http://www.cardomain.com/item/KENKAC8452

This amp is 70 wrms X 4 and they are going for $150 or less on ebay. I am thinking that that is a little cheap for a that much power. That looks like a good mid-level amp for the money doesn't it? Does anybody know of a better amp in that price range? I know Kenwood made quality products in the 90's but I don't know what their products are like now.

 

Or has anybody had experience with the new fosgates. This one here is 50 wrms x 4 for about the same price. I hear that the birth sheets that come with these fosgates show that the 50 x 4 specs are underrated. I wonder if the kenwood is actually more powerful than this one? Does JBL have a 4 channel in this price range? Any other suggestions?

http://www.cardomain.com/item/ROCP4004

 

rockfords are seriously overrated according to their birth sheets and what they claim

 

Are you talking from experience? I know that eventhough this amp is rated at 50w x4 rms at 4 ohms the birth sheets on these things are showing anywhere from 75-100 watts rms at 4 ohms. I know that could be exaggerated but????

 

phoenix gold
jbl/infinity
hifonics
xtant
everything else is junk from the cardomain store. rf used to be quality till they went mainstream since then the quality has gone down hill.

 

I know that some of those amps you mentioned are real good but they simply cost too much. I am not going to drop four hundred bucks on an amp for my mids/highs.
I just noticed that the Kenwood is rated at 70 wrms at 4 ohms but also at 1% THD. On another site it rated it at 60 wrms at 4 ohms at 0.5% THD.
The fosgate p4004 is rated at 50 wrms at 4 ohms at like 0.08% THD. I am starting to wonder if that Kenwood is more powerful at all then....

 

Kicker still makes good amps, check their stuff out. I own a couple of their older amps a ZX460 (4ch) and ZR240 (2ch). I ran a Kicker KX600.1 for a while too, it is a nice amplifier.

 

HiFonics is not quality, they're budget.

I have a Fosgate Power RF551x (70wx4) feeding four 6.5" Focals and the sound is clean and can get loud easily without distortion. I know there are better amps out there but for the price RF (their Power line) is a decent choice.

If I was on the same budget and looking for a new 4-chan amp now I'd look at Kicker. PG is a knotch above but so are their prices.

 

Is the phoenix gold octane a cheap knockoff? I know back in the day PG was top of the line but I have never heard of this octane line. I looked into some kickers too. Alot of them in my price range (200 or so) are remanufactured and I don't know about that. I am trying to upgrade from a newer JVC that is 50rmsx4. A friend is going to buy it if I find a new one. The problem is that the specs on all the amps Ive looked at are figured differently. Some are rated at 14.4V some at 12V and some don't say (like my jvc). Also some rate their power at 1% THD and some at 0.08% and some dont specify. Its hard to tell what you are getting. For instance I was looking at this kenwood excelon that crutchfield rates at 88w rmsx4 and kenwood's website rates at 60w rmsx4. which is it? WTF?

 

Oh and any amp I get has to be able to take only 8 gauge power. I have a 4 gauge from the battery but the dist. block splits that into 8 gauge. The kicker 650.4 has to have 4 gauge unfortunately.

 

You can still connect 8 ga. cable to an amp that has 4 ga inputs. A problem arises when you have 4ga cable and only an 8 ga input, but this can be solved with a distribution block.

I have done this before with no issues at all, just make sure that the cable is centered when you srew it down.

 

My friend has had a Kenwood 2 channel amp and its hooked up to four 10w0s it works fine and is loud as hell.

 

I figured that too but for instance the kicker that I was looking at, the website specified that it needed 4 gauge power. It didn't say that it accepts up to 4 gauge it said that it needs it. What would happen if I ignore that and just use 8 gauge? Probably not much. I can't imagine that it wouldn't be able to pull enough juice out of an 8 gauge wire to make much of a difference. Your probably right. Thanks for the input.

 

Is the Phoenix gold octane line any good? I see them on ebay at decent prices.
I almost bought the kicker 600.4 but the thing is 22 inches wide. It wont fit on my amp rack with my other amp

 

I believe that the measurement includes the endcaps. If that is the case then the amp without them would about 5 inches shorter. Check Crutchfied's site to check on this.

 

RF amps are underrated. I owned 2, and the birthsheets are more than what was advertised.

 

Crutchfield says that this amp measures over 19" without the endcaps. Once the RCA's are plugged in it will be over 20". I still don't think it will fit but it will be close. I might have to remove the encaps off my sub amp too.
That kicker looks pretty intimidating for sure. Hopefully I can make it fit.

 

Hopefully it works out for you.

 

What ratio of power should you have going to your sub vs. to your mids/highs? If I get this amp I will be giving 75 watts rms to all four interior speakers (I'll turn the gain down more on the rears to get most sound out of the front comps). The sub gets 400-500 watts rms. Is that likely to be out of balance?

 

I'd def do Kicker, its rather large for a reason-its got big power supply and their amps are always underated.... PG Octane falls in the 'budget', 'you get what you pay for' category-I would not look in that direction when you can put a better amplifier in your car.

 

I'm running the new RF Power 2001BD to my sub, and i'm thinking about getting a RF Power 8004 for my mid/high setup (which is still n the making). As far as the RF amp n ur link I have never had any experience with non-power fosgate amps, but i don't think u should have to worry about the watt output being overrated. All the new fosgate amps are CEA compliant, which makes comparing wattages on amps a lot easier.