Stereo Amps - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

wbain5280 · #1 03-27-2004, 03:46 AM

I went to a car stereo shop yesterday to look for new speakers. In the store was a dizzying array of speakers and amps and accessories. I wanted the front 4X6 speakers first so I bought some by MTX. I have 7 days to return them if they don't fit.

In one of the cases was an enormous amp with printing on it saying it had 2000 watts! I'm stunned, 2000 watts! Probably more like 2000 instantaneous watts and 500 continuous. Where's the FTC rating on these amsp when we need them?

#2 03-27-2004, 09:22 PM

Hi Warren.

If they are made by a wellknown company
don't be surprised that that is 2000 actual watts.
I know JBL has a 6000 watt amp and Soundstream's
original Tarantula amp had 2000 watts.
These are all sub amps,made just so you can drive
a wall of subwoofers and deafen the whole block.

Only time you need to be sceptical is when an
amp says 2000X4 and you never heard of
the manufacturer.

Louis.

Ashman · #3 03-29-2004, 12:50 AM

you may have to cut the casing ont he 4x6's to fit. I had to do that ona w126 to fit 4x6 underneath the factory grills.

This was int eh stock dash and rear deck locations. I had to trim them by using hte original speaker as a template.

Alon

wbain5280 · #4 03-29-2004, 05:33 AM

No maybe about it. I will have to trim the metal if I want to use them. I have fice more days to return them if I want. I'd like to find the Euro Eclipse speakers another poster used in his dash.

To use these MTX's, I'll hace to make a template and cut the metal with shears. Too many metal filings near a speaker magnet is a bad thing.

Zeus · #5 04-01-2004, 11:51 AM

To produce 2000 watts RMS with less than 0.05% THD into an 8 ohn load you would need a very, very big power transformer and capacitors the size of coke cans. Add some mental transistors and cooling fins the size of dinner plates. You'd need a steady 14.0V+ voltage supply as well and a beefy alternator or backup batteries/caps.

The watt rating of modern amps is a joke and there really is no standard in the industry. Peak power, continuous power, loads, voltage supply, distortion ratings - it's anyone's guess.

Weight is always a rough indicator of power. I have a vintage Marantz amp (solid state, not tube) that produces 90 watts/channel into an 8 ohm load with less that 0.03% distortion - i.e. clean power. It weighs about 70 lbs. The transformer is the size of a grapefruit. It's my home stereo 'listening' amp and it is incredibly loud and powerful. It utterly blows away my Sony surround system that I use for movies - which is rated at "500W - 100W/channel" - yeah right. More like 25 watt/channel on a good day.

I would be exceptionally skeptical about a boasted rating of 2000 watts. Most likely, one out of a dozen amps they tested at the factory produced that spike into one channel only, 4 ohm load, 14.4V current - right before it blew up and melted into a pile of molten slag. Check out the power consumption rating on the amp. Probably around 300-350 watts. So how does the amp generate 2000?

Can you tell this area of borderline false advertising really annoys me?

- rant over, thank you -

P.S. Louis - I'm not saying you're not correct, some companies do produce some pretty crazy amps, I'm just very skeptical of those ratings.

rickg · #6 04-01-2004, 02:06 PM

AMEN ZEUS!!

Here's an old link, but shows some of the phoney claims of amp manufacturers. Amps listed with (A) are car amps. Also read his notes at the beggining:
http://www.angelfire.com/vt/audio/table.html