# Clean power and OS amps....



## smgreen20 (Oct 13, 2006)

It has bugged me for a while, but I think some have fallen into that state of mind where nothing can beat yesteryears amps. This can't be further from the truth. Amp technology has greatly improved in design and performance, in regards to better efficiency and overall performance. 

I look at some of these older amps people claim to be the best sounding they've ever heard and when I look at the design layout all I see in noise. In the sense that there are wires all over the place. That in itself is the definition of noise as far as electronics is concerned. 

That's just my take/opinion. 

What's yours?


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## Prime mova (Aug 17, 2011)

smgreen20 said:


> It has bugged me for a while, but I think some have fallen into that state of mind where nothing can beat yesteryears amps. This can't be further from the truth. Amp technology has greatly improved in design and performance, in regards to better efficiency and overall performance.
> 
> I look at some of these older amps people claim to be the best sounding they've ever heard and when I look at the design layout all I see in noise. In the sense that there are wires all over the place. That in itself is the definition of noise as far as electronics is concerned.


First, I took this thread as an opinion not a debate. I enjoy old school and see it as an 'Art enthusiast' would...

To add to the OP's comments I'd say in my opinion the quality of cheaper products is far higher today than it ever was. You all know the brands I'm talkin' about...remember those brands  The trouble is people's perception more so than the product's engineering.




> That's my take/opinion
> 
> 
> What's yours?


Amplifiers - I'm also a 'fanatic' and proud of it, I own old punch amps and enjoy them for nostalgia and to remind me of the builds that come out of car audio's peak era. That being said the new Rockford Fosgate amps IMO are better engineered with much better present day technology. This isn't to say what was being done in the eighties and nineties was inferior just saying that we didn't know any better back then. 


@smgreen20 hope it's ok to expand on my opinion into other components


Speakers - IMO like em...similar to Morel Maximos approximately 200$ a decade ago? no way and there's a plethora of present day $250RRP sets that would score higher than the classic QM series MB Quarts that used to dominate the sound offs back in the day.

Subwoofers - smaller enclosures including prefab boxes and better excursion for a fraction of the price compared to yesteryear woofers that you had to construct a enclosure yourself. 

Decks - 1000$ HU's are generally not as good as present decks >300$ plus they have new functionality such as USB/IPhone connectivity.


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## Robb (Dec 5, 2008)

For the most part, I like the 'look' of the old school amps, nevermind the sound quality and solid build !
They are simple, clean and basic.. no frilly dilly designs !

I mean doesnt this thing look nice ? :laugh:


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## Got-Four-Eights (Sep 10, 2011)

Tell this to the guys winning SQ comps with OS amps. I am not saying that there are no clean amps today but to say there are no clean amps back then or none that can keep up with the clean amps of today is insane. I love both new and old but in my opinion there is a lot more "[email protected]" produced today compared to the amps of the 80s and 90s.

Even today there are companies that still follow the oldschool way of building amplifiers.. check out Lunar Amplifiers.


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## jcorkin (Jan 26, 2012)

all i have to say is tube amps are very old technology yet one of the best sq, if not the best sq amps i have ever heard, and they are being remade today and are very expensive. todays amps most def have an advantage in technology and should sound better by all means but as stated before there are so many cheap amps out there that cut corners when being produced that i think its easy to understand why so many people believe the older amps sound better if you look at the #s of amps produced now days that cut corners in the engineering of them compared to old days you would find that the amps produced today would have a much higher % of amps that have cut corners in the production of them so a cheap amp could be mass produced and put out to the market. most of the old school amps were made here in the good ole USA and for the most part were well built unlike a lot of the china made amps of now times and there are tons of them out there and not a whole lot do rated power and cut corners. just my .02 on the subject now feel free to tell me why im wrong always open to others ideas


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## stills (Apr 13, 2008)

[/QUOTE]


ever notice heatsinks are pretty much a thing of the past?
i know modern amps run cooler but, nothing runs completely cool. 

planned obsolescence?


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## jcorkin (Jan 26, 2012)

its seems that the amps that do run a bit hotter today rely on fans and a heatsink that is internal to the amp, like the mtx amps do, its all about the bling and wow factor now more than the way stuff functions


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## drumcrusher (May 4, 2008)

You cant always tell whats noisy by looking at the wiring. Look at the old a/d/s amps. They have wires all over the place but they will hold there own against anything made today. Same goes for old soundstream, linear power, or tons of other companies. New amps have a lot going for them as far as tech, but there is a lot crap out there too. So i can spend $150 on a 20 year old zapco thats rated at 150 watts but puts out quite a bit more or i can spend $150 on a new amp thats rated at 1000 watts but doesnt get as loud as the zapco. And isnt any quieter, and probably wont outlast the zapco, much less last 20 years. How much amp noise are you going to hear while youre driving down the road anyway?


