Tube amps for a car?

 

The Duke
Unregistered guest
Do they make tube amps for cars? Where can i get some?
 

Silver Member
Username: Mikechec9

Chicago/atlanta

Post Number: 197
Registered: May-05
well you could get a TRU Tech C-7.2AT if you have 3000.00 laying around. or you could go with a tube preamp soundstream makes.
http://www.soundstream.com/sub/products_processors.html
these are the only two i am familiar with off top.
 

Silver Member
Username: Alias747

MN

Post Number: 261
Registered: Apr-05
Yeah, you can get tube amp for cars, but why would you? They don't put out much power at all. The tube amp I saw reviewed put out a whopping 12x2 wrms @ 4-ohms @ 14.4v, and cost $3200 bucks! Outrageous!
 

Silver Member
Username: Alias747

MN

Post Number: 262
Registered: Apr-05
LOL, mikechec, thats the amp I was talking about, the Tru Tech. Why anyone whould buy that is beyond me.
 

Silver Member
Username: Geekbike

Post Number: 192
Registered: Dec-04
For car audio, they are next to pointless. The price is just huge and the benefits you gain (super great sound) is cancelled out by the ambient road noise.
 

Silver Member
Username: Mikechec9

Chicago/atlanta

Post Number: 199
Registered: May-05
yeah, i agree. not practical at all. even if it were 320.00, what am i going to do with 24 watts?
i read that tube watts differ from solid state watts. some cat from tru technologies was fussing about how 1watt equates to 100 tube watts (i always thought a watt was a watt, LOL). bottom line, i can't wait to see how long (short) that amp stays in production. what a waste of time/money.
here is a good read on why tubes are supposedly "better" http://www.milbert.com/whytubes.bdc
 

New member
Username: Winn

Santa Ana, California US

Post Number: 2
Registered: Jun-05
Tube amp is a high-end component, we're talking about quality, clarity and imaging of the sound stage (State of the ART). The output from Tube amp is different for the regular one. 12 wrms from tube might equivilenge to 300+ wrms of the regular amp. However, Using Tube amp in car is not recommend as the follow:
- Need to stay on the solid ground.
- Produce too much Heat (When the tube getting hotter and hotter, it will sound better, but you will be toast inside the car)
- Weight (too heavy)
The most important for the High-End world is ALL your components have to be High-End to produce the high-end sound stage (including speaker cable, interconnect or any other components connect to the system). I really don't know any company make the high-end cable for CAR. any one know? (remember: cable made from Monster, Stingers and Streetwire all are not High-end)
SAVE YOUR MONEY!!!
 

Silver Member
Username: Mikechec9

Chicago/atlanta

Post Number: 202
Registered: May-05
1) a watt is a watt. it is power equivalent to one joul per second. period.

2) the rms is the square root of the AVERAGE of the squares of the values.
so on average, the amp still puts out 24 watts.

3) perhaps if you were to use the suggested 400-600 volts that say you might have available in a house, you could actually utilize this "state of the art" sound and then, yes, the rms would be increased. but fat chance finding more than 18 volts in a car.

4) and this is a big one. you can have 3000.00 rca's, interconnects, wiring to match the price tag on that amp and you still would NOT be able to tell the difference in sound. the fool to pay 3000.00 for the amp is probably the same one who will buy 3000.00 cables, lol. The very simple reality is that resistance, inductance, and capacitance are all that matter when you're dealing with the range below radio frequencies. copper wire from the metal heap will produce all of these right on par with those same 3000.00 wires. as long as the cable transmits the current that is passed through it without receiving or contributing noise then they are all the same (except digital cables).

5) with amps, reliability is oftentimes the meaning for its cost. that is, a DLS, or MB Quart (sweetish and german made) amp is going to have superior construction, inside and out, to a relatively less costing amp. tube amps are INHERENTLY unreliable as it is not a matter of if the tube is going to bust, but when.

for the record, i genuinely love the way tube amps sound. at least in my home studio, it is really beyond words other than it is less digital, and more like a vinyl record than a cd. so, here it is a matter of preference, but objectively speaking, it adds more distortion to your existing system.

bottom line, i can't wait to see how long (short) that amp stays in production. what a waste of time/money. LOL
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