22 replies to this topic

[gilly76]

well i received the 225hcca today off evilbay , im more than impressed listenening to it running my studio monitors, tannoy reveal 601p @ 8 ohm stereo this amp definetely has more than 25rms x2 @ 4 ohm
the sound is amazing. cant wait to load it up to 1 ohm stereo for my honda legend 50w full passive system. pity about the aesthetics i really wanted to display this one. damn i miss old school amps!

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[~Spyne~]

nice. you could easily give it a clean and respray.

[gilly76]

~Spyne~, on 25 May 2011 - 03:31 PM, said:

nice. you could easily give it a clean and respray.

but the anodizing is scratched, i suppose i could and spray it i a candy red

~Spyne~, on 25 May 2011 - 03:31 PM, said:

nice. you could easily give it a clean and respray.

lol i knew you would appreciate this thing ~Spyne~

[syd-monster]

lorv it!! HCCA orion's live on!!

[Damon]

Sorry man, placebo effect I reckon...

[gilly76]

Damon, on 26 May 2011 - 03:34 PM, said:

Sorry man, placebo effect I reckon...

probably but its all good........

[gilly76]

actually to be honest i beg to differ about the placebo effect , maybe the plastic chinese door stopper amplifiers are clouding your head Damon , MEA Online Magazine Editor.
after installing the red placebo today i was pleasantly suprised with the sound and output from the said placebo, even with a single run of 8awg cable,,, oh no!! " he didnt do the big 3 ,, whatever that is". It sounds really good considering that its a single 2x25 amp running off a stock honda/alpine head unit via an audiocontrol lc2i with stacker. I havent the foggiest what the real impedance is with the 6" / 1" combo in the front doors, 4" dual cone in the rear doors and the 6x9 woofers in the shelf , multimeter says at no load its 2.9 ohms, but it does sound 10 times better than the stock system that had no amplification. By the way i do know what sounds good , i was a judge back when car audio nationals was alive, with RTA'S OMG!! and respected the rules and wish it was still the same. The system has some power now and enough to impress my wife and close friends who couldnt beleive that a 50w amplifier could change the system so much. I know i may have been fobbed off in the past about my ideas with old school stuff, i.e the 5.1 system using car audio amps on this forum. But really isnt this what its all about,, making the most of nothing. When i left the industry in 2003 i basically forgot about car audio for 4 years or so, and once i regained interest because of that stupid bug:), i started to really look what was happening within the industry i love. I was not impressed, after visiting a few shops for a project i had ,, which was for my wife's echo, i ended up buying new speakers and subs,, MB Quart Premium 6.5" splits and a single Alpine Type s 10" 2x2ohm , but when it came to amplification i bought a orion hp-4600 from autobarn in cairns for $400 which i thought was a bargain because the original sticker said $699. Now think about this , i have been in the industry since 1993 and seen all the great amplifiers come and go, i.e zapco/autotek/hifonics/soundstream/rockford/orion/mtx/ppi/pg. Keep in mind an Autotek model 44 which was 22w x 2 and the cheapest of the series went for around the $600 mark when i worked for Hypersound at blacktown in 1995.
Once i installed this orion amp i was pissed off!, it sounded crape!
I kept looking at the box it came in and could come up with nothing other than the CEA rating which said 4 x 65wrms@4ohm , S/N Ratio 65db???,, are you serious ,, maybe it was a misprint, but cmon this amp sounded crap, i didnt go off the CEA reading as gospel, but it really did sound crap , it was flat , undetailed and struggled to reproduce music to the point i thought i had blown speakers in the front and the bass suffered in the back.
I went to my ever trusting evilbay and found a couple of gems , an MTX Thunder 4160 to be run bridged 2 channel for the MB Quarts and an MTX Thunder 280 for the Alpine 10".
I never looked back!
The system in the echo would have won SQ back in the day after testing with my audiocontrol sa-3055 , with a flatline 40 points , iasca standards, but thats not all.
The 6.5" MB Quarts sounded amazing firing from the kickpanels with almost perfect imaging from a small hatchback with the 10" supplementing the soundstage.
But sadly we dont run comps like that anymore , actually unless you have a wall of DD 15"S in your hatchback you get laughed at on a saturday morning comp time at autobarn. Which is why i choose to run gear that i know works , and works well. here endeth the gospel, it was actually more like war and peace wasnt it?

Edited by gilly76, 27 May 2011 - 11:02 PM.

