# Tales from the Oldschool (and new)



## MikeT1982 (Jul 6, 2011)

Hey guys, I have been thinking of about starting this thread for quite some time... place for us to post stories of the good old days of audio, crazy, memorable, or sad times in our car audio days of the past or present . Present being stories of defending our old school gear or modern-day experiences with it mostly and whatnot. I got the idea when I would start posting about a question or something one of you guys posted and then diverge off onto a tangent of a story of using that particular piece of gear and the memories it brought  I think this will be cool  I'll kick it off with the story from today and a story for many years ago - 

Today - Well I just got out of work and one of my good friends knows that I collect old school gear but has no appreciation for it and I respect that… Which I can understand but he often rags on me for it and i take it in good light. Today he said Mike I don't understand why if you rebuild those three 10" JL W0's (another buddy is giving to me free and the only issue is dry rot surrounds, have seen 100wrms each their whole life and we're purchased new, lived in one box with one Rockford punch amp in 1996...and they are the hard to find 12ohmers!! love them)... why do you want to buy a brand-new amp to run them with when you have like 12 old amps? I replied that I would like to try the brand-new JL audio amps, a baby one… And my collection like to keep mint. So he said to another guy Mike has these amps that have petunias and roses painted on them and he thinks they're tough. I said not exactly...it's artwork they're called Precision Power Art Amps and they are regarded as one of the best amplifiers in the history of car audio especially sound quality wise. He says whatever and laughs and the other guy says I would throw that kind of amp on the road!! I laughed and showed them a photo of one of my black ones and they said wow man that's pretty tough looking with the circuit boards... then I brought out the badass of my collection, a picture of my USA 400 flat black and a picture of the bottom plexi side with all of the toroidal, capacitors, bundles of 8 gauge… and they were all "sweet man that's tough" I just smiled and laughed.

Circa 1998 - my high school friend and I had just gotten out and my current setup was a Phoenix Gold XS2500 ([email protected] mono) driving my trio of JL W0's. (not the same trio as I'm restoring) it sounded really good! And it did consistant low 140s on an audio control. My buddy had just gotten done doing an install with two 15" Kicker XPL sealed off a PPI PC2150. You guys know the wattage [email protected] ohms. Anyway, we decided we were bored and had nothing to do I guess no homework… So since he had his toolbox with him we were going to swap amps for a couple minutes. We did so and he turned up his system and the holy **** expression came upon his face… I did the same and I got the holy **** expression… we simply could not believe the difference, both our cars were still at 4 ohms, he had a pair of 8 ohm woofers and i had a trio of 12 ohm woofers! So why this was the case I will never know! I suppose PPI on JL (the reason I want to try the newer JL amps is because they are designed in part by the old master of the arts) and Phoenix on Kicker were always meant to be  It was great both cars were significantly louder, and we were both very happy and no money spent  That was a really cool afternoon sometime in the Spring of 1998


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

MikeT1982 said:


> then I brought out the badass of my collection, a picture of my USA 400 flat black and a picture of the bottom plexi side with all of the toroidal, capacitors, bundles of 8 gauge… and they were all* "sweet man that's tough" I just smiled and laughed.*


lol When I came across my USA400 it was in the trunk of a friends car with a single run of 8 gauge. Not screwed down, just laying there exposing its broken plexi bottom. I didn't even know what kind of amp it was but when I saw the circuitry I knew it was serious business, I knew I had to have it.

The kid was dumb, he told me it "didn't push his Kickers good" and his Kicker 750.1 was way better. I asked him how much he wanted for it and he shrugged his shoulders at me and said $20...

If you don't mind me asking, how did you come across yours? Like I said, I didn't have a clue about mine, I just saw it laying in his trunk and knew it was a monster.


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

Show me yours if I show you mine? 

How can you look at an amp like this and just say "thats tough man" lol. Hell, how can you look at this and think it will some how be worse than a Kicker 750.1 from Wally world?


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## edouble101 (Dec 9, 2010)

I can not post a good story right now. But.... Can you US Amps guys identify this amp for me?


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

I'm not an expert by any means but that is an older model. Need more pics for the gurus to see. 

Start a thread about it so it will be seen


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## edouble101 (Dec 9, 2010)

SaturnSL1 said:


> I'm not an expert by any means but that is an older model. Need more pics for the gurus to see.
> 
> Start a thread about it so it will be seen


Will do. Sorry for the thread derail if it is.


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## MikeT1982 (Jul 6, 2011)

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Not at all man! That's fine I kinda wanted this to be the UN-derailable thread to keep others on the rails LoL! Mods rules come first though I'm pretty new here! LoL . Anyways sweet man mine is without palm tree, I wanted palm tree one but couldn't come across! $20 Jesus i paid $400 ish... There's a duplicate of mine on eBay! I know I may have over paid but i wanted one so bad  the fella is really nice and has like 4 more I think, you'll see it at the top of a generic "US Amps search hehee!". Actually the pics he has up ARE of mine...same scratches etc, unless they all were scratched identical LoL!!


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## SaturnSL1 (Jun 27, 2011)

MikeT1982 said:


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> $20 Jesus i paid $400 ish...


Never underestimate a persons ignorance.

Sometimes I feel like I robbed the guy but he told me $20 and I said sure thing. I didn't have to low ball or haggle or anything.


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