Sony or Kenwood for sub amp?

[troystg]

Hi and thank you in advance for any constructive advice.

I am looking for a new sub amp with basic requirements. To save time I narrowed it down to two basic choices. Both have the required > 250 WRMS int 4 Ohms and both are fairly compact.

The reason for the post is to find out if there have been any issues with either that I am not aware of or if I missed a better choice that fits the two main criteria stated above.

The two I narrowed it down to are:

SONY-XM-1S

SONY XM-1S CAR SLIM AMPLIFIER/AMP MONO XM1S FITS HONDA | eBay


Kenwood-XR-1S

Kenwood XR-1S eXcelon Mono Sub Digital Amplifier XR1S | eBay

Comments or concerns on either? This is not a competition system and is really light duty. Will be driving two 10" Eminence dual voice coil subs.

[Dr Zeus]

I personally dont care so much for either brand. Everything Sony I've had has either broken pre-maturely or was over-hyped and only seemed better in the stores. I've not worked on a Sony amp yet (surprisingly I dont really know why other than they may just be very disposable and not worth repairing). I have seen several Kenwood amps on my bench and have to say they are also not a very great favorite. I've seen cracked boards at the speaker terminals, and traces melted and popped like a fuse. Its rather unfortunate to say this, but I feel mainstream-branded amplifiers such as these two are not very good choices. Will they work? Absolutely, but your miledge could very. I'd suggest buying name-brand (Sony, Pioneer, JVC, Kenwood, Alpine) for your head-unit, but suggest something else for your amplifiers. You'll also probably find a lot of die-hards on this forum running old-school amps as well.

If I had to choose, I'd probably pick the Kenwood amplifier over the Sony.

Might I recommend to you though, JL Audio? They are one of my good choices for newly bought amplifiers but can be a little pricy. Their JL 250/1 series might be in your price range. Another option could be a Kicker ZX500.1 which should be in price and very nice.

[troystg]

Thank you for the reply.

Basically this is for a "disposable" system... Non audiophile using the amp and 10's to augment the factory sound in the vehicle. I really don't expect the amp to have a life span longer than the "lease time" (company vehicle that is swapped out every 75K miles).

In the past I have had great success with the KAC-901 from Kenwood on the JBL GTi woofers but that was YEARS (decades) ago.

It would be difficult to fit the JL and Kicker under a truck seat where as the Sony is aimed at the cramed space market.