Looking for an amp to suit my needs. Like a few others, I don't care about show quality sound, just something to add a bit of bang to what I have.

I have an Alpine deck, it's a 50x4, but from what I've been told, a 50x4 amp will actually put out more power than the deck?

Either way, I've also recently acquired (for FREE I might add, now THAT's budget shopping ) a two-year old JL Audio ported sub box with a JL Audio 10" sub in it. I believe it's one of the base model JL subs, either way it's in great shape.

I have two sets of Infinity 6.5" 180 watt 2-ways (635i) in the car now. I've pushed 60-70 watts into them before and they sound wonderful.

In order to add power to both the sub and all my speakers I'll need two amps, or I can get a 5-channel. This is what I want, saves on extra wiring, etc.

There are SO many manufacturers of amps out there I don't know who to stay away from. Yeah, I know I get what I pay for, but my last cheap amp lasted me over 3 years so I figured I got a decent deal out of that one.

Either way, here's what I found on onlinecarstereo.com:

$219 - Crunch Powerzone P520.5, 100x4 / 300x1

$229 - Alphasonik PMZ12005A, 75x4 / 200x1

$239 - Hifonics ZX 8000, 50x4 / 200x1

These are really pushing the price limit:

$329 - MTX Thunder 895, 50x4 / 245x1

$349 - MTX Thunder 4405, 50x4 / 200x1

Which of the cheaper ones would you pick? And I have no idea on the $20 price difference on the MTX amps is for...

Oh yeah, I figure for an amp of this size I'll probably need a capacitor won't I? Would a 0.5 Cap do the trick for it? And what gauge wire would be the minimum to run to the back of the car? I have 10 gauge wire already ran back there now from the last amp.

 

4 gauge wire is always a good thing

Have you looked at ebay for the amp? Im sure that you can snag a nice quality amp there for around $200, mabee less

thoes mtx amps are nice, also alpine, Orion's cobalt series, soundstream, infinity have 5 chanel amps, xtant has a very nice 3 channel probably pricey, if you do some hunting and dont mind going used thoes amps will kick the others butts

just my $.02, lots of people like to buy new.

 

Have you been reading my mind or something....

Dude, I've BEEN bidding the hell out of brand name amps for the last month on Ebay, but those bastards bid the hell out of them to the point where it's not worth it. By the time you add shipping the final price on 99% of the brand name amps, you might as well just throw an extra $30 or $40 into it and buy a new one.

 

Out of what you listed, I'd go with the Hifonics amp. I've run a bunch of them and have had really good luck; they are a great product for the price and have a good mellow look to them. I've got 6 of them that I'm installing this winter into my Firebird and my GF's BMW. Both cars will be pushing >3.5kWrms.

I've had bad luck with MTX amps, I've blown a few; and not from bad installs either, they were running at what they were rated for, but just didn't hold up to any abuse.

I don't run anything smaller than 4ga for stereo's; PERIOD. I've got 00 ga in my Bird.

I would install the amplifier and add the cap later if you need it, no need to waste the $$ now if it's not needed. Plus it's a really easy install at a later time.

 

So, is 50x4 AMP power stronger than 50x4 DECK power?

 

I'll put it this way... the 50x4 amplifier that is built into your HU is about 1" x 1" x .125" in size, an external 50x4 amplifier is atleast 12" x 12" x 1.5". It's not that it is stronger, they both can put out 50 watts into 4 channels, it's how cleanly they can amplify the signals. That's the limitations of the HU amplifiers, they can produce the power, but it's very "dirty" and poorly amplified, basically your speakers will be fed a dirty signal and begin to distort at a lower level than if they were fed a clean signal (Like from an external amplifier).

Basically the external amplifier provides a cleaner signal with less distortion at an equal or greater wattage output, thus letting the speaker play louder without distorting and being damaged.

As an example, I have one of those 45W or 50W x 4 Alpine Heads that I drove my Infinity Kappa's off of for a while, I could turn the volume to about 25/35 before they distorted bad enough for me to back off. I'm now powering them from a 75Wrms/ch amplifier and I can turn it clean to 35 and they are still crystal clear and a LOT louder.

 

Yes the deck is 50x4 max power, so thats around 25x4 RMS. The amps ur looking at are 50x4 RMS twice as powerful

Even a seperate 25x4 amp rated the same as your deck will sound better than the headunit

think about it, the amp would be fairly large in size compared to the headunit, and all it has to do is amplify, where the headunit is smaller and has to also play cd's and tune the radio in, amp will be a lot cleaner, and can also go to a 2 ohm load



I feel ya on the bid war thing, I have been searching for a higher end sub-amp the past few weeks. Looking at us amps, PPI, orion, JBL taht kinda stuff. Goes nuts just at the end ended up with an XTANT 300x1 rms for 65 including shipping, but it was tough to find

 

Thanks for the info guys. It kinda made sense to me before I asked, but I wanted some confirmation.

Yeah, I think Ebayers got the game figured out. Both my wife and I have been outbid on items lately, one of them within 2 minutes of auction close, and my wife got outbid with TWO seconds left!

I don't have time to sit on an auction at my computer all day. Sellers probably like me though because I'll throw bids in even though I know I probably won't win later on..

 

OK I just ordered the Hifonics amp and an 8 gauge wiring kit. I researched several sites, and based on the information provided, 8 gauge wire will be sufficient for what I'm doing.