Best Car High End Amps You Have Tried

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#43
I vote for Nakamichi as the best. I replaced my Alpine with a PA502 and it was a big improvement. I also compared the Nakamichi to a Clarion amp, the Nak was again far superior. Linear Power have excellent sonics too but some friends have had problems with the turn-on relays.

I would like to try a Gain Clone based car amp.:smash:
 
#44
JCoffey said:
Butler Tube Drivers paired with Dynaudio MK240II's up front and a P.E. Titanic 10" sub in a JL Stealthbox. I still need to send B.K. Butler one of them to fix a problem with it, but the sound has always been music to my ears.........
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Which TD are you having problems with? He told you he doesn't repair the PPI TD's.
 
#45
I would say Altec Lansing but they no longer make amps. I some for when i get my 76 duster restored but have hooked them up to some home speakers. They are crisp and clean sounding. I had them powered by some 12v Batteries. I have a ALA200 100wattsx2 @4ohms ,120watts @2ohms. Also a ALA40 20wattsx2@4ohms (this is not 2ohm stable). Even the ALA40 sounds just like the ALA200 with out the lowend punch.
 
#47
Evilsizer mentioned:

I would say Altec Lansing but they no longer make amps
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I never had the pleasure of auditioning the Altec amps. I have heard through very discriminating sources that their early 90's amps were good.


and Gaucho said:
I would like to try a Gain Clone based car amp.
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This has been proposed repeatedly in this forum. The major issue is power supply. In the early days of car audio, there were 3 basic power amp designs:

1) Filtered battery voltage and high current IC's. Good for about 15W per channel, and a few sounded pretty dang good. Most sounded like ****. The Blaupunkt BQB-80 was built in several versions, but the aftermarket version was a very nice sounding amp if you had the right equipment to complement it. IIRC, it used TDA-xxxx chips. There's one down in the basement somewhere, I'd be happy to investigate further if anyone is interested.

2) Car audio version of the Gain Clone -SMPS and power amp IC's. Again, most sounded like ****, but there were a couple of notable exceptions, one was the A/D/S Power Plate 120 using STK power paks. The Sanyo P-6100 and Blaupunkt BPA-430 (Used STK-461's) were decent considering they were designed in the late 70's, but were noisy.
Given the complexity of building your own high-current SMPS, I can't fathom why it wouldn't be worthwhile to go ahead and DIY a discrete audio amp as well. There are plenty of successful designs readily available.

3) SMPS and discrete power amp, which turned out to be the successful format in the long run.

One notable variation to (1) is the factory supplied Bose systems. They use/used battery voltage and low-impedance speakers (as low as one-half ohm) to extract maximum power without the added expense of a SMPS. IIRC, discrete audio sections were typically employed to handle the current. Amplifiers were placed at the speaker to effectively couple such low impedance loads, and the results were good considering the **** they used for speakers.

I often wonder why this inexpensive approach isn't given more thought in the DIY forum... Maybe I'll give it a try.

Tim
 
#48
tsmith1315 said:
I never had the pleasure of auditioning the Altec amps. I have heard through very discriminating sources that their early 90's amps were good.
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I have 3 of the ALA200's all from ebay for around $45 each. One of them was a display that still had the retail tag on it for $299. This amp is quite big for just 2ch 12.5inx7inx2in.
 
#54
I'm currently running a Linear Power 2.2hv on my mids and an Arc Audio 2100cxl on my tweets. I can't really compare them because they're running different speakers, but the LP is a LOT more powerful and it's smaller, it also seems to have a much more rugged build, I would honestly be surprised if anyone could destroy this amp. The Arc is a bit "prettier" with a nice custom gunmetal color, but I love them both. I might sell off the Arc at some point in the future if I find a better choice, but I'll never let go of this LP.
 
#55
I've had or heard a fair numbers of products listed (exceptions including Sinfoni, Celestra, Steg). I've also had good experience with Aura (which I currently run - I feel it's better in most respects than the JL 300/4 it replaced). I was also impressed with the durability of an old Autotek 'cheater' amp... It was rated at 22x2, I believe, but stable down to at least 1/2 OHM bridged. Plus, it weighed about 15 lbs.

I was really sold on the old Phaze Audio Butler products but I think if I were to do a higher end install right now, I'd probably use MacIntosh amps.
 
#60
I have listened to a few high end amps. And according to my opinion each high end amp has characteristic, so it is very difficult for us to judge that brand "A" is the most perfect amp. My list is:

A. FOR AUDIOPHILES who are crazy about mellow music:

1. Phass RE2, Good clarity in high freq also have richness in sound reproduction.

2. Audison Thesis HV Venti, great mellow sound, you can feel the emotion of the vocalist

B. FOR ALL DYNAMIC LOVERS who are crazy about LIVE Music:

1. Tru Technology A Class, The best dynamic amp I have ever heard....very "LIVE" in performance

2. Brax Graphic Edition, Good in dynamic though not as perfect as Tru A Class, but still value of money


Celestra, Sinfoni, Linear Power I never heard those amps by myself yet. ARC Audio I already heard also, though ARC amps are well known for their "dynamic" still we cannot compare them to other high end amps, because ARC amps are much much cheaper then the other high end amps that I have mentioned above. But, ARC amps is very very value for money and worth to buy, especialy for entry level.
 
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