Clarion APA1200 200W Amplifier

Price Paid:  $179.00 from Crutchfield

Year / Model Reviewed:
 APA1200

Strengths:
Good power and affordable.

Weaknesses:
Circuitry problems.

Summary:
I am amazed to read the review by Rob from Oregon. I had the exact same thing happen to me and I would have thought it to have been a fluke if I hadn't read his review. The LF response was good for a while after I first installed the amp, and slowly the punch seem to trail off. Eventually, the amp went out and on inspection, I found the fuses were blown. After replacing the fuses and powering up, I got smoke from out the fan port and heard the snap of failing circuitry. $80 later from the local repair shop (they described similar melted traces and componnents), I found the sound now bettter than it was from the beginning. A very strange turn of events, or so I thought until I read the review which seemed almost exactly the same. My only question now is how long will it last going forward from now.

Price Paid:  $179.00

Strengths:
Lots of nice features (crossover, bass boost, etc.) Looks good.

Weaknesses:
Big footprint. Gets pretty warm.
Blew up :P

Summary:
Well I'm going to disagree with most of what everyone else has said here.

I got the same deal at Crutchfield more than a year back as was very happy with the way the amp was pushing my two MTX 10"'s. Unfortunately, after a few months, I noticed that the quality of the bass had dropped. Lots of bad clipping and low output.

I swapped components around with a friend. Put my box on his Pioneer Premier amp. Sounded great. Put his subs on my amp...sounded like crap. Figured the amp was going bad.

Problem took care of itself though. One day, I noticed I had no bass. Found out both fuses had blown. After replacing the fuses, I got a really great response from the amp: smoke and fire. Don't know why the fuses didn't burn, but smoke was pouring out like no tomorrow.

After opening the amp up, I noticed the power MOSFET's had totally melted, cracked, burned, etc. I'm actually quite familiar with these parts as I did some development work them a few months back. Those babies should be able to handle 45amps max each.

Still don't know what went wrong with it. I'm thinking about replacing the MOSFET's and seeing if that takes care of the problem. At this point, it looks like I need a new amp.

Similar Products Used:
None

Strengths:
aparently can run mids and highs even though its a mono subwoofer amp.

Weaknesses:
I think meustafa is bs

Summary:
I think that guy mustafa is bs. He says he is using this amp to drive a pair of mids and highs. From what i understand, you need more than one channel for two midbass drivers and two tweeters. The constant low pass X-over wouldnt help either as mids and highs sound like $hit when you feed them this kind of power and this low of frequencies. 20hz. to your mids and highs would sound like my friends system of two Road Gear 3 inch full range speakers hooked up to a pioneer cd deck. Trust me, it sounds like $hit, those lil 3 inch speakers cant hit below 1000hz. lol.

Similar Products Used:
None

Price Paid:  $140.00

Year / Model Reviewed:
 199

Strengths:
For the money you won't find a finer amp to drive a 2 ohm load be it one sub or two or whatever. (2) 30A fuses are nicer to replace than (1) 60. Also, if you blow one the amp will still play, just half as loud. Looks cool, fan cools it well and it plays loooow. Frequency response is dead flat down below 10hz with it. Most amps costing 3x this much can't do that. 2 ohm stable? Hah. It will push anything but a dead short all day as long as you don't have a blanket over it. Will get really hot though. Advanced bass boost comes in very handy.

Weaknesses:
Only takes 8AWG power and ground without adapters. The amp will pull a lot of juice running a 2 or 1 ohm load so I suggest an adapter for 4AWG. Although I like the low and wide footprint, it is large and won't fit a whole lotta places. Won't run with the new gen class D amps (MTX, JBL Power) on raw power (but will kill em on SQ any day).

Summary:
My amp bench tested 290wrms at 12 volts at 4 ohms and 380 at 2 ohms. Thats way more than the Clarion 200/300 specs. It will make even more if you only drive subs with it since the power is rated 20hz-20khz (full bandwidth). The guy who says he's driving highs with it, well he could do that but you'd need one for each channel and I know very few mid/high components that will take this kinda power. Anyway, amp plays WAY low with my Perfect 12.1. With 2 (Friend has one too) it is painful. You get directivity and noticible pressure all the way down to 10 hz. For only "300" watts and 2 12's thats amazing.

Finally a little story about build quality. 2 Ohm stable they say huh?.. Well my amp pushed a dead short for over 6 hours at high power levels when a pair of sub wires melted together. Didn't shut off, didn't complain, just got nice and toasty. Thats it. Don't try this at home kids.

If you want a savage sub amp for a great price, grab one...or two for that matter. If you wanted to you could run one to each voice coil on a dvc sub. If you want raw, non-musical power that hits but sounds like crap, grab the biggest p.o.s. pyramid or boss amp you can find and have fun. This amp is pure audiophile quality if you have the gain set right.

Similar Products Used:
Infinity Beta Digital 100: Beta is more versitile being a 2 channel but for pure bass it can't compete. Especially when asked to push 2 ohms.

Alpine F301 Four Channel with 2 channels bridged to the sub: Um....NO. From the specs it makes more power than the Clarion but yeah right. Destroyed in every way.

Price Paid:  $180.00

Year / Model Reviewed:
 APA1200

Strengths:
Versatile, lots of power, 2ohm stable, low profile, sleek

Weaknesses:
none yet

Summary:
Got this deal as most others did at Crutchfield. I have it pushing an 8" JL W3 dual 4ohm vc in a Jeep Cherokee. Very musical, accurate and depending on the program being listened to, can really boom.....really. It is installed in the smallest box that Crutchfiled had to offer which yields about a .35 to .50 cf. This amp can easily handle another sub. Great sound quality. I am very happy with it.

Similar Products Used:
Got this deal as most others did at Crutchfield. I have it pushing an 8"