short list of orion hcca’s

Hello, to the point, I'm looking for a short list of the old Orion HCCA's. More specifically, the beasts; 2100, 2150, 2250, SX, GX, etc. I'm fully capable of researching numbers (when I actually have the time, which is next to never). What I'm looking for is opinions on these amps. What was great or what sucked about them. There's a guy on here who's a self proffessed Orionophile. Well I can't find you and I'm on my way out the door to school! Lastly, the biggest thing I need to know is would any of them appreciate being run at 1 ohm all the time? I don't beat on my equipment, but I do like to turn it up once in awhile. Thanks. If you need more info, I'll be happy to post after school!

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Fine the employers.

The numbers you posted are NOT HCCA amplifiers. The "short list" for the HCCA *designated* amps is: 225, 250, and 2100. The smaller ones would run .5-ohms all day, and the 2100 was a 1-ohm amplifier. The HCCA amplifiers were red anodized chassis, the others were not. The GS was a gold plated (literally) amplifier, and were special edition "audiophile" amplifiers, but not "high current" or "low-impedance" drive capable. The SX was the "everyday" line, the line eventually evolving into the Cobalt series. 2-ohm stable, and that's all.

I had an ORIGINAL "Red 50", the venerable 225HCCA...

I swapped the OEM 12G power cables in it (both ground and power) to a #8, and with forced cooling (primarily because of the small heatsink) I had it bridged into .5 ohms! That's NOT a typo! It was BRIDGED into four 4-ohm DVC 10" subs, all voice coils in parallel!! That's the same as running a quarter ohm per channel in stereo mode!

And yes, I *did* beat on it... ALL DAY, EVERY DAY!

<sigh> I loved that amp... </sigh> Sold it to my brother, who subsequently sold it to someone ELSE who then traded it for drugs... Dave was sad to hear the fate of one of his favorite all-time amplifiers.

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Ok Haem, thank you. Let me get to the nuts and bolts of this. I will need a couple of answers that can hopefully be found through this one thread;

I am probably slightly older than most on this site so I have an affinity for the old stuff. Rockford, Orion, Soundstream, Memphis, H / K,etc.  they don't make what they used to. In fact, I don't think they make anything (China). And I don't have the money it takes to buy anything current that does what I'm looking for. That being said, Here's what I have;

Memphis ST1300D( the one with the airplane up in the corner), 180amp fuse rating. This will push my 3-way components off the A/B side, and my super burly 8's off the D side.

I also have a DC Audio XL12 with dual 2 ohm voice coils rated at 1500 rms. This is what I want to put the HCCA 2100 to. I can't really get a lock on what the fuse rating for this one is though. I notice people upsizing due to Orion's aftermarket recommendation. I assume it's got to be somewhere around 180 too. From your post (Haem) it sounds like the 2100 can easily deal with a 1 ohm load, and I'm pretty sure my sub can handle the power. My problem now is I drive an Audi A4 and I can't find any alternators bigger than 220. Said alt delivers 120 amps @ idle, full power at 1,250 rpm. So that's what I'm working with. I guess I want to know if I can run the Memphis and the Orion (gains set to 1/3) with the aforementioned alternator, 0awg big three, extra battery, and a decent power cap even though I can't stand caps. And once in awhile, I like to turn it up.

I hope this isn't too fragmented. I mentioned names not for plugs or traffic but because You need to know the manufacturers claims are reasonably close to what they state. Thank you. 

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Fine the employers.

OK I ran a orion HCCA 425 for years, running each pair of channels at one ohm bridged driving a pair of DVC 12's off each channel, never had it fail and never had it give me a single issue, amp still works to this day. I think your charging system WILL run it if you do all the upgrades you say, keeping in mind that that max draw is almost never achieved and never sustains. For the record though you saying your gains are gonna be at 1/3 is a somewhat useless statement as the gains being set at 1/3 off a 2volt source is now where near the same as those same settings being fed by a 9volt source.

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double-secret reverse-osmosis speaker-cone-induced high-level interference distortion, Its a killer

Ok, I have narrowed down the 2100 to 3 generations. I want to know what the differences are between these three amps. I've done some research and so far it's somewhat inconclusive. Do they all push 1600 rms at 1 ohm? Or is it just the 3rd gen? Orion has a site where this information "should" be, but it's all a bunch of spammers and people that can't spell. Thank you again.

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Fine the employers.

Not really...

They'll bridge to 400RMS into 4-ohms, all day (same power as 2-ohms per channel). That's 800RMS into 2-ohms (same power as 1-ohm per channel), which they WILL do, again... Happily. All day. The 100WPC versions were not spec'ed to 1-ohm bridged (.5-ohm per channel in stereo mode), although they would do it, just not happily. I expect they were more likely in the 1000-1200 WRMS range, but they WILL run very hot, even to the point of possibly shutting down in a permanent-damage sort of way... I recommend LOTS of forced-air cooling, if you want to try that kind of load.

The HCCA225 would run that load and then some. As I mentioned, I bridged mine into a .5-ohm load.

As far as the differences? Gen1 required a BDG-400 to bridge it and no crossover; was as close to "the perfect amplifier" as I can recall. Gen2 was internally bridged, and Gen3 was the same cosmetics as the Gen2, but was internally bridged with crossover, IIRC.

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Thank you, Haem! Here's why