any advice on good 4 ch amp

I was thinking more on Rockford Fosgate prime or precision power black ice. Which is better for reliability & sound quality. These amps are in my budget. Thanks! I have been out of the loop for awhile. But as I age I find myself appreciating aftermarket systems again!

i used to have a black ice 1800 watt bass amp and it sounded pretty nice and i remember the specs on the 4 channel amps to be pretty clean too but the early black ice amps had a serious durability problem. maybe they have fixed some of the issues with them but if you get the black ice amp id make sure you have some sort of warranty, at least a year. ive never really been a fan of rockford fosgate but in this case if i had to choose one of those id probably go with the rockford.

Cool! Thanks! For the sub I am thinking of going with the kicker cx300.1D is there any better alternative for $100-150 bucks? Btw is 8 gauge power wire good enough for this power rating?

8 gauge should be fine if you run a dedicated 8 gauge power wire for each amp. if you plan on just running a single power wire and then splitting it off to each amp with a distribution block then i would recommend running a single 4 gauge wire from battery to distribution block and then you can use 8 gauge from the D-block to each amp. if you just run a single 8 gauge to run both amps then you are really pushing the capacity of that wire and could end up burning the wire over time. it is never a bad idea to over size your wire just to make sure you cant overload the wire, and a side benefit of over-sized wire is that if you ever upgrade your system to something more powerful then chances are you wont have to run new wire. a single 8 gauge wire is good for up to 60 amps of current or approximately 800 watts on a typical car audio system. so if both of your amps are in the 300 - 400 watt range then the wire is almost maxed out, that is why i recommend using 4 gauge just to be safe.

Cool! Thanks for your great tips! I have done a lot of reading & now debating whether I should stick with class A/B or go with class D. What is your opinion?

class D amps are over all more efficient than a class AB. this means they are usually smaller in size and lighter because they require less cooling and use components that arent as heavy duty as a class AB 4 channel amp. class D technology in a high frequency amp is a relatively new thing to the car audio world compared to class AB which has been around forever so the class D amp might cost you a good bit more than a class AB with about the same specs. its really up to you which way you go because there is really no advantage to using a class D amp under 500 watts vs a class AB amp.

I have decided to go with the new Pioneer GM class D amps! What you think? I wanted to try a 4 ch Alpine PDX but too pricey & if level match tthey could sound the same!

i used to have an alpine PDX F4 amp on my front components and i can say with confidence that that amp was the best sounding amp ive ever heard. the pioneer amp seems like a decent amp although it is a stranger design, class FD? not simply class D but a combination of class designs. this amp might not sound that great even though it claims a good distortion rating of .05% but keep in mind that the alpine PDX distortion rating is .005% which is 10x lower by comparison. im not sure which size amp you were looking at but the one i saw was a 600 watt amp and recommended you use 4 gauge copper wire just for that amp so keep that in mind that you will now not be able to run 8 gauge wire.

Now I am considering the pdx-f4 or the jl audio xd500/3? How do you think the jl will compare to alpine?Have you heard the jl xd series?

i have not heard the xd series on regular speakers ive just heard one once on a set of subs, but just comparing the specs the alpine should be a much cleaner sounding amp. the JL amps that compare the most to the PDX amps are the JL HD series which are actually a tad bit cleaner than the alpine but its almost double the price. once again id take the alpine...