why are old school amps worth so much?

[garage1217]

Monolithic made the only class A car amps that actually were true class A that I am aware of. And boy did they produce the heat to back it up without producing crap for power *LOL* Dear lord those things made an HCCA 225 running 1 ohm railed as hard as it would go seem cool "and I still have a scar on my left arm from a 225 that blistered me" hahaha.

[ca90ss]

Class A car amp
http://www.hssfidelity.com/prodotti....20&product=133

[1moreamp]

Originally posted by garage1217
Monolithic made the only class A car amps that actually were true class A that I am aware of. And boy did they produce the heat to back it up without producing crap for power *LOL* Dear lord those things made an HCCA 225 running 1 ohm railed as hard as it would go seem cool "and I still have a scar on my left arm from a 225 that blistered me" hahaha.

Originally posted by ca90ss
Class A car amp
http://www.hssfidelity.com/prodotti....20&product=133

The Monolithic amps were Class AB high biased to drive class A like the SS amps, And If I recall properly they did not live long and happy lives, or like 2 ohms either. I know someone that has several mint examples of these in his collection. Nice and very hot high bias amps. Pricey too as I remember. As for "True Class A" well I saw that wording a lot over the years. I guess that all depends on if you accept a class AB output stage being biased into A class mode as "True" class A. < Marketing maybe ?

I went to the Italian site and I see 4 tube sockets on that amp and two very large power supplies < almost 70% of the amp by size> And class A tube is very much possible, especially in the 30 watt range it says its rated at, but its not something most people would want to power in a car. Just not efficient enough, but I bet it makes a great trunk defogger... Plus tubes and cars never really liked each other as I also recall. Butler put a lot of work into making it semi-reliable as I was told by a Butler employee.

Plus I was only thinking about solid state car amps in my broadly stroked statements. And I remember class A amps having a different output design that does not use a class AB output in high bias.

I get people asking me to high bias their op-amp chips to make them operate in Class A mode from time to time. Interesting concept, I'm just not sure its worth all the work, what with all sources being digital nowadays...

Thanks for the call out guys, keep me on the straight...

[junglejuice]

"So why are broken olds school amps worth more than brand new ones that are working in same power rating???"


Quality....

[jol50]

Take a look at 80s BMX bikes and parts, same deal prices are sky high on many items. Ebay does go up/down though, I just spotted an old amp that went for $300 untested even but nice. Same amp a while back (maybe 1 mo) went for around 135 about same condition but working. One went in Europe for 115 euro before that.

In fact last late fall I bought a little alpine sub amp that was 9/10 condition and working. One just sold broken for $41 total, and that is at least $10 more than I paid for mine. I might have got a deal, but still makes little sense to me that it be that far off.

[ppia600]

All I know is I plan on keeping my three ppi art amps for quite a while. But my sony 2252hx and ppi 2150am are for sale if anyone's interested.

[MikeHunt79]

I've got a Rockford Fosgate Punch 300X.... Is this considered old school?

[jol50]

Here is a good one: 230222186339 We'll see what 120 watts is worth.

[jpruden]

I think the real reason they're so damn expensive is that those of us who remember how good many of them sounded can now afford to pay much more for them.

Of course, most of us can't hear as well as we could back then, so it's still all a waste of time and money.

If I ever sell my McIntosh MC440, I guarantee that I can get more for it than I originally paid for it (I bought it used.) Of course, I'll only *consider* selling it when someone pries it from my cold dead fingers...

[garage1217]

Again... this is the car audio section...