What's a 'high-end' 5ch amp these days?
#46
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Heck yeah! My bad!
How do the W7's sound anyways? Was thinking of a project...Dyn MW190 sub outfitted with the same servos as my Velodyne Df12sc. Then control it with the box. Evil thoughts.![Wink](https://www.clublexus.com/forums/images/smilies/wink.gif)
Percy
How do the W7's sound anyways? Was thinking of a project...Dyn MW190 sub outfitted with the same servos as my Velodyne Df12sc. Then control it with the box. Evil thoughts.
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Percy
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#50
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The new JBL amps are using Crown engineering with active servo control to minimize harmonic distortion--
Crown is one of the best amps in the busines in pro audio-- JBL bought them out and now uses their technology in car amps--
JBL nowdays may be one of the best you can get for the money--
XTANT= Good stuff
MTX old school = really good amps-- very high s/n ratio ie: 120db+ , damping factor -- 500+, and strong power supplies-- (the old school black Thunder series with gold letters are the only ones I think were good--) These old MTX amps are a killer find and will smoke most all RF amps from yesterday and today as far as overall quality and power output.
Zapco are solid built, very underrated, very clean, and hard to beat-- BUT, for $1000 for an 800w amp, your ears won't hear the difference over an older MTX Thunder 2300x-- you can pick them up for $125 nowadays-- originally retailed for $700 -- 850w rms, rated at 600-- but they do much more....
Planet audio and someone else made a tube amp that is said to be one of the smoothest sq amps available-- but they're expensive--
Eclipse= good quality-- anyone that says otherwise is nuts--- if you are building a competition level system you may choose a higher end amp, but for the money, you can beat them, but not by much. Eclipse amps are also very clean and fairly underrated.
RF= hype -- nuff said-- Although the BD1000 and BD1500 are some ballsy amps-- don't touch their stuff for sound quality-- Their power supplies are cheap and the amps will get hot hot hot.
The best performing system is that which is built to work together properly, efficiently, and is suitable to your taste-- I don't want 3 12's-- I only like 1-- I don't like ported, I like sealed or IB setups-- I prefer a very smooth and well balanced mid/high/low output, and I'm extremely picky about xover slopes and frequencies-- You can buy the most expensive crap in the world, but get smoked by a guy that spent half as much money and twice as much time. It's all in the setup, balance, and tuning--
For example-- (maybe a bad one) -- I just bought some cheap speakers for my pc-- they're indoor/outdoor speakers with only 5.25" woofers-- really small-- but the cabinet design makes these small speakers sound incredible for what I paid-- way better than some cheesy pc speakers-- The engineering enabled the designer to use a mid quality driver with a smartly designed cabinet and outperform more expensive bookshelf speakers, even more than twice the cost. If you don't tune your crossovers slope and point properly in conjunction with your drivers in-car F3, you'll have distortion, and even Rainbow's will distort with a poorly setup crossover.
Even if a car-audio shop sets it up, it doesn't mean it's right-- Only a meter will tell you if it's right-- If you have a laptop, I suggest downloading a free spectrum analyzer program online and borrowing a high quality mic from somewhere (I don't know where) and mic some white/pink noise yourself, and then do some test tones-- And don't forget to scope your head unit's outputs. All these steps can make a less expensive system outperform a poorly setup extremely expensive system.
Crown is one of the best amps in the busines in pro audio-- JBL bought them out and now uses their technology in car amps--
JBL nowdays may be one of the best you can get for the money--
XTANT= Good stuff
MTX old school = really good amps-- very high s/n ratio ie: 120db+ , damping factor -- 500+, and strong power supplies-- (the old school black Thunder series with gold letters are the only ones I think were good--) These old MTX amps are a killer find and will smoke most all RF amps from yesterday and today as far as overall quality and power output.
Zapco are solid built, very underrated, very clean, and hard to beat-- BUT, for $1000 for an 800w amp, your ears won't hear the difference over an older MTX Thunder 2300x-- you can pick them up for $125 nowadays-- originally retailed for $700 -- 850w rms, rated at 600-- but they do much more....
Planet audio and someone else made a tube amp that is said to be one of the smoothest sq amps available-- but they're expensive--
Eclipse= good quality-- anyone that says otherwise is nuts--- if you are building a competition level system you may choose a higher end amp, but for the money, you can beat them, but not by much. Eclipse amps are also very clean and fairly underrated.
RF= hype -- nuff said-- Although the BD1000 and BD1500 are some ballsy amps-- don't touch their stuff for sound quality-- Their power supplies are cheap and the amps will get hot hot hot.
The best performing system is that which is built to work together properly, efficiently, and is suitable to your taste-- I don't want 3 12's-- I only like 1-- I don't like ported, I like sealed or IB setups-- I prefer a very smooth and well balanced mid/high/low output, and I'm extremely picky about xover slopes and frequencies-- You can buy the most expensive crap in the world, but get smoked by a guy that spent half as much money and twice as much time. It's all in the setup, balance, and tuning--
For example-- (maybe a bad one) -- I just bought some cheap speakers for my pc-- they're indoor/outdoor speakers with only 5.25" woofers-- really small-- but the cabinet design makes these small speakers sound incredible for what I paid-- way better than some cheesy pc speakers-- The engineering enabled the designer to use a mid quality driver with a smartly designed cabinet and outperform more expensive bookshelf speakers, even more than twice the cost. If you don't tune your crossovers slope and point properly in conjunction with your drivers in-car F3, you'll have distortion, and even Rainbow's will distort with a poorly setup crossover.
Even if a car-audio shop sets it up, it doesn't mean it's right-- Only a meter will tell you if it's right-- If you have a laptop, I suggest downloading a free spectrum analyzer program online and borrowing a high quality mic from somewhere (I don't know where) and mic some white/pink noise yourself, and then do some test tones-- And don't forget to scope your head unit's outputs. All these steps can make a less expensive system outperform a poorly setup extremely expensive system.
#56
Everything in Moderation
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The old a/d/s stuff used to make bad recordings sound decent. The new stuff tends to make good recordings sound harsh. 'Nuff said.
#57
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This might be worth checking out...
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-2007-FOCAL-F...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-2007-FOCAL-F...QQcmdZViewItem
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