# What is oldschool?



## upgrayedd (Apr 19, 2011)

Looking at some of this stuff brings back memories. However, I keep looking at stuff and thinking "that's not oldschool" then realizing it is like 8 years old. What oldschool is seems to really be age dependent. So that begs the question, What is oldschool to you?

I personally am 30 and I feel I was big into car audio as the peak was dying (94, license in 97, got out of industry around 02). I know, someone who is 40 may see some of my oldschool favorites as not old but that is the point of this conversation. 

What is oldschool to me.
-When Built in the US, especially Arizona, was the norm for mid and high end
-Before classD was commonplace. There were some mmats but not much else
-When changer controls mattered and mp3 in a car was future cutting edge
-when dsp was more of a gimmick than a real tool. alpine and pioneer really had some symbols of next to useless expensive dsps. epx(2) was about the most useful thing out
-domed dust caps, yeah, remember some regular ass dustcaps? To me the old JL subs are the iconic subwoofer ie original w6 and w4
-external crossovers. most amps had a low pass filter or nothing. No decks had them till later in my oldschool world.
-swichable amber/green illumination. Yeah before the million colors available today. If you were luckily you could go orange or green, or for the REAL fancy you could switch the display from positive to negative.
-Pro audio 30/31 band EQ Alesis, Rane, etc

Brands and products
-PPI Art series. Powerclass is a gray area.
-Rockford up to the black x2 x4. The triangular .2,.4 a2 a4 are a gray area
-Alpine with frosty green illumination up to the 7940/7949 (99?)
-Audio Control anything. I know they are still around with may of these oldies and goodies. Id like to think there is good reason for that.
USAmps. Period. These things were no BS. 
-Kenwood 1/4 din EQ
-Finned hcca and xtr orion amps


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## IBcivic (Jan 6, 2009)

The Alpine "pull-out" I bought in 89. It weighs about the same as a current entry level 4 ch D class amp. It still works very well, to this day.

Of course, back in 1989, teens still knew how to count pocket change and tie there own shoes.


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## upgrayedd (Apr 19, 2011)

and read a watch.


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## ollschool (Nov 21, 2008)

For me, equiptment from the 80s,90s. I installed at a shop in 89 and got to really play with some nice gear from new companies trying to make a name. So many have come and gone. Seeing older gear takes me back to my youth i guess, when it was new and fun, and not everyone could afford 1 watt per doller amps.


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## Oliver (Jun 25, 2007)

This is Old School ^^^










This is Old School ^^^


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## ollschool (Nov 21, 2008)

I 2nd that !!


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## customtronic (Jul 7, 2007)

These days any of us that actually were around to buy that stuff or work with it when it was new would be considered "old school". I know I must me old school when a lot of my current customers either were not born yet or they were crapping in their diapers when I was an installer in Seattle. Got my first car audio job in April 1991. The good ole days of car audio!!!


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## MikeT1982 (Jul 6, 2011)

Being from 1997-2002 actively in hobby (fanatic, working on systems every night, thinking about nothing but car audio), i too have the same vision of oldschool stuff. From my window in the hobby and that's what's oldschool to me! And stuff from before my time that i highly respect! MMATS arriving wtih the first class D's, and seeing a small vw with 4 juggs and 8 d300hc's break 160 in person, Team Wee Bee or something like that! And they had a magazine article in the trunk lid near the amps entitled "A D in Your class is best" or to that effect and reviewing the mmats amps. It blew my mind and i saved for a year for my first mmats amp. That was very very memorable. Which brings up another point...mmats manuals actually freaking stated "Please Open and observe the 24 karat gorgeous gold plated boards, etc." and the amps having gain KNOBS.... cummon now! talk abotu pride. Zap, Linear, US, old PPI, and the moe exotic brands....i think actualy fanatics built them! Just like us, not people outsourced doing a job for money but actually electronic geeks putting the time in like an artist making a painting. Then sitting back and smiling at their creation and you could callt eh companies in arizona..from a pay phone as i did many a time to consult because we had no long distance...and the engineer would talk to me like a freind. I bet that'd be hard now. Unless you called Digital Designs, hopefully they still are the same...i bet they are one company that still would speak with you on a freindly basis. :-D


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## audiogodz1 (Jan 5, 2010)

Anything pre-2000 is old school because that's when all the old school companies sold out or stopped building their own stuff in the USA. It started before 2k, but it was a done deal by 2k. Some companies like Fultron were using Asian pre-fab boards in the mid to late 90's, but at least they were still strong amps at the time.


