montec 164 Posted February 20, 2013 Report Share Posted February 20, 2013 Good to know! I'm trying to piece together a CHEAP system for my TJ. It's a soft top and I never lock the doors... Cost must be low so when it DOES get stolen, I won't cry a river. Boss is some garbage and you should be laughing at him! But... In the case of that project, acceptable garbage is exactly what I'm looking for. Mounting height is actually my limiting factor because I'd like to get the sub amp under the backseat to at least pretend to hide it. Last time I looked into that market (which was a while ago) the Lanzar (another great company gone to the dogs) VCT2310 was my front runner. If I get 1/8th of the rated power I would be happy. I am fairly far away from you but I do have a dist that drop ships for me. I think they are in OH. Carry's some cheaper items. I'm running a Logic amp currently. Big one they are pusing now is hypnotic as they are the only dist in NA. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
storm6490 2,768 Posted February 20, 2013 Report Share Posted February 20, 2013 I run a sansui 9090db and have killed many speakers listening to trent. Ministry has also killed a lot of good studio monitors. Go for the old school solid state or tube amps. The new shit is good but way expensive for what you get. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted February 20, 2013 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2013 Good to know! I'm trying to piece together a CHEAP system for my TJ. It's a soft top and I never lock the doors... Cost must be low so when it DOES get stolen, I won't cry a river. Boss is some garbage and you should be laughing at him! But... In the case of that project, acceptable garbage is exactly what I'm looking for. Mounting height is actually my limiting factor because I'd like to get the sub amp under the backseat to at least pretend to hide it. Last time I looked into that market (which was a while ago) the Lanzar (another great company gone to the dogs) VCT2310 was my front runner. If I get 1/8th of the rated power I would be happy. I am fairly far away from you but I do have a dist that drop ships for me. I think they are in OH. Carry's some cheaper items. I'm running a Logic amp currently. Big one they are pusing now is hypnotic as they are the only dist in NA. Never heard of either brand. I confess that I've been out of the car audio scene in a serious way for years. Once I had equipment I liked, I just kept it. I'll have to look into them and see if there is something that will suit my needs for the Jeep. I run a sansui 9090db and have killed many speakers listening to trent. Ministry has also killed a lot of good studio monitors. Go for the old school solid state or tube amps. The new shit is good but way expensive for what you get. I try not to be in the speaker killing business... WAY too much money invested in that end of my system. I'm sure I was clipping the amp when it died, but it didn't sound like it was. All the speakers are still playing fine. Nothing like well vented voice coils in cast aluminum baskets! Honestly, that's why I've been looking at Emotiva. They're built like brick shithouses, designed in the US with class A amplifier sections, but Chinese built to keep the costs down, slightly. They produce more than their rated output and are designed old school; giant transformers, lots of caps, and discrete channels. The XPR-5 I'm looking at weighs 94lbs. It's about as much of an old school brick as it gets without being willing to hunt down and repair old school amps. In contrast, my class-D Crown XLS-2500, weighs 11lbs. It's an absolute monster for giant subs, but I've heard much better sounding amps for mains before. Emotiva runs sales twice a year (July and X-mas), and I suspect this year the XPR-5 will be 10% off, like usual, which will bring it in at $1800... Not bad at all for an honest 2000w amp with a transformable 5 year warranty, balanced connections, 12v trigger, 220V compatible, etc.. I'm still open to other thoughts, but that is what the competition looks like. My criteria is high quality, low maintenance, 400w/channel min, and 5 channels of it (can be 5 mono-blocks), for under $2k. I do like the mellow and warm sound of tube amps and would love to have a couple for stereo music listening, but for HT duty I'm not sure if they would be the way to go. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
YOT 3,743 Posted February 22, 2013 Report Share Posted February 22, 2013 Ahhhh.... the MAIN reason I have tinnitus now. On the bright side, the treatment is "masking" the ringing. 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted March 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2014 (edited) ^^^^BS... My Dad can't hear shit either but that is from a lifetime of power equipment, air tools, and diesel engines at red line. 20 minutes at 150db never hurt no body.... With that said, you all may be wondering why I necroposted my own thread? Well.... I SMOKED ANOTHER AMP!!! Since I originally posted this thread I replaced my fried Pioneer with another of the same model, added some cooling fans to it, demoted it to running only on my 2 rear channels, and installed a Sherbourn PA5-200 (Emotiva XPA-5) to run my JBL L100Ts, JBL 240Tis, and my JBL S-Center. That wing of the project is working great... My Crown XLS-2500 gave up the ghost this time! Upon further inspection I discovered that one of the terminals in my sub cab was VERY VERY VERY loose (like.... the nut backed off of the stud by 1/2") which probably caused the amp to die. It's still under warranty and Crown gave me an RMA without any beef at all... We'll see how that all works out. I also have a Sherbourn PA12-45 ready to power my 7.2 channels and some additional front mains to try and raise my sound stage.... They will all be JBL Control-1s. (and a giant Sherbourn amp cooler). (My fallen comrade is on the top of the stack) Edited March 17, 2014 by Maxwelhse Quote Link to post Share on other sites
