreal, very regulated, but I dont have enough time with them yet