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Review 5 of 5
Price Paid:
$200.00 Year / Model Reviewed:
2001 Rubicon A4 Strengths:
Great Sound Quality, Cheap price, practically no battery drain. Very Beefy for an amp that's only rated at 4x25w. Weaknesses:
This amp is NOT stable @ 2ohms in bridged mode. I don't care what Soundstream says. It will cut out instantly the second you try to crank it. Summary:
I've got a high end alpine head and I bought this amp to power 4 Polk 3-way 5x7's but I don't have my subwoofer amp yet so I hooked it up as a 3way. The sub box is wired for 4 ohms so I'm only sending 50 Watts to it. 50 Watts to power two 12" Aluminum Blaupunkts in a fairly small sealed box that's only 1.25 Cu Ft per woofer. Obviously sending this miniscule amount of power to a box that handles 800rms, 2400 peak is insulting but it will have to do until my MTX1000D arrives. The thing that shocks me is that this thing actually moves the subs pretty decently. With the Sherwood I was sending 120 watts to the subs and they barely moved. With only 50 watts from the Soundstream they generate a surprising amount of good sounding bass. Right now the bass blows away my buddies single 10" Kicker solobaric with a custom box and 400Watt ADS amp.
For the right person I would highly recommend this amp. Who's the right person? Someone who doesn't plan on running it at 2ohms and is not concerned with breaking windows or winning competitions. Someone who wants loud, great sound without straining their electrical system. I listen to things like Tool, NIN, Creed and some rap. I've been in loud bands for 14 years and this amp is loud enough that you feel like you have to turn it down after a couple of songs just to give your ears a break. And I'm not even using an efficient box. If you got one single efficient 12" sub in the right ported box it would probably be two or three times louder than what I'm hearing.
Sorry Soundstream, I can't give you the fifth star because you lied about it being stable at 2 ohms. That pisses me off. Similar Products Used:
Sherwood 4x60. Yes I know, how dare I compare a Sherwood to a Soundstream. Well, they were about the same price and their both 2/3/4 way amps. I paid $180 for the Sherwood and used it for over 10 years in 4 different cars with not one problem until one day I opened the trunk and dumped snow into it. Doh! The Soundstream is rated at 25 per channel and has more power than the Sherwood which was rated at 60 per channel.
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