gunman1 1,753 Posted March 17, 2014 Report Share Posted March 17, 2014 WHAT DID HE SAY Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted March 17, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2014 (edited) I admit I'm crippled at the moment, but with only 1700 watts I'm sure I can play it loud enough for ya to hear, gramps... edit: It just sounds like a bag of dicks without the 18s... I'm really pissed off about it because I just got Waylon Jennings: Never Say Die (his last concert) on DVD and I refuse to watch it until my shit is right... Edited March 17, 2014 by Maxwelhse Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Dad2142Dad 6,559 Posted March 18, 2014 Report Share Posted March 18, 2014 http://youtu.be/uw1bHaUk1CM Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted March 19, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 How does that help me? I didn't get to UPS today... I'm still crippled with no light in sight... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wolverine 10,360 Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Hey Chile, this is Allen County. You can come here on vacation and leave on probation. Fuckin trying to watch Skyfall on comcast and the sound drops every 45 seconds. This sucks. I get the frozen screen thing every few minutes on Comcast TV. You lose voice and motion....on HBO too.. It seems like a satellite gitch. I'm not very happy with Comcast. They're too big for their britches. I moved 6 months ago and moving the service was a nightmare. I spent countless hours on the phone and three trips to the local Comcast office getting it worked out. Apparently when you move they treat you like a brand new account. I ended up with two mailboxes that their techs could not merge. In fact they lost or dumped my original mail and I lost tons of saved emails. After weeks and weeks a tech with a service ticket called me and got it fixed. My internet was running so slow last night (16 mbps) that it would just drop out and no longer connect. I reset my modem and router several times trying to root out if it was on my end. That went on for a couple of hours. I tried calling 1-800-COMCAST only to find out that number no longer works. Most annoying. I understand ATT Uverse is not a serious option. Oh well, the free HBO is going in a couple of weeks anyway. My free 6 months are nearly up and I won't pay their ridiculous rates for recycled TV and movies with service performance problems. There are better things to do with my time anyway. I usually watch TV before I crash at night. The wife has the tube tuned in during the day while doing domestic chores. I think our brains would get bigger if we cut the TV service and sold the big screens. Of course my son who plays games on them might have something to say about losing the screens. There goes Skyrim...... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Wolverine 10,360 Posted March 19, 2014 Report Share Posted March 19, 2014 Maxwelhouse, How is your hearing with all those amps and the sound level blasting? It makes my ears hurt to listen to loud music now days. I have to crank it down....but I'm getting old. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Capt Nemo 882 Posted March 20, 2014 Report Share Posted March 20, 2014 ^^^^Funny you should say that, as I'm doing the same thing too! The only thing that smokes on my Crest amps is the varistors and crappy speaker cabinets. Fun when it blows a 2' fireball out the front! But parts come free and overnight....mostly. Careful with cranking JBL Control 1's. I've blown a bunch of cones, after about 10 years of age. The surrounds pulverize. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted March 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 20, 2014 (edited) I'll watch out with the Control-1s... I'm only planning on 45w/ea to them just to raise the front/rear stages since I got my giant plushy lay-z-boy couch and can't hear my rears anymore (in addition to adding the 7.2 channels). Since they're pretty much "throw away" speakers to me I won't mind if I have to throw a Parts Express woofer in them some day. ----- To answer the other question, I've been playing too loud for over 20 years and my last hearing test at work was one of the best they'd ever seen (story of my life ever time I've ever had one)... Slight drop to frequencies in the 4000hz range in my left ear, slight drop to frequencies in the 3000hz range in my right (I mean a slight drop vs. a perfect score). I routinely her