What Happened To All The Good Amps?

*Looks at thread* hmmm, this thread is slowing down a little. Allow me to stew things up a little....

How do the specs and features on these "old school" amps compare to those of today's amps? My hunch is, not very well. At least not dollar for dollar. This thread has a lot of the same vague rap you can read in a lot of the other threads on this site and others: Brand X sucks and Brand Y is the sh*te, without any real evidence to back it up. So far I've gotten that the new amps are inferior because they have chrome or they're not as heavy as the old ones. Nobody griping about watts RMS or THD- probably because the newer amps beat the old ones hands down.

*ducks*

I don't know this for sure but I'm guessing the situation with amps is similar to what it was for computer memory in the past: 1MByte of 80nsec RAM cost $50 dollars back in the day of 386 CPU's. Now you can get 512MB of 60nsec DDR memory for much less than $100. From $50/MB to about 10 cents/MB (of much faster RAM). It would be interesting to compare the price of a typical amp with < 0.1% THD from 15-20 years ago to one today. I guess my point is that technology has progressed so much that an old amp might be built like a brick wall but its electronics have a hard time keeping up with a present-day amp.

Another analogy- SLR cameras. I've still got fond memories of my old autofocus SLR with its metal body and bag full of separate lenses, but it doesn't have near the features of a plastic-body digital SLR being produced today. I'll take a 2004 digital camera body that accepts separate lenses over my old Maxxum 8000i any day. Arguing that my old beloved Minolta is better than a Canon Digital Rebel doesn't make a lot of sense.

 OK so basically we all agree that the old PPI, and RF Type "Brick" Amps were great, but I agree with the thread so far. Look at Cars! I would take a 1975 Cutlass Supreme anyday, but quality and quantity are different now.  I took out a Telephone pole with my Cutlass and drove it home.  Can you do the same with a 2004 Ford, Hyundai or Chevy, no, it would destroy the cars now.

Basically, we have to accept the fact that old will always be better for longevity, but market driven prices and qaulity will always win. Why sell 10 RF Punch amps for $300 when you can manufacture 300 RF Amps and sell for the same price. Bottom line is, I would love to get my hands on some old PPI amps, but I have to settle for the new and improved Chromed out, BS heat sinks, and minimal power rails.  Untill I can afford a DaVinci or Tarantula!

ANyone selling some PPI's? 

I think what we have seen is the mainstreaming of car audio.  While it has always had a highend and lowend (and in-between) the low end market for all components of car audio, the lowend market has exploded in the last ten years.  Every kid wants subwoofers, amps, speakers.. and more subwoofers.  I think rap music has pushed this forward (Im not a big fan of rap in general).  But young people cannot afford highend stuff.  The few companies that have a large lowend line prosper.  So you have companies that not only want a chunk of that lowend, they need it to survive!  So they take their good name and smack it on an amp that holds a comparable pricepoint to others in the low end.  Its economics.  Thats why we see so much low end out here.  Good amps are still made, they just get lost in the suffle with all the junk.  Does Soundstream still make a good amp? US Amps? MTX?  JL?  Rockford?  I think so and I think we are better off as consumers now as compared to ten years ago.  I respect the old school heavyweights, but dont wish for the days of old.

And I also think that when comparing things today to twenty years ago you have to compare the purpose and utility of them.  Old cars got sh*te gas mileage, were heavy and more dangerous to others in an accident (and the occupants) when compared to today’s cars.  Today’s cars are designed to get better mileage, better performance, and protect you and the other guy in an accident.  It's not cheap engineering, exactly the opposite.  And I thinkt hat is what we are seeing in the car audio world as well.

true in most senses.... the reasons that a new car is destroyed competing with a telephone pole vs. an old tank is something called " crumple zones ".... these new vehicles are designed to absorb all the inertia in an accident and deflect it away from the occupants and in the process, disintegrate....

the reason the old power amps ( and i've worked on thousands of them ) needed 2 inch wide heatsinks on the power supply and output rails is that the bipolar transistors used in their days were heat dogs... they were very inefficient and needed an avenue to displace the heat generated... heck, the old Alpine and Kenwood amps used 8) D1669's in the power supply, whereas the new units use 2) IRFZ44's or 48's MOSFET's to generate the same amount of power supply current.... the same can be said for the O/P (output) rails.. 2 N channel MOSFET's deliver more wattage than 4 or 6 bipolars.... which means amps nowadays dont need to deal with the massive amounts of wasted energy in the form of heat that they did 10 years ago

RF was able to downsize and lighten their amps by putting the entire pre-amp section on one little discrete PCB vs. the 6 inches of space it took up before utilizing a couple pounds of passive components

if you are choosing amps based on pounds per dollar the "old school" amps will win every time ( heck, my old top loading VCR which cost 1300.00 bucks weighed 30 pounds, my new one for 300.00 weighs about 3 pounds, but i'll take the new one for picture quality anyday )( and yes, i watch a lot of DVD too.... just to nip that potential comeback in the bud )...but dont kid yourselves, there are a lot of good quality products still being made these days.....