Sony XM-D400P5

Price Paid:  $35.00 from From a friend

Year / Model Reviewed:
2005 xm-d400p5

Summary:
I have a lot of great things to say about this amp, but just so you know, I am not a big fan of Sony. I have owned other product from them that were lacking in quality to say the least. This amplifier is NOT one of them. A friend of mine bought 2 of them on ebay for $65.00 shipped. I used my truck as a test subject. Both amps worked. Not only did they work, but damn they slammed. I am not huge into the car audio seen, but I have been around long enough to know what is good and what is crap. I was running a JBL BP 300.1 which is a nice amp, however I needed more power for my Alpine type R. The JBL was rated at 300 watts, but it was just not enough to keep the Alpine from clipping during deep bass lines at high volumes and at times the JBL did get really hot.
The D400 Sony has no problems like this. The D400 stays cool even after being boarder line abused. The amp does not weigh much at all and performs like my old Rockford Punch. The sound and controls are second to none. Another great feature is the pass through for the RCA's. This allows you to hook up additional amps on one set of RCA's.
Ok now here are my complaints about this amp. First is the shape. It is difficult to mount on a small box and it is kind of cumbersome. It was a nice try by Sony to look at standing out, but this design will go down in history as a styling failure. The amps connections for Power/ ground...etc are very small and the screws are a tad cheap looking. It was a chore to get my 8 gauge in the terminal and even more of one to get the 12 gauge speaker wire in the speaker terminals. With all the bad I can say that this amp was well worth $150.00 in the quality that I have experienced. I could not be happier with the performance and I am glad that Sony has finally come out with something other than a Playstation that is worth buying. I recommend buying this amp if you can get a deal like I did. This would push a set of lesser 10's or 12's, but do not try to push this thing to competition levels.

Strengths:
Performance and features and without a doubt the price. Do not underestimate this sucker.

Weaknesses:
Cheap terminals, shape and spaceship design.

Similar Products Used:
JBL BP series, Rockford Fosgate, Kenwood, MTX, Alpine V-12.