LEGACY 1000w
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Jarome | does the legacy 1000w amp actually put out *1000w*, i find this very hard to believe since it is only $70, but i have noticed some people on this board believe in legacy and pyramid, i'd like to get the truth please. |
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| Actually no. There is many different ways that companies can derive the power of their amps. Stay away from legacy's and pyramid's as neither of them put out even close to 1000w...I'm thinking they might put out around 400w RMS but am not for sure. Go with a Pyle amp...they are cheap too...but measure their power in RMS. |
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Nobody | Legacy amps are rated in RMS as well. The four channel 1000w are rated as 75w x 4 and the two channel 1200w are rated as 150w x 2. |
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Derek | Most car amp manufacturers rate their amps by adding all channel at peak power. Peak power could be at 99% distortion at 1KHz only (you don't want to listen to an amp driven like that). That peak power is typically twice the reasonable, wide bandwidth, low distortion power. So a 1000 watt amp MIGHT be able to push 500 watts. But wait - this is a 4 channel amp. We have to devide the 500 watts by 4 and we end up with MAYBE 125 watts of clean power per channel. Even worse, the power rating may be into 4, 2 or even 1 ohm. The lower impedence rating produce a higher wattage rating into that load. Essentially doubling the rating. If all of these tests were done on a 2 ohm load and you have 4 ohm speakers, the 1000 watt amp now becomes a 62 watts per channel amp. I have one of the Legacy 500 watt stereo amps (probably 1/2 the 4 channel amp you are looking at). It's OK. It's not the cleanest sounding amp in the world but at least it didn't go up in a puff of smoke. I bought it at www.partsexpress.com for $60 which is good for $60. I replaced it with a much better sounding Sony 760 watt stereo amp I found on sale for $169. Most of the better sounding car stereos I've heard that didn't go into some rediculous money had Rocford Fostgate amps. They seem to either clip very gently of actually have thier power UNDER-rated. Some have very low wattage rating like 40 watts per channel and sound much better than 150 watt per channel amps. |
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| I'm a linear power and alpine guy but Pyramid isn't bad stuff. I have an Alpine 3543 which is rated at 100x2 at 4ohm stereo, 300x1 at 4 ohm mono RMS. I had it driving two Savard HI-Q 15" subs in a sealed box. Make no mistake, it was loud enough to set off car alarms two parking spaces down. I wound up with a Pyramid PB-800 4-channel amp that had been sent off for repair and the dude never paid for it. I paid the $50 and got a brand new (internally) amp. I didn't figure it would do much but when I had it bridged to two channel, running 4-ohm loads it kicked the stink out of my alpine. I had to turn the gain nearly half way off on the low pass of my crossover and turn the bass OFF on the head unit and the EQ...completely off. I still couldn't turn it above 12 or the subs started to bottom out. I swear that it had as much power as my old Linear 5002 but probably a lot more THD. I think it was rated at something like 300w RMS, 800w peak but let me tell you, it was every bit of 500 watts ledgitimate. I paid $600 for the Alpine and a $50 Pyramid put it to shame. I don't care if Pyramid overrated it's power on the display, it was one bad honking amp. I'd love to get my hands on one of Pyramid's 2400watt 'Mono Block' amps...that thing must shreik evil. |
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| Im thinking of getting a 1800 watt Pyramid amp off of eBay and i was thinking of what you guys thought of them |
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| i just got a 800 watt legacy amp. do you think that it can handle a pair of sony xploid subwoofers that run at 600 watts each. i was told that it wouldnt be good enough. do you think theyll bump good bass out? |
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| most of you don't know what you are talking about. I tested a 1000w pyramid against a 1000w eclipse and there was NO competition. the pyramid barely pushed at all and the eclipse pushed so hard it blew the voice coils of TWO jbl 1000w subs. thats 1000w each sub and they are rated 500w rms at 4ohm. the pyramid barely shook my clothes while the eclipse shook my neighbors clothes.he was in his house. So if you want an economy amp that can't hold its weight, go ahead. I have blown the water seal on my winshield thanks to eclipse and Jbl and I am damn proud of it. |
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| If i want to save money, what kind of amp should i get, i have two audioban subs and i need a big amp to push them, but i want to save money. |
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| i sell and repair car audio equiptment,the things to watch for are amps with ic outputs or large cases with little bitty circuit boards inside i have some in the shop that i think stink jdl pioneer rockwood are some,repair wise stay away from fosgate,mtx big $$ to fix .i have found phoenix gold to sound good and was stable at 1/2 ohm.i myself have an old lanzar vibe going on 5 years |
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| I WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS A GOOD AMP TO RUN 2 12" LOGIC SUBS 4000 WATTS MAX AND 2000 WATTS RMS? IKNOW IT IS ALOT OF WATTS BUT I HAVE A 1000W ROCKWOOD AMP WRIGHT KNOW AND IT JUST ISN'T GETTING THE JOB DONE IT IS JUST TO WEAK FOR ME I WAS THINKING OF GETTING A 2000WATT LEGACY BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE THE MONEY TO BUY ALL THE POWER THAT I NEED ANY BODY HAVE ANY IDEAS |
