I have heard several people say that Orion amps aren't the greates. I have always thought they were... How do they compare to Kicker? I have a 450.2 but am looking to go with the Orion 600D because it is stable at 1 ohm and it is fairly inexpensive. How do they compare? Any other amps that are 600rms at 1 ohms that aren't much more than 200 or so that are good?
They're good amps, closer to the top than Kicker, MTX, etc. But they're not as good as say Zapco, Eclipse, Xtant, etc. But they're really good amps, just not the BEST...
In all actuality, you are not going to get anywhere near the varying levels of adequacy in amps as you might with components or subs. A watt is essentially a watt. Amps reproduce this power well, exceedingly well, or not at all. The expensive amps are clearly those who operate exceedingly well. But what do you need the amp to do? Reproduce the sounds that were originated by someone's vocal chords or instruments? No. They just give you power in watts. So again, either they are engineered well or over-engineered (constructed beyond their means of making a great amp). So long as they are not under-engineered. That is, so long as corners were not cut that will prohibit the devise from producing clean and substantial power (watts), you are in good hands. Just stay away from the blatantly cheap stuff manufactured for, and sold largely by way of marketing.