dead amp, need new recommendations

well, it is a sad day for me. i awoke yesterday morning to the sound of silence in my truck and the smell of the rotting corpse that was my alpine PDX-F4. it passed on suddenly and without warning, no cause of death has been determined. so, i need a new amp now, from my calculations i will need around a 800W 4 channel in order to give me 100W per channel at 4 ohms and 50W at 8 ohms. two channels will be on my mids and the other two channels will be on my tweeters so that is why the ohm load is different on those channels. my alpine was the cleanest amp i could buy for the price range of about $350. im looking to stay in that price range but i know that is a tall order to find an amp that is very clean and has that much power so i know i will most likely be spending more than i really want to spend. i have 4 gauge wire already ran so i would like to not have to re run my wire. any input or suggestions are welcomed and thanks in advance.

Wow, what killed the Alpine? They are not happy with low impedance loads... does this mean you're not open to replacing it with something like the MRX-F65? $350 for a 4X100 watt amp limits your choices quite a bit. I haven't used one but you might check out the new PPI Ion series for low-cost and decent power...Support the12volt.com

i didnt know they made another PDX-like amp. power wise its actually a little better than my F4. they dont tell you the difference between these amps though which worries me they they compare it too much to a PDX yet its still much cheaper. there must be something they are hiding because i believe you get what you pay for. i have no idea what killed my apline. it ran perfectly fine for a year and a half just long enough for me to be totally without warranty. the only thing i can maybe think of is that i had a 4 ohm and an 8 ohm speaker per each set of channels, as in channel 1 was a 4 ohm mid and channel 2 was an 8 ohm tweeter. i did it like that so that each gain would control one whole side. it didnt seem to mind this setup at all though. it didnt die while playing, it dies upon turning it on. none of my speakers were blown, that would have been an even bigger tragedy because i definitely cant replace them. i might open the amp up for fun just to see what happened because something is definitely physically burned inside, possibly a blown cap.

in comparison, the PDX is still a much cleaner amp, if anything id buy another PDX because the increase in distortion is not worth the $100 bucks i would save. i would like to stay in the "hundreths" area on the distortion because it wouldnt do my components any justice to hook them to a distorted signal. im probably just sounding picky but my system has a reputation to uphold. still, ill investigate the PPI ion amps because i actually sell them, ill have to get on the phone with PPI tomorrow and get them to email me a spec sheet because the brochure really doesnt tell you much except their power output. i know they are new for this year too so there wont be any review up yet either.

Hey SS, I just picked up JL Audio HD1200/1 and HD600/4. I think i paid $400 cash for the HD600/4 from my guy. Cant be beat for the power and price. Im doing the same as you, gonna run the JL Audio Evo 6.5 for the front 1&2 ch for the highs and 3&4 ch for the mids. I will only us about 60watts per channel so it should sound very very clean.The best tool in my work shop, is my BRAIN!!!!

im a fan of JL's old slash amps but i have no experience with any of their new amps. as always im sure they are overpriced for what they are. i cant get JL as a dealer either so ill either have to buy one on the internet or pay full price from my competition. i just looked up some specs and it isnt as clean as my dead alpine and even on ebay its about $150 more. on a side note, what will you be using as a crossover for your mids and tweets?

soundnsecurity wrote: in comparison, the PDX is still a much cleaner amp, if anything id buy another PDX because the increase in distortion is not worth the $100 bucks i would save. i would like to stay in the "hundreths" area on the distortion because it wouldnt do my components any justice to hook them to a distorted signal. im probably just sounding picky but my system has a reputation to uphold.

i take it back, both PDX and MRX are in the hundreths THD category at their rated output but the PDX claims to be in the thousanths in the upper frequency range whereas the MRX doesnt make that claim. to say that the MRX isnt a clean amp was wrong but i think the PDX would still sound much cleaner. the signal to noise ratio is also a good bit higher in the PDX amps.

Yea, the MRX series are the new low-cost alternative to the PDX line. They apparently use the same output devices but have cheaper power supplies. I listened to them side by side and I couldn't tell any difference... If you do check out the Ion let me know what you think. If it's half-way decent it could be a go-to answer for lower-cost installations.Support the12volt.com

yea ill definitely check out the ion amps even if its not for me personally if they are half way decent then ill end up with some on my shelf. i would imagine they are similar to the soudstream stealth amps with the addition of the class D design. ive been looking for ideas all day and so far the only amp i could find in my price range was a Cadence D100.4. i considered a diamond amp but they dont list their full specs, even though i know they are clean i still like to see numbers because i have been very surprised a few times today. a lot of amps that you would think are very clean and are priced accordingly will still have close to 1% distortion.

the THD for the HD600/4 is THD+N @ Rated Power      <0.03% @ 4 Ω per Ch. @ 150watts...... that is much better than the alpine.... what other brands are you a dealer for. Your price should be half the retail for most of the gear????   Love to get my hands on Audison or Zapco amps :)The best tool in my work shop, is my BRAIN!!!!