I can't understand why people value those amps so highly. I know they were in Richard Clark's Grand National but virtually any amp with the same power could have done as well as these amps. The car won so many contests because the system was properly designed, not because these amps are anything special.
Of course the Speakerworks/Clark Buick is the reason for their popularity. I had worked for an Alpine dealer for at least a couple of years and had paid them no attention until the Buick came along... They were rare in my part of the world, too. (ATL) The only ones I saw were the one's in Clark's car.
It's nice to see my beloved Zapco's are holding their own! 200487627843
It's nice to see my beloved Zapco's are holding their own! 200487627843
I like the old alpines, but none of the ones I've used were underrated for sure....they don't have much power (the 35xx). IIRC the 3545 is the only large one excepting the 2x150. And the MRV have a lot more features on them, seem to be good amps, don't know about the 3545 but most of the 35xx don't even have mosfets. Many run hot too.
Yeah, people still don't know what all he had in that car lol.
4 bills for the Zapco, what were those new? I would not spend on either one, too many great working amps I can get for <100 or so. I even scored a HK CA260 the other day that works, just a tiny 2x60 though. Had to make my amp rack huge those things are 4" tall.
I'll cut it down if I don't use them.
Yeah, people still don't know what all he had in that car lol.
4 bills for the Zapco, what were those new? I would not spend on either one, too many great working amps I can get for <100 or so. I even scored a HK CA260 the other day that works, just a tiny 2x60 though. Had to make my amp rack huge those things are 4" tall.
I'll cut it down if I don't use them.
Clark brought his Buick over to ATL and did a private seminar for us installers at HiFiBuys. He went over various aspects of the system, showed us some impressive phase plots, but was still a bit secretive.
The car had ID 15's behind the rear seat, which was only a shell of a seat reupholstered to match the original. Midrange was via 2-ID 12's in the rear sides, with similar treatment to the concealing panels. Upfront were USD waveguides with JBL horns. All speakers were still as installed by Speakerworks, however, Clark did modify the JBL diaphragms. He didn't say how.
Alpine 7909 and the 3x 3545's were also as installed by Speakerworks. Clark added his own noisegate for the 0 bit points and a pair of 1/3 octave Rane EQ's modified for 12V. He said getting rid of the noise from the SMPS conversion was a monumental task. AFAIK, the Rane's input were XLR (balanced) and the Alpines weren't. I don't remember what was used for crossovers.
The vast majority of Clark's time was invested in tuning. He said the car was a beast when he got it, something like "It would rip your head off." He spent days and nights on end in the garage tuning it.
The most impressive part of it to me was the slick factory-looking install.
As for the Zapcos, the 200A's were outrageous for 1980's dollars. Around $800.
I'm not a betting man, but if I was... I'd bet you'll keep the tiny 260's on that rack for a while. They must have obeyed Papa's heatsink philosophy when designing it. BTW, one of mine has the gain switches replaced with pots and it sounds better in full-range mode. If you run them on bottom end, it won't matter. Keep in mind that they thrive on 2 ohms loads with lots of gain in the preamp signal. Our "demo car" was run at 1-ohm with a large fan and a Zapco PEQ/PX cranked way up, and they never griped.
The car had ID 15's behind the rear seat, which was only a shell of a seat reupholstered to match the original. Midrange was via 2-ID 12's in the rear sides, with similar treatment to the concealing panels. Upfront were USD waveguides with JBL horns. All speakers were still as installed by Speakerworks, however, Clark did modify the JBL diaphragms. He didn't say how.
Alpine 7909 and the 3x 3545's were also as installed by Speakerworks. Clark added his own noisegate for the 0 bit points and a pair of 1/3 octave Rane EQ's modified for 12V. He said getting rid of the noise from the SMPS conversion was a monumental task. AFAIK, the Rane's input were XLR (balanced) and the Alpines weren't. I don't remember what was used for crossovers.
The vast majority of Clark's time was invested in tuning. He said the car was a beast when he got it, something like "It would rip your head off." He spent days and nights on end in the garage tuning it.
The most impressive part of it to me was the slick factory-looking install.
As for the Zapcos, the 200A's were outrageous for 1980's dollars. Around $800.
I'm not a betting man, but if I was... I'd bet you'll keep the tiny 260's on that rack for a while. They must have obeyed Papa's heatsink philosophy when designing it. BTW, one of mine has the gain switches replaced with pots and it sounds better in full-range mode. If you run them on bottom end, it won't matter. Keep in mind that they thrive on 2 ohms loads with lots of gain in the preamp signal. Our "demo car" was run at 1-ohm with a large fan and a Zapco PEQ/PX cranked way up, and they never griped.
