Reviewed by Robert Canning
t;line-height:100%">Edited by Marc Rushton
Having been heavily involved in car audio for around ten years I thought I had seen nearly every brand out there; I was proven wrong again.
A few weeks ago I heard about a new amplifier to be imported into Australia. As usual I didn’t think much about it as I hear this quite often, but to my surprise a few weeks later I have one on my desk to review!
Audio Systems is the new range of Italian amplifiers brought in by ‘Mobile Audio Solutions’ the same company responsible for importing such high end brands as Dynaudio, Image Dynamics and ARC Audio.
It is a 4-channel amplifier, 4 x 95wrms or 2 x 290wrms (2ohm stereo or 4ohm mono). Audio Systems are not CEA2006 compliant, however we have no reason to believe their power ratings are incorrect. I had it set up to run a Boston pro 10.5lf 4ohm and as my current set-up is running in an ‘active’ configuration. I ran the midbass speakers (MB Quart) off the Twister and the tweeters off my Soundstream reference amplifier.
We are used to a design and style of amplifier where the heat sink is mounted on top; however this model uses a different format. Mounted on the side of the amp, the usual heat sinks position has been replaced with a fan on top and a pressed metal cover. Aesthetically, its quite a nice looking amp but the pressed metal cover make’s it feel a little tinny.
Opening it up was quite a surprise, half the available area is taken up by the circuit board, and the other side is the heat sink. The amp is not a large amp (in fact a very small footprint) at all so seeing such a small circuit board was a bit of a shock, being a user of old school car audio products I am used to everything being ‘oversized’.
Overall build quality of the amp was quite good. Nothing that can work loose inside and all observations indicate it would give many years of service life.
Installing:
The layout of all the inputs/outputs and crossovers run along the front edge of the amplifier. I personally prefer amp’s this way so they’re a little easier to wire and to hide all the connections.
Hooking it up was quite easy; my biggest annoyance is the power and earth connectors. They use the same type and size of screw down terminals as the speakers that are more designed for 16AWG speaker cable.
My test car run’s 4AWG and I stepped that down to 8AWG, which I still had a bit of trouble getting in. Both the +ve and –ve are next to each other with the remote input and a +cap input above. I was still not convinced it was the best way of going about a terminal and i am sure if I gave the power or earth a good tug they will come free! (I also had to go over it with electrical tape to be sure no strands came lose and touched and that the cable stayed secure in the terminal).
The rest of the speaker cables and interconnects went in without a hitch.
The crossover’s are simple turn pot adjustment, the low and high pass crossover switch is unique, the switch itself is behind the cover and a simple little screw down plastic plate sit’s over it, one side is raised and when turned that way will select the LP filter and with the rased section out you get HP filter, especially good to stop friends with wandering hands.
Listening:
There is no turn on pop, when the amp’s powered up so it’s off to a good start.
I am running the sub at around three quarter gain and the mid’s at around one quarter to half. The MB quart mid’s I am running are quite efficient but can still take a hell of a beating.
The F4 380 put’s out a lot of power dispite its diminutive size powering the sub quite well while still able to reproduce the midbass with ease.
Playing Joss Stone the vocals through the mid’s were superb and reproduced accurately. The sub bass on track 3 was solid as a rock and did it with authority.
Method Man came through with some serious sub bass and sub harmonics and shook the absolute crapper out of the car. Put a smile on my face that’s for sure.
The kick drum and bass guitars on Smashing Pumpkin’s “Gish” album came though as it was recorded and how it was meant to be listen to: LOUD!
Conclusion:
This would be perfect for a single amp system running 1 sub and a set of splits.
There is plenty of power on tap to drive most systems with ease and its compact size will fit into most tight spaces
RRP $799
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