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## carlton jones (May 29, 2009)

i'd rather have my old non-amplified dead heads than todays high-powered noisy headunits that have ipod/usb functions


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## so cal eddie (Oct 1, 2008)

It's also a price point issue. You can find an old school alpine 50x4 amp with a s/n ratio of 105db for like $150, it is probably underrated, and it is made in japan as well. You can't find anything new like that for less than $500, I think.


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## Ymer34 (Jan 9, 2012)

Sorry for bad spelling, but i am from norway, i have been fiddeling with car audio since i was.....well yonger:-D but all these i pod, hard drives etc...etc, i still think a cd, original cd on a cd player sounds better than a compressed file on a harddrive, a little OT, just my 5c

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

drumcrusher said:


> You cant always tell whats noisy by looking at the wiring. Look at the old a/d/s amps. They have wires all over the place but they will hold there own against anything made today.


Which a/d/s/ amps are you talking about with the wires?

I'm not sure I understand the love affair for a/d/s/ amps. IMO, they were a speaker company that sold overpriced electronics. Their amplifier circuits were incredibly basic, took a lot of shortcuts, had notoriously bad channel separation, but usually had a reasonable output stage and most of them didn't get too hot. For the price, they weren't nearly as impressive as some of today's offerings. The only really clever thing about a lot of the multichannel a/d/s/ amps was that they had two lines that had adjustable crossovers on every channel -- which was a VERY useful feature at the time, but that sort of thing is scorned around here today. So, again, I don't understand the love affair, when the only distinguishing feature was something that's no longer useful. Is it just old school nostalgia?


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## NRA4ever (Jul 19, 2010)

My only os amps experience is with old MTX & PG gear. The 2300,2160 &280s by MTX were great amps. My ms PG amps are cleaner. They cost much more though, I wish I'd kept the MTX amps. Very underrated & good looking amps


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## drumcrusher (May 4, 2008)

sorry about the old post. didnt mean to say ads had a bunch of wires. basically meant that if you open them up, they look extremely low tech. im not sure about the channel seperation/ or other numbers on paper really. i do know that the 2 ads amps i owned several years ago were some of the cleanest sounding amps ive heard. they arent powerhouses for sure, but they are clean. so basically the point that im making is, it doesnt take a bunch of cutting edge, new school technology to make a clean sounding amp.
i never bought any new ADS stuff. i do know that you can buy one now for $100 that will outperform anything anywhere near its price range that is new. and, most likely it will look a lot better too. a new hundred dollar amp is prolly gonna look like a chrome hover craft with techno lights and a fog machine to boot.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

drumcrusher said:


> sorry about the old post. didnt mean to say ads had a bunch of wires. basically meant that if you open them up, they look extremely low tech. im not sure about the channel seperation/ or other numbers on paper really. i do know that the 2 ads amps i owned several years ago were some of the cleanest sounding amps ive heard. they arent powerhouses for sure, but they are clean. so basically the point that im making is, it doesnt take a bunch of cutting edge, new school technology to make a clean sounding amp.
> i never bought any new ADS stuff. i do know that you can buy one now for $100 that will outperform anything anywhere near its price range that is new. and, most likely it will look a lot better too. a new hundred dollar amp is prolly gonna look like a chrome hover craft with techno lights and a fog machine to boot.


Their heat sinks are definitely nice looking. I have two in my install now.  Gutted an old P640 (?) and put my DEI amp on the a/d/s/ heatsink. Then I have a P840 that's in there now but I'll probably put something else in there because it's getting old and flakey. It's cheaper than buying equivalent heatsinks alone.


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## spydertune (Sep 9, 2005)

stills said:


> planned obsolescence?


Heat was the bane of many OS amps. Just ask anyone from AZ-TX on how often they encountered thermal shutdown with trunk mounts during a back in the day summer.


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

It's nostalgia and the fact that these old amps have passed the test of time. 

Lets come back here in 2032 and see if people are collecting HiFonics BRZs


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## spydertune (Sep 9, 2005)

MarkZ said:


> had notoriously bad channel separation,


Notorious implies common knowledge, something everyone was buzzing about. What do you base it on?

(I'm just asking, don't shoot the messenger.)


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## spydertune (Sep 9, 2005)

MarkZ said:


> IMO, they were a speaker company that sold overpriced electronics.


ADS launched their first car audio product in 1976. It was a biamplified loudspeaker system, the 2001. It consisted of a 4-channel 160W amplifier, 2x20W tweeter & 2x60W woofers. It also incorporated a sliding high-pass filter that engaged when the output level was high enough to protect the woofers in the speaker array. It was limited only by the source of the day, about the best you could get in '76 was a UHER compact stereo cassette used for remote recording. 