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| I have a Legacy 1000w amp, i think one of the channels isnt working, any suggestions on how to make sure? And if it is the channel how can i get it fixed? |
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Anonymous | I would like to know whats good amp to go with my 2 xploid subwoofers. |
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D Herl | I want to know what companies you can trust on there RMS rating... everyone know that max power is complete BS... and that RMS IS NOT HALF OF PEAK..but i want to know if i can trust the RMS rating on most amps or if cheap companies will even cheat on that rating... |
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joshd | i just wanted to tell every one that i have a 1200wx2 bridged legacy and rms was measured at 150w per chanel so if you want a good cheap amp you should go with sony ,pioneer or jensen so if you are wanting to get a legacy ......dont do it . |
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Anonymous | Test post Swez |
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| Well, interesting set of Q&A's here guys... May I add my 2 cents? Many cheaper amp brands rate their products as Peak or even Peak to Peak output. This information is generally useless and designed to market inferior products to the masses that have little background in quality products. Let the buyer beware! Quality amps will generally rate their amps with the following data included: 1. RMS power at 2,4 ohms 2. Bridged power RMS 3. Voltage input it takes to attain noted RMS wattage figures 4. THD under 0.1% 5. Damping factor more than 75 6. Input signal voltage range (0.5-4.0 volts typ.) 7. Signal to noise ratios However, even if an amp does have this information, the key items to look at are input voltage and RMS watts out at targeted ohms loading. Many amp makers play a game with the output numbers by stating... 500 watts RMS @ 4 ohms bridged, 250 watts RMS x 2 @ 2 ohms or 125 watts RMS @ 4 ohms. All this is fine so far. Then reading a bit further... it says... INPUT VOLTAGE: 14.4 volts DC Well, what does all this mean? It means the amp maker says it has a decent amp, but still overstates the typical power output we can expect from an amp like this. ("over rated specs") Why is that? The bottom line, no vehicle I know of can sustain a 14.4 volt DC voltage to the amp for more than a few minutes after a cold start. Once the car starts, the alternator will put out maximum voltage and current to fully recharge the battery to normal operating voltage. Once that has been achieved, (a few minutes after a cold start) the nominmal voltage the system will deliver, drops to somewhere between 12.5-13.8 volts and stays there. If you turn on your headlights, fogs, A/C blower or other high current devices, the voltage drops even more. In turn, even less voltage is flowing to your amp(s). To offset the voltage drop, the amplifier will draw larger amounts of current to maintain reasonable output watts. This is why the headlight dim on big bass hits. (a major voltage drop and current starvation in the electrical system) OK, enough techie talk... In short, if an amp maker rates their products in RMS power, has the other details as noted above and says it will do this power rating with say ~13.0 DC volts input, you have a pretty good chance the amp is a quality product. If you want to learn more on car audio, I invite you to email me and we can chat. Swez swezdp@juno.com |
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| don't buy any legacy crap... if you want to kno whether an amp is any good or not just look at the fuses. I had a 1000w legacy amp that looked really good on paper and in the specs, but when i pulled it out of the box it only had one 20 amp fuse!! the really simple really easy way to cut through all the bs on ratings is to take the power fuse that they are using x voltage... example 20A fuse x 13V = 260. So my 1000w legacy piece of crap could push a maximum of 260w RMS. (this still is too high of a rating because no amp has a perfect effeciency rate and this method i am talking about uses input power to rate output power) any questions? e mail me at Shaunsmith40@hotmail.com |
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| What has happened to car audio? I used to really be in the game about 7-8 years ago. I was using a good Kenwood head unit pushing signal into a PPI peq-114 (the cheaper PPI eq) and then to a PPI epx-205 in dash adjustable crossover, all that was flowing to a PPI art series A 600 and another 600.2. The 600 was driving a Dynaudio 7" driver and 1" tweeter component set (superb) and the .2 was pushing 3 JL 8W6's (when they were first out) in a 1.5 cubic ft box. I'm not really a basshead, I like a well rounded sound, and all this crammed into a 96 Mustang GT sounded good and cranked and cranked and cranked all day. JL's are phenomenal subs even in the 8" form (pushed enough to rattle my spoiler off a brand new car), and since I went with the 8's, I still had most of my trunk space left. Now all the equipment I see out there is all about the same, you still got your decent stuff out there (Fosgate, etc.) but what I see the most are these cheap no namers with fancy chrome cases. I've heard JL amps are pretty good because some of the people responsible for PPI back in the "good 'ol days" were part of the team on those. I am looking to build a couple small systems now in the vehicles I have, and I am searching ebay for old equipment because nothing in the stores now really excites me. I ask again, what has happened to car audio..... R.I.P any thoughts or comments can post back or e-mail me direct at stangnch76@netscape.net |
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