[Damon]

That's all great but here's a few things:

No.1: You and I both know that it is NOT a '50W amplifier' like you keep saying. It is likely two or three times as powerful as that, so I don't know what's the big surprise about this supposed '50W - wow isn't old school amazing - amplifier'. Orion and everyone else just under rated them to fit into lower IASCA classes. That's not something to be priased, that's called 'cheating' in every other form of sport as far as I know. Sadly, the rose tinted glasses effect sometime gives these old amplifiers a mystical, magical aura. To me, building a 150WRMS x 2 amplifier then slapping a 25WMS x 2 badge on it is not amazing.

No.2: You replaced the stock factory amplifier with something like maybe 20WRMS with an amplifier making at least four if not six times the power. It is no wonder it sounds better. Yet ANY amplifier providing six times the power will sound equally better. It isn't Orion power, old school power, or anything else - its just more power that sounds better.

No.3: I'm also a fan of the old MTX Thunder series and have used many over the years. MTX only ever had one cheater amplifier from memory (225HO or something, right?), so for the most part they just made 'honest' amplifiers. Funny how all these years down the track its the cheater amplifiers that old blokes still get all misty eyed about...

No.4: There is not one old school amplifier that cannot be beaten from any aspect by a current generation one - and probably for half the price.

No5: I still adore old school amplifiers myself - I just know that they're cool because they remind me of a great period not because they're actually better performing than new amplifiers.

[Marc ♫]

I agree Damon's comment did nothing to contribute to the discussion, but in response to "But sadly we dont run comps like that anymore , actually unless you have a wall of DD 15"S in your hatchback you get laughed at on a saturday morning comp time at autobarn.", you obviously have never been to an MEA competition before?

[Damon]

Easy tiger, its just a discussion about old school amplifiers where everyone has their opinion. What's wrong with that? Why is everyone so damn defensive all the time?

[gilly76]

Damon, on 29 May 2011 - 08:27 AM, said:

That's all great but here's a few things:

No.1: You and I both know that it is NOT a '50W amplifier' like you keep saying. It is likely two or three times as powerful as that, so I don't know what's the big surprise about this supposed '50W - wow isn't old school amazing - amplifier'. Orion and everyone else just under rated them to fit into lower IASCA classes. That's not something to be priased, that's called 'cheating' in every other form of sport as far as I know. Sadly, the rose tinted glasses effect sometime gives these old amplifiers a mystical, magical aura. To me, building a 150WRMS x 2 amplifier then slapping a 25WMS x 2 badge on it is not amazing.

No.2: You replaced the stock factory amplifier with something like maybe 20WRMS with an amplifier making at least four if not six times the power. It is no wonder it sounds better. Yet ANY amplifier providing six times the power will sound equally better. It isn't Orion power, old school power, or anything else - its just more power that sounds better.

No.3: I'm also a fan of the old MTX Thunder series and have used many over the years. MTX only ever had one cheater amplifier from memory (225HO or something, right?), so for the most part they just made 'honest' amplifiers. Funny how all these years down the track its the cheater amplifiers that old blokes still get all misty eyed about...

No.4: There is not one old school amplifier that cannot be beaten from any aspect by a current generation one - and probably for half the price.

No5: I still adore old school amplifiers myself - I just know that they're cool because they remind me of a great period not because they're actually better performing than new amplifiers.

, fair statements ,i probably had too much to drink that night i think , ill just crawl back under my rock

Marc, on 29 May 2011 - 08:51 AM, said:

I agree Damon's comment did nothing to contribute to the discussion, but in response to "But sadly we dont run comps like that anymore , actually unless you have a wall of DD 15"S in your hatchback you get laughed at on a saturday morning comp time at autobarn.", you obviously have never been to an MEA competition before?

sorry , i was referring to last time i lived in cairns and at the autobarn comps which werent MEA, he who had the biggest drivers won SQ.

like i said ill just crawl back under my rock:)

[gilly76]

The bottom line is that

1. are they cool? yes

2. do they sound better? depends, but not normally , there are a few exceptions to the rule.

3. will i stop collecting and fiddling with old amps? probably never, almost 68 is the count now.

4. will i keep drunken old pipe dreams to myself in future? most definetely

[syd-monster]

cmon mang! don't crawl under any rock! this isn't china! your entitled to your opinion and we all know that unless it has Soundstream written on an old amp and its installed in some oldmidlife Rodeo, Damon's not gonna like it !!

[gilly76]

syd-monster, on 30 May 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

cmon mang! don't crawl under any rock! this isn't china! your entitled to your opinion and we all know that unless it has Soundstream written on an old amp and its installed in some oldmidlife Rodeo, Damon's not gonna like it !!

rofl

[Marc ♫]

syd-monster, on 30 May 2011 - 08:47 PM, said:

cmon mang! don't crawl under any rock! this isn't china! your entitled to your opinion and we all know that unless it has Soundstream written on an old amp and its installed in some oldmidlife Rodeo, Damon's not gonna like it !!

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