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## upgrayedd (Apr 19, 2011)

I recall a lot of issues during that time the last of the finned orion xtr amps were outsourced boards. Roughly 75% of them that we sold came back. They Kept telling shops it was their fault and that the big 3 HAD to be done on every install. We are talking 400wrms amps here. After about a year of this we dropped them in 2000, later to find out that they admitted the traces in the outsourced boards were inadequate.


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## TrickyRicky (Apr 5, 2009)

When most of the stuff was made here in the good ole USA.


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## RiLoWa (Nov 9, 2011)

At this point, almost anything that was made in USA could be considered old school now, but there were imports during the 80's/90's that are old school, they are just not as collectable or desirable as most of the made in USA amps are. 

To me, a Fosgate PR250 is old school, it wasn't even a Rockford yet.

I usually don't get too wrapped around the axel about the label of "old school" unless somebody is trying to claim something from the last five or so years is.


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## TrickyRicky (Apr 5, 2009)

RiLoWa said:


> At this point, almost anything that was made in USA could be considered old school now, but there were imports during the 80's/90's that are old school, they are just not as collectable or desirable as most of the made in USA amps are.
> 
> To me, a Fosgate PR250 is old school, it wasn't even a Rockford yet.
> 
> I usually don't get too wrapped around the axel about the label of "old school" unless somebody is trying to claim something from the last five or so years is.


Japan equipment was great stuff.


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## upgrayedd (Apr 19, 2011)

TrickyRicky said:


> Japan equipment was great stuff.


Old Japanese built alpine was a safe bet.


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## TrickyRicky (Apr 5, 2009)

upgrayedd said:


> Old Japanese built alpine was a safe bet.


Japanese Sony & Kenwood equipment was well built (for its day). Not to mention they used 105celcius caps while most back them used the common 85celcius.


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## audiogodz1 (Jan 5, 2010)

I loved the old Kenwood KAC amps like the 646. Would only use them for mids, but they were damn good at putting it to the mids.


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## smgreen20 (Oct 13, 2006)

I, for the most part, look at OS as anything over a decade old.


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## sqshoestring (Jun 19, 2007)

Most things around '94 or older give or take, that is about when things became outsourced. The same thing happened to Japan, who made some nice stuff too. The older US and Japan major brands is typically very good from then. Most people don't realize that old stuff was really expensive. A few years ago I checked an inflation calculator and a 200rms 2ch linear power amp would have been $850. A person could buy a beater car for 150 back then. There is some good equipment after that, and not every company went Asian at the same time. I have some 1980s alpines made in Japan that still work just fine, the caps are all good. I had a Kenwood HU from around 1990 that was top of the line, they made some of the best back then. IIRC one was the 999.


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## w8lifter21 (Jun 12, 2009)

Car audio wise, pretty much what has already been said, mid to late 90s.

In general, anything older than me lol


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## Jonny Hotnuts (Mar 15, 2011)

100% when the sellout happened. I was out of the game for a while....and then after a few years I was going to put a setup in a new vehicle.....I was shocked.....wtf happened!

Soundstream, PG, Orion, PPI, Hifonics......all once great stuff, now absolute junk. 

I was so pissed I decided to never buy a Chinese made piece of equipment unless there was zero option. 

I still find it just a damn shame what all these manufactures have done....and for a momentary spike in revenue. Now the industry is basically dead because of it. 

~JH


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## chad (Jun 30, 2005)

if it had blue LEDs it's not oldskool.


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## hurrication (Dec 19, 2011)

Late 90's/early 2000's for me. I turned 16 in 1999 and got my first mobile bassbox (vehicle), but years before that my friends and I would always ride our bikes down to Circuit City or Best Buy and spend half a day playing with the audio displays and blaring the subs in the demo rooms. I remember when Alpine came out with the 7863 and it had a motorized face with angle adjustment... oh man that was so cutting edge. Some of the icons that always stood out to me and have a REALLY soft spot in my heart: 
-Sony Mobile ES (pre-xplod)
-Kenwood x911 with balanced 8v preouts
-MTX blue thunder
-Audiomobile subs
-Aura mobile reference amps and components
-original OZ audio 180cs comps and 300L subs
-Alumapro Alchemy
-Eclipse 5443
-Pioneer IMPP subs
-HX2 subs
-strokers being king of SPL
-Pioneer P825, P99, and P1R
-Clarion XH-D10
-before USACI started putting condoms on their mics at outlaw SPL events
-the introduction of mp3 to decks with the kenwood MP919 (this one.. not the newer one) and Z828
-Alpine ERA-G320
-Alpine 7949
-that HUGE memphis sub that was like 4 feet deep
-JBL BP1200.1 being the best bang/buck amp in existence by a long shot
-round solobarics, and then L5's and L7's coming out and being a huge deal
-w7 coming out and being a huge deal

I veered from car audio around 2004 and am just now getting back into it, and BOY have things changed a lot!!! One of my most memorable events of my life still to this day was the USACI world finals 2003 in Kansas City when I finally got to meet my idol (at the time) Alma Gates.