odd things in the night that other people can't (and I research and discover they're true... so I'm not just hearing shit. ). I'm sure the test the factory performs isn't perfect, but I'm comfortable with it. I actually contribute any hear loss I have to YEARS AND YEARS of running power equipment and working on machinery (pretty much how I made any money between 8 years old and 18.., My parents didn't buy me a Nintendo or any of that stuff like all of my friends. I mowed grass, collected cans (and crushed them with a pneumatic can crusher made from a 5th wheel air cylinder and a 1950s air compressor running it for HOURS at a time... worst job ever) and worked with my Dad at his carwash with 6 high pressure CAT pumps running all the time. I didn't buy hearing protection for those types of tasks until I was 29 and I'm happy I did. It's amazing to me how loud my mower is (same K-series kohler cub as a matter of fact) when I briefly take them off to wipe sweat off of whatever. They key is the duration of exposure and the frequencies exposed to. When I play loud, it's usually only for 30 minutes or so and it's not as if my stuff is 180db, 130db is more like it and MOST of that SPL is from under 100Hz. Human hearing can withstand low frequencies much better than high. When I mowed grass for money it was 12 hours or more on a K-series Kohler powered Cub Cadet or running a 2 cycle weed whip. Never mind the HOURS of air tools (I've run Die Grinders until they completely iced over and wouldn't turn anymore... That was a Harbor Freight $12 die grinder too... I'm amazed with it). Both of those are over 130db and have frequencies that reach supersonic. Weed eating my Dad's business, my Grandpa's house, and my parents house was 3 hour chore all by itself. A full 12 hour day's work back in 1988 got me $15 cash if I busted ass hard enough to get it all done in a day. I had a few neighbors that were more forgiving and paid a flat $20/session on 1/2 acre lots... Those were "easy" jobs... I spent A LOT of time with mowers in my early years and as soon as I turned 16 I was wrenching ever free minute I had until about 6 years ago when I "settled down" with my fiance. I play my music WAY louder than my Dad ever has and it's painful for me to watch at movie at his house because it's up so loud for so long (with ruckus titles such as Despicable Me 2 followed by Garth Brooks Blame It All On My Roots last weekend). When Jen and I got back home our ears were both ringing. A lifetime of and diesel work, small engines, and his car wash is why his hearing is shit. He also still REFUSES to wear the hearing protection that I bought him (the nice radio kind just like mine... he still won't hear them)... Road trips with him are brutal. At least he wears the chainsaw chaps I got him. Edited March 20, 2014 by Maxwelhse Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Capt Nemo 882 Posted March 21, 2014 Report Share Posted March 21, 2014 A little overpowered is better than underpowered. The Control 1 is rated for 150W so being able to take them to 200W is ideal. It's just that the surrounds don't age well. Biggest thing is frequencies for the driver, and crossovers can shift with age. On Phantom of the Opera, we lost a XTA digital speaker processor during the show. When it went, it started blasting white noise at +24 db or more, and it lost all of the crossover info for driving the Tannoy inline drivers. That smashed the HF drivers into the phasing plugs, and started burning the LF coils. Total damage $12,000. First time Phantom had to stop a show in 12 years! We finished the show with half of the rig. Big work call the next day!!! And everyone goes ga-ga over all this digital shit! I rather have analog! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted March 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted March 27, 2014 (edited) I generally agree, but I don't want or need much out of them (no need to over run my $2000 speakers with $50 speakers... that would just be silly). I'm considering a passive network to bring them up to 200hz+ (which is all they can really play anyhow). Also, I probably won't even kick that amp running the control-1s on unless I'm watching a movie (which I generally play about 1/2 - 2/3 as loud as most theaters though I could FAR exceed a theater if I wanted). As a vintage JBL fan, I know all too well about how JBL surrounds age and have spent A LOT of money reconing them to make sure they're 100% right again... I like my signals digital and my amps analog (if I can afford it). The only amps I've ever had failed have both been digital amps. Lesson learned (when my wallet grows up). BIG analog amps of any quality are VERY expensive. Edited March 27, 2014 by Maxwelhse Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Maxwelhse 1,285 Posted April 2, 2014 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2014 Amp was received at Crown yesterday and I double confirmed with my personal CSR that they got it. Crown service is rocking so far! I've asked to speak with a VP to express my delight. Their service is just a tick under recent MD-ARMs service (meaning excellent)... BUY CROWN! Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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