Their next foray into car electronics was the P100 2x50W amplifier in 1978. It was introduced simultaneously with the CS400 subwoofers, 300i speakers, and AX1 active crossover. In '81 or '82, they introduced a replacement for the 2001 system called the 2002. It did away with the external amplifier and built them into the speakers themselves. All their car audio products through the 80's were introduced as systems with electronics & loudspeakers combined. 

What many don't realize is how far back ADS goes in car audio or how speakers & electronics were integrated from the very beginning.


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## spydertune (Sep 9, 2005)

Robb said:


> For the most part, I like the 'look' of the old school amps, nevermind the sound quality and solid build !
> 
> *They are simple, clean and basic.. no frilly dilly designs !*
> 
> I mean doesnt this thing look nice ? :laugh:


+1, see bold above.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

spydertune said:


> Notorious implies common knowledge, something everyone was buzzing about. What do you base it on?
> 
> (I'm just asking, don't shoot the messenger.)


I've paid close attention to a/d/s/ for about 15 years, because I've used the company's equipment for about that long. I'm not a fanboi -- I think in general it was always mid-level stuff and totally overpriced -- but I have some favorites, and the crossovers in their amps made them fantastic pieces 10+ years ago before DSP became cheap and mainstream.

Having paid attention to those amps for so long, I noted that several people had described the channel separation in some of their amps (P series, MX series?) to be pretty lackluster. Including a product manager for the company that bought a/d/s/, who used to frequent some of the forums. That's why I said notorious.. just from previous encounters.

I've worked on a few of the a/d/s/ amps I've had (including the one I'm using now), and have a pretty good understanding of how some of them are built. My feeling is that their output stages are rather beefy considering their relatively modest power output, but their power supplies are mostly wimpy and their input stage section seems like it would be amenable to higher than average distortion and noise.

The reason I said they were a speaker company with overpriced electronics is because their speakers were pretty well-regarded at a time when other companies were clearly building far more robust amplifiers for less money.


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## Q-Authority (Mar 31, 2008)

*They are simple, clean and basic.. no frilly dilly designs !*


spydertune said:


> +1, see bold above.


Absolutely! I always respected Linear Power for their simplicity. Unfortunately, they were competing with a few other exceptionally good brands at a time when I had very limited funds, lol. However, I did buy a great 5 or 7 band slider eq of theirs, with exceptionally clean output, but it unfortunately took a dive on me later on, for a reason I cannot remember, and I never was able to get it repaired properly.



MarkZ said:


> I've paid close attention to a/d/s/ for about 15 years, because I've used the company's equipment for about that long. I'm not a fanboi --


And therein is the usual heart of the matter when it comes to discussing OS equipment. When these discussions get started the OP needs to set a timeline for the equipment discussed, lol. Personally, I actually consider anything inside of the last 15 years as non-eligible, and that mainstream OS items come from the late 70's to early 90's. Anything after that period needs a new reference term, like Mid-school or something.

As for the early a/d/s I remember them getting very good reviews here and there (really annoyed me if they outpointed SS on anything, lol). There was a specialty shop on Miramar Rd. in San Diego not too far from me that carried them, and I always enjoyed checking them out. Can't remember what exactly prevented me from buying any back then, but probably because I was firmly set on Soundstream by then, and for me SS was the classiest looking and sounding stuff made at the time. Had an original D100 and D50 that I was extremely please with.


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## spydertune (Sep 9, 2005)

MarkZ said:


> I've paid close attention to a/d/s/ for about 15 years, because I've used the company's equipment for about that long. I'm not a fanboi -- I think in general it was always mid-level stuff and totally overpriced -- but I have some favorites, and the crossovers in their amps made them fantastic pieces 10+ years ago before DSP became cheap and mainstream.
> 
> Having paid attention to those amps for so long, I noted that several people had described the channel separation in some of their amps (P series, MX series?) to be pretty lackluster. Including a product manager for the company that bought a/d/s/, who used to frequent some of the forums. That's why I said notorious.. just from previous encounters.
> 
> ...


I am not disagreeing with your comments, I've just had never heard the channel separation issue before. But, I think the a/d/s/ you refer to starts around 1993 on and not the ~15 years prior to that. 1993 is significant in that was around when the founder (Godehard Guenther) left the company which set up the eventual closure of the Wilmington MA plant. Very few from MA made the move when a/d/s/ integrated with Orion and IMO, a lot of what the company was did not pass on.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

I didn't mean to suggest the amps were from 15 years ago. I just meant that I began paying attention to those amps around then. I've never bought a/d/s/ equipment new. It would be like buying a Mercedes. The depreciation was huge.


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## MarkZ (Dec 5, 2005)

Also, I remember this thread from 10 years ago (on usenet). A couple guys talk about the channel separation issues.

Stereo installer says a/d/s sucks.. - AudioBanter

FWIW, I don't really give a **** about channel separation in amps. I consider it a non-issue, especially in the car. I'm just saying that it's one of the criticisms.


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