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## smgreen20 (Oct 13, 2006)

hurrication said:


> -Clarion XH-D10
> I veered from car audio around 2004 and am just now getting back into it, and BOY have things changed a lot!!! One of my most memorable events of my life still to this day was the USACI world finals 2003 in Kansas City when I finally got to meet my idol (at the time) Alma Gates.


Great pic. It's always good when you get to meet someone that means a lot in a sport/hobby. I've got a few I'd like to meet, but though I haven't met him, I've only had contact and conversations with one and he signed 2 mags I have with 2 of his installs in them. Scott Buwalda. And that's because he's a very interactive guy here (and his forum) and a really down to earth guy.



































BTW, I have one of the items on your list.









Sorry, not the greatest pics.


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## Miklebud (Jan 11, 2012)

Oh, the good old days that I was familiar with.
Zapco Competition series amps
Precision Audio Art series
Image Dynamics coming out with the IDQ's and then the IDMax. Or their old IDW 15s!
Huge MMATS sub amps.
AudioControl EQ's, X-overs


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## fish (Jun 30, 2007)

When you could go to the flea market & buy good **** like Coustic & Lanzar for dirt cheap!


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## MIAdragon (Dec 10, 2010)

upgrayedd said:


> and read a watch.


How true and sad at the same time.


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## kenikh (Jan 17, 2011)

OP was spot on.


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## kenikh (Jan 17, 2011)

Jonny Hotnuts said:


> 100% when the sellout happened. I was out of the game for a while....and then after a few years I was going to put a setup in a new vehicle.....I was shocked.....wtf happened!
> 
> Soundstream, PG, Orion, PPI, Hifonics......all once great stuff, now absolute junk.
> 
> ...


I left the hobby in '94, got back in last year. Imagine MY shock...like you said, great brands turned to steaming piles of crap, greater brands extinct. Oz, a/d/s, gone. 

Thank goodness for HAT and a few others.


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## upgrayedd (Apr 19, 2011)

The irony of this is that I have recently migrated away from old stuff. Had a lot of adcom and some mtx that I have been selling off. 10 years ago if you asked me to run a class d on even my subs, I would laugh. I tried one of the first gen memphis 1000d and earthquake phd2 and disliked them. I am now trying full range class d. The technology seems to have evolved along with my listening going to 90% moving. Old stuff still has a place in my heard, especially the midline and underrated stuff like kicker impulse and the 1st and 2nd gen mtx thunder and blue thunder. I may do some a/b goodness in the wifes car or my next car but unfortunately I have gone the way of the average consumer.


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## ChrisB (Jul 3, 2008)

Old school is gear I will no longer seek out or purchase. I had a great run at it after the death of my wife in 2007, but I learned the hard way that you can never go back to your heyday.

With that said, if anyone wants to give me some old school McIntosh or Zapco amplifiers, I'll pay for the shipping.


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## Marky (Nov 15, 2011)

Old School is old school.
I put a system together in 1984 it consisted of all Nakamichi, and was the standard of car stereo. 
TD-800 Tuner cassette of course
EC-200 electronic crossover
(2) PA-300 amps the 70 watt per channell model
SP-10 tweeters
SP-50 mids
TL-100 JBL 10"woofers
It was the cleanest sounding system avail at the time
Still have every peice exept mids and woofers. Putting a modern system together now but w/CD700II still Nak PA-300II amps. newer e/crossover ect.
Thats Old School. Marky, yea that makes me old school 48 and playin with the stereo again.lol


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## emrliquidlife (Jan 19, 2008)

Old School is NOT from the 2000s. I even have a hard time putting late 90s as old school. There are a few products that were made and get grandfathered from time to time. 

Hmmm, Is there a defining event that could be used? Say, the death of an OS Car Audio Mag? The introduction of newer technology. 

Ed


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## theeaudioboy (Jun 3, 2011)

i would say from using and having car audio from the early 90's to present day ! that 1999 and older, would be considered old school ! the quality of many companies / brands did start to fall in the late 90's and more so after 2000 ! :toilet:
but there still are some very good products today, just got to hunt around !


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## hybridamp (Oct 10, 2006)

Pretty much agree with pre-2000 gear being a simple definition. That coming from the guy that owns the old school car audio domain name. lol


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## emrliquidlife (Jan 19, 2008)

Okay, so how do we label the enthusiasts who are old school? If you read Ken C. Pohlman articles? Don't know, he may still be writing....


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## hybridamp (Oct 10, 2006)

Very good question and I can't say that I have. I will google him so hard though; doing that right now actually.


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