New Amp time, can you lend a hand?

Hey guys,

I'm looking to pawn my Kenwood KAC-7201 off on my bro in law for his Infinity 1032's, I have Infinit y Perfect 10.1d's DVC. I have 2 in a perfectly tuned box. They sound amazing, but their rated at a combined 700watts RMS, and I am only giving them 460watts RMS, so I would like to get a new amp to get my money's worth out of these subs. I am on a tight budget and have been reading extensivly on the Power Acousic line, and how their quality has increased dramatically since the SoundStream acquisition. Now I am still weary about them as the last time I looked at them (2-3 years) they were in the same class as BOSS, and Crunch, which to this day is still crap. My Kenwood IMO is a very nice amp, good quality, does get VERY hot though. What are your thoughts on say a Power Acoustik LT1440/2 ? Link: http://www.cardomain.com/item/POWLT14402 This is rated at 720watts RMS, so that would be a nice fit for my Perfect's (as they can handle around 400watts RMS each, dispite the advertised 350watts RMS each) Would I be losing a lot of sound quality compared to my Kenwood?

Please let me know what you guys think, or suggest another amp that is under $250.

Thanks!

Todd

Don't you get it?  You are getting your money's worth out of those subs.  This is a prime example of how this new movement of  "getting every last watt" starts to mess up people's minds.  Bottom line:  when you have sound that you can describe like you did here, it would be nothing but foolish to make a change for the reason you gave.  You have to know that a speaker's rated RMS means that it is capable of sustaining that input...not that it needs that much power to sound its best.

I suggest you rethink this, and try not to let the ignorance of the masses sway you.

I use to have a p acoustik amp hooked to a cerwin 15 inch sub and it pumped out lotsa bass, i had no complaints about the power it produced ,\

I did hook it to highs once and it sounded like S#$T, The kenwwod youre using presently is probably a better amp though, IMO

If you want to upgrade do so with better quality, not more "watts"

Power Acoustik = Soundstream (now made by Power Acoustik - not vice versa) another real good ol American company down the crapper. In time maybe we'll see a drastic improvement in build quality. From what I saw at the preview of the new models..... it left way too much to be desired. Stevdart nailed it best, if you like what you have, leave it alone.

When is a watt not a watt?  When it's at 15% thd.  Allot of people listen to a PA amp rated at 250w and then a Memphis at 250w and say "gee those Memphis amps kick ass!"  Its like magic right?  No, not really.  Its in the stats, look at them, read your manual.  My brother picked up a amp at a "Supersale-one weekend only, everything must go", a DHD, on the box it said 1200watts RMS.  Wow.  That’s powerful, how did they get all that power out of only  2 40amp fuses.  Well in the manual it said, "Quoted power rated 15.7v at 1k @ 15%thd".  Oh... 1200 watts, only about 400 usable watts, i get it.  If you look at the Memphis it probably says something like "Quoted power with 12.9v from 20-20k @ .5%thd".  Big difference.  You can actually use the 250 watts from the Memphis amp, who knows how they rated the PA, maybe at 13.9v with 5% thd?

I would have to say, that if you are getting somewhere around 2/3 of the rated power to your subs (clean, usable power) then you will not gain all that much from the final 1/3.  Your example is 350w, 2/3 of 350w is roughly 230w.  If your hitting near that mark 200-250 or so, your not going to get a whole lot more if you run out and get that extra 100w.  The big question is: are you getting that much clean power?

I would go with a higher quality amp the the PA.  I would have to say you could use two of these if your really set on it: http://www.cardomain.com/item/JBLP1802  just a little more cash, and you could do a cool installation with the two amps and the two Infinity's.  Plus you'd be keeping it in the family so to speak (both are harmon/kardon products).