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Interesting, there are photos of the mid enclosures and subs in diymobileaudio in the quarter panels. They talk about hidden mids under the dash and servos on the amp gains, lots of processing, but who knows. Sure is amazing the attention it still gets, wonder how it worked compared to today's cars.
Yeah lol, I am familiar with HK home stuff sounds like the car audio is the same. I have one working the other have to see if new caps will make the PS work right it got shelved. Just use on highs, though I may be able to run the 240 with the 260 and make it work instead of a pair of 260s. I have levels in the HU a pioneer 880PRS, the preout is 5V but I'd be at 4 ohms. I'll just run a class D on subs most likely I'm not into huge class AB much anymore. Do have a couple I could run but why bother. Building my amp rack now its 13x36, might have to work to get two HKs and a class D in there anyway. I put fans into the center, had to make it oversize to fit the HKs but I can mount it closer for about 3" in there instead of 4.
800 wow, I know a 2002 LP was like 350 iirc. That good stuff was so expensive then, I was running the old coustics and should have kept them.
Yeah lol, I am familiar with HK home stuff sounds like the car audio is the same. I have one working the other have to see if new caps will make the PS work right it got shelved. Just use on highs, though I may be able to run the 240 with the 260 and make it work instead of a pair of 260s. I have levels in the HU a pioneer 880PRS, the preout is 5V but I'd be at 4 ohms. I'll just run a class D on subs most likely I'm not into huge class AB much anymore. Do have a couple I could run but why bother. Building my amp rack now its 13x36, might have to work to get two HKs and a class D in there anyway. I put fans into the center, had to make it oversize to fit the HKs
but I can mount it closer for about 3" in there instead of 4.800 wow, I know a 2002 LP was like 350 iirc. That good stuff was so expensive then, I was running the old coustics and should have kept them.
I had the pleasure of getting to know Richard Clark in the early 90's on the IASCA circuit. I can tell you that he is one of the most intelligent people I have ever met and was largely self taught in the field of audio engineering. The Buick had only 6 speakers - 2 waveguides up front under the dash, 2 12" midbasses in the rear quarters and 2 15" subs in the trunk. My recollection is that the midbasses were JBL's and the subs were either JBL or Eminence. There were 5 Alpine 3545's (3 of which were visible) 4 of them were bridged to run the subs and midbasses and the 5th was stereo on the waveguides. Speaking of waveguides, Richard commissioned custom made diamond impregnated diaphragms for them. He told me he spent about $20K in total for this. He also added a fair amount of pro audio components to the mix including the Rane EQ's. I could go on and on, but don't want to hijack this thread.
In a nutshell, the fact that we are still talking about it some 20 years later is amazing. The contributions that he made to the industry are legendary.
In a nutshell, the fact that we are still talking about it some 20 years later is amazing. The contributions that he made to the industry are legendary.
Power. I have a little car right now and lights don't dim, less heat, less room, etc. If I run <400rms I'll run a class AB, but right now going to put a 350rms amp in and see how it works. Hope its enough power for my IB 15s, the 500rms on there now does not seem to work very hard but not measured it under load. It was saying max 10A draw moderately loud. I like my 5ga wire don't want to put 4ga in lol.
I am going to try some amps, but the few times I swapped I didn't note a difference in sound on subs like I do on highs.
When Speakerworks was competing with the car, the word was it used a 2-way conventional cone mid/tweeter underdash. They were very secretive, too, and with good reason -there was big money in IASCA competition then.
One of the guys asked Clark directly about that, and he said that it had always had waveuides/compression drivers up front. He added that Speakerworks had told everyone they were a 2-way setup so that there would be no prejudice, since horns had a pathetic reputation on the car audio scene.
Keep us posted?I have levels in the HU a pioneer 880PRS, the preout is 5V but I'd be at 4 ohms. I'll just run a class D on subs most likely I'm not into huge class AB much anymore. Do have a couple I could run but why bother. Building my amp rack now its 13x36, might have to work to get two HKs and a class D in there anyway. I put fans into the center, had to make it oversize to fit the HKs
LP 1752 was $500 in '88, same as a Thor 2x125. Orion 280GX/225HCCA were $450-$500, but the Orion Gold GS-200 was a grand...
Thanks for correcting me, Stu. There were certainly 5 3545's, but the years sometimes fester cobwebs in my brain. Thanks for the input, and I think everyone here would like to hear your insight...
My son just got a 91 Protege w/a 65A alternator. I told him he can't have a big amp system. I think I'm going to put my 6 channel Fultron in it.
I'm not that bad off think it has a 125A, if not its ~100A. I ran a kicker 700.5 and clamped 74A peak and around 40A rms clipping the subs at 2 ohms (420rms cea) and the highs far as they go clean on bass music (4x70). It would dim a little with the air on when you stopped, barely notice without AC. I just don't find much difference with subs so why bother, class D are smaller/cooler/less power. This 700.5 the sub section is class D. If I had a hotrod sure I'd run retro in it, maybe even a larger vehicle I would. On the other hand if these 15s don't need that much power I could try an alpine 1002, mrv-t757, rubicon 302, a larger newer SS 440rms iirc, maybe some others. Problem is they are pair of SVC 4 ohms.
You can run a class D and another battery, even a jumper pack helps, and get close to 1Kw with the little alternators, but they will dim at night. Of course in the old days I ran 2x75 amps (@12v rated) most of the time, if you ran IB or large ported you had some output.
I did get the rack in tonight (whew) and running again, still have to tidy things up. Seems to get good airflow with two fans. The one amp tells the temp, so I'll play it when its hot and sunny out and see what it does. Have to get some more wire and then I'll start swapping amps. I was going to check the voltage on the amp under load, see if the smaller amp will look like it will work.
2-way under the dash, lol, that is almost funny though it can work I guess. I never did it.
I had the same issue back in the early 90's with a Geo Storm GSI. It had a 62 amp alternator in it. I ran a RF Power 300 amp on subs and 2 Alphasonik 150 watt amps on mid and highs. I could dim the lights a little, but when I ran 4 gauge ground from the battery to the frame, I had no more issues. You should be safe up to a 1k watts. Back in 92, there was only a few class D amps, Infinity and Mmats. (that I remember) You should be fine on the Fultron.
I would tend to believe Richard on this one. From what I understand/recall, those front waveguides were huge (deep). So much so that they required substantial modifications to the dash, AC/Heat plenum and firewall so as to fit. I know I saw pictures of them at some point out of the car and they were at over 2 feet deep in total and the driver was about 5 inches in diameter and nearly as deep.
Regarding additional hidden processors, one of the things the car certainly did have was a noise gate that he eventually produced for mass consumption under his Autosound 2000 label. The reason for the noise gate was because of IASCA rules at the time. To get maximum points for SPL, your vehicle had to be able to attain 130dB or better on track 4 of the Official IASCA Test Software No. 2 disc. The track was "L'Daddy" by James Newton Howard. The problem was that there were additional points awarded for system noise (lack thereof) which was judged in part by playing track 18 of the same disc (0 bits) at maximum volume. As we all know, a CD has a S/N ratio of 96dB. So, if your system could attain 130 dB or better on SPL, then you would have at least 34 dB of noise on the 0 bit test. The solution that Richard used and later marketed was his noise gate. It consisted of a main module that you connected in-line with your head unit's pre-amp output before crossover/processors/etc. This module would then read the incoming signal to detect silence (between tracks, 0 bit recordings, etc). Once detected, it would send a signal to downline modules before each amplifier in your system which would clamp the pre-amp input at the zero crossings. It worked perfectly.
Anyway, I don't want to hijack this thread (more than it already has been), but I would love to know if IASCA or competitive rules still require this sort of thing. I have been out of competitive car audio since '95 so I have no idea what the current rules are.
Did the GN have just one horn on each side/one driver? I saw the opening of them under the dash but not the whole thing. The driver motor was huge I've seen that. I worked on those cars, not much dash room to start with. I use to cut the center of that tiny rear deck out and mount a pair of 10s under it. It actually worked well for some reason, I mean comparable to other 10s in the rear deck IB (like the 'fastback' Monte or older rwd)....which was pretty impressive back in the 80s around here. Then you had sub from the seat to the trunk opening lol, that was the max size that fit.
Yes. There were 2 waveguides total - one on the driver side and one on the passenger side. Another interesting fact is that they were curved such that the compression driver was very much towards the outside of the car on either side. This helped to widen the sound stage dramatically over what it would have been had the shape of the waveguide been symmetric with the driver in the middle.
my car has a 65A alt too (I think, or maybe that's 75?) I used to have voltage drops, dimming lights and was considering an HO alt replacement.
I just changed to a Stinger SPV69 car audio batt and it helped greatly. no more dimming, voltage is always high.
although my entire system is class D (all 5 channels, 1600watts total, including the tweeter amps.
)That alternator is fine. Don't forget to upgrade the body grounds to the battery and frame too with the same size and amount of conductors that are used on the positive side for the system. The stock ones will be insufficient for the additional load.
Music is dynamic and doesn't draw constant current all of the time unless all you listen to is low frequency test tones. The alternator will sufficiently keep the battery charged.