Car Stereo sub amps

[The Violator]

OK, here goes.

Most of my life I was a big stereo guy. My last build was 8 12" subs and several thousand watts of Alpine and Rockford power.


Now 15 years later I have the bug. I am having a nice sub box built for a pair of 12" Rockford Punch series subs I bought for another car, and never used. I have a couple amps laying around, but in looking around I am a little lost.

In the good old days, if you stuck with the bigger names (Rockford, Alpine, PPI, etc) you got good sound and lots of power.

Now looking at just sub amps you can get a lot of power on the cheap. PPI has a 1200 watt amp for less than $200. And I found some videos of them actually testing their output.

I was looking at a Rockford Prime amp. 1200 watts for about $300. BUT...... I also looked at their Punch line. I had 3 older BD1001's in my last truck, and they do make a newer model but its twice the price of the Prime amp. Is it worth the extra money?

Anything else out there I am missing out on? I have 2 Prime 4 channel amps I never used for my last car, so I plan on them to drive my Image Dynamics mids and tweets.

So should I keep it all Prime, or double up for the Punch line. Or cheap out with the PPI amp.

Rockford Fosgate Prime R1200-1D Prime Series Class-D Monoblock 1-Ohm Stable Amplifier


Precision Power PPI P1000.1 Phantom 1000W Monoblock Amplifier

[badhoopty]

i would keep it all the same if theyre going to be visisble. does fosgate still do the little spacer things so you can mount them all together to look like one component?

i went with memphis audio when i got bit by the bug again and its been a solid little setup for somewhere around 12 or so years.

my next stereo im going to try to find a couple of the old audio art series ppi amps. 2 a300s and a a600. ;)

[The Violator]

Originally Posted by badhoopty

i would keep it all the same if theyre going to be visisble. does fosgate still do the little spacer things so you can mount them all together to look like one component?

i went with memphis audio when i got bit by the bug again and its been a solid little setup for somewhere around 12 or so years.

my next stereo im going to try to find a couple of the old audio art series ppi amps. 2 a300s and a a600. ;)

I actually have a pair of the white PPI amps with the artsy designs. Also a pair of punch 45hd's brand new.

I gave serious thought to running the entire system from one of the 45hd. Single 12, and 4 door speakers. Get all old school.


The Prime line does not connect, at least I don't think they do. My Excursion had 3 bd1001s with the connectors. Looked like a 2 foot long amp.

[WHITE-TRASH]

Watts have gotten really cheap but solid speakers have gotten really expensive. There is a guy on pirate that goes by projectwin that is a fawking pro and an artist. He has documented lots of installs and their results. He really likes running 8" subs too. I remember in a pickup he did last summer that hit 130+ db off of a regular song on mp3 not a test file. It was running 2 8's with 1000 watts feeding each.

[EddieO]

Typically the cheaper amps from the big companies with big power numbers are the digital amps. They produce a ton of power for nearly nothing in price. They do however have a higher distortion, which is not a big deal on a sub really, but they sound terrible to anyone with a trained ear on a mid/tweet combo. In the last big install I did, I used the memphis amps all the way around. I used a digital on the subs and a 4 channel conventional amp on the focal mids and tweets up front.......

Later EddieO

[badhoopty]

im real happy with my memphis stuff. never had a thermal or anything get loose on them.

[Peaker]

Use to run one 500 W Phoenix Gold amp for each of the tree 12" Boston acoustics subs in my car, still don't get why my ears is not bombed more out.

O and the rest of the noise making was powered with a Denon Amp and it fed mostly JBL speakers.
Think it was 4 X 150 W i got off that Denon AMP

Cant remember model names and what not, this was back in the erly 90ties.

Really that was overkill.

[EeePee]

One 45 amp gets my vote.

[The Violator]

Originally Posted by EeePee

One 45 amp gets my vote.

I talked to the guy building my box, and he said his favorite low budget amp was actually the Rockford amp I was looking at. He said he has used it dozens of times, with anything from a pair of 10's to 4 12's. Plus he had one right there in his shop.

I will say he also mentioned one 12 ( He offered me an OLD SCHOOL The Punch 12", plus a set of 6.5, and Tweeters, all mid 90's Punch stuff to go with). I think I am going to buy it for my Wagon.

[badhoopty]

thats the fosgate stuff i remember being badass...

why not use the ppi stuff? ppi was badass.

[hpiguy]

I remember back in the day the Punch series amps were beasts. They drove way harder than they were rated. Not sure about the newer stuff though, I've been out of car audio for quite some time. Never cared for their subs though, they were always muddy sounding to me for lack of a better term.

[EeePee]

That's a fine term to describe bass, but not one I've ever read/heard describe a Punch sub. Boxes/enclosures are probably more important than the quality of amplifiers. I built a dual band pass, both sides ported, for an 8 that made people think it was a pair of 10s. Clean and articulate. Nevermind the clamshell isobaric 15s in a box the size of a coffin. That was literally, honestly, absolutely ridiculous. That might have been for a pair of Kickers though.

I still have a real old Kicker C10, some Fosgate coaxials, Audiocontrol EQL, Phoenix Gold MP224 and an Alpine CD player head unit. Early 90s action. I traded my Punch 45 for the Phoenix Gold. Guy got the short end of the stick on that one.

[hpiguy]

Every pair of RF subs I've ever heard, well their larger subs anyway, say 12's and 15's, all sounded that way regardless of box design or builder. Some of cleanest, tightest, most accurate subs I've ever heard were the old Kicker C10's, and some Infinity (I think) carbon 12's. Maybe my ears are just broken though, it's all subjective anyway.

[badhoopty]

best subs ive ever heard (in my circle of friends) were 2 soundstream 12s sealed up with about 1.5cf a piece, driven off a ppi audio art a600 amp.

[EeePee]

Circle of friends? You played cream on a cracker?

[ROWDY RACING]

I still rock 2 Rockford DVC 12's with a punch 500.

[EeePee]

Twin knob Jensen tape player with Pyramid crap and Pyle subs.

[donny8594]

Am radio with a single speaker in the top of the dash.

[ROWDY RACING]

Hamm

[ROWDY RACING]

Bazooka tube!