Best Car High End Amps You Have Tried

[Jean]

Zapco, Phoenix Gold TI series and Brax/HElix

[Paradise_Ice]

Originally posted by longblock454
I may be laughed right out of here, but JBL amps have always worked great for me!

You can just say JBL have worked great for you,

Which JBL amplifiers atre you talking about now?

The only ones that have any real heart are the GTS of some 10 years ago, the modern ones sound cold and weak, on the Crown tweaked models have some bounce am told, i hunt for the old GTS amplifiers on Ebay, so dont bid against me ok

As for Genesis, they are nice and well made but quite clinical, if you like that shoot, but i like warm full sounds like the Tru Tech amplifiers.

[johnkramer]

they're my only expreience with good car audio but in 1998 I did a setup with Xtant. 4180C and a bridged 2100B for subs.

Other than having to expose the circuit boards during installation (not good imo as a single strand of stray copper from a stripped wire could spell ruin if it fell to a bad place). other than that, they were completely reliable, powerful, quite and sounded good enough for me.

[tenderland]

I am running some old Soundstream now (d100 II , class A 3.0)
They seem harsh at times .
They are OK but I am itching to buy a Mac .

[Puggie]

I'm currently using the US Amps Tube amps which I'm very impressed with, warmth and an organic character to them (ok I sound like an audiophile but they sounded more alive to me) there solid state models are very good too. previous to this I have run lots of stuff but this is the better of it:

Xtant X603 (my first really good amp) and was very impressed, very lively with plenty of clout, nice onboard crossovers and front end too, good all in one amp solution, if I wanted a one box amp for a simple system I would consider one again.

Phase Linear Modular, regulated modular system one box for the PSU and as many 4 channel slave amps as you can power depending on impedance. nice amp, very flexible, the fans were noisey and it never failed me, always sounded good but never astounding. 0-180Degree variable phase controls and decent variable crossovers were nice.

Genesis series 3, 5 channel. good amp, very nicely made but as Paradise ICE says very accurate but bordering on clinical. you could probably run over it and it would still work fine.

Sinfoni, nice enough sounding, possibly over simple design IMHO, build quality was a little iffy IMHO, there is better out there for the money, wouldn't buy one.

Old JBL black square knobbley block amps. Not really high end but they are great for what you pay, one of those amps which was truely a step above the rest of the competition.

Cheapie 4 channel alpine V12. one of my first amps, moded the main power rails to the transistors with an extra 400,000uF of smallish capacitors,had to raise the amp as the hung out of the base but my god it made a difference to the sound

[DJNUBZ]

puggie any way you could do a how to on that alpine mod. I know there are a lot of people who would be intrested in it.

[Paradise_Ice]

Originally posted by Puggie
I'm currently using the US Amps Tube amps which I'm very impressed with, warmth and an organic character to them (ok I sound like an audiophile but they sounded more alive to me)

Genesis series 3, 5 channel. good amp, very nicely made but as Paradise ICE says very accurate but bordering on clinical. you could probably run over it and it would still work fine.

Sinfoni, nice enough sounding, possibly over simple design IMHO, build quality was a little iffy IMHO, there is better out there for the money, wouldn't buy one.

Cheapie 4 channel alpine V12. one of my first amps, moded the main power rails to the transistors with an extra 400,000uF of smallish capacitors,had to raise the amp as the hung out of the base but my god it made a difference to the sound

Hi Bill AKA Puggie

I didnt know you are on this forum as well.

You are spot on with your views on car amps,

You should post a thread on moding a Alpine V12, it will not make it the best sounding amplifier but people love to tweak and i cant blame them at all.

we all love to tweak now dont we

[arnach]

McIntosh MC440M.. hands down for me.. 4 channels x 50 for the fronts and 2 for the subs, with focals run in parallel each side, rear treble -4db, i'm getting 200 wats into 2 ohms per channel, and 2.5 ohms each channel of 100w into 4 for 4 5ohm subs.

SOUNDS LIKE HEAVEN. And the blue meters are cool. Currently looking for a really efficent class D amp for a 11" sub because my charging system is near running out of juice.

[scottjasonm]

Late 80's PPI amplifiers were very good in my opinion. I had (and still have) a couple of PPI-2150AM's (150x2 4ohms) that were my favorite. Also had a couple PPI-2300AM (300x2) monsters - they were actually a dual monoblocks - 2 PPI-2125's in 1 big chassis.

I had many different models of the late 80's Linear Power also.
1752/2002/2202's very good. Maybe not as good as they are made out to be though.

[RAAMaudio]

MTX, PPI, Zapco, McIntosh and then Arc Audio for the last 3 years or so. Dang fine gear, true car audio enthusiasts, probably best support in the industry. All the amps and other new and exciting products are designed by Robert Zeff, original founder of Zapco.

Anybody going to CES? Stop by the Arc Audio booth and say high, I will be hanging out with my buddies there.

Here is a link to my best sounding install ever, not built to be pretty, built to work and well it did

RAAMmat Tacoma

Just click on the Tacoma or on the Mobile Entertainment pic on the bottom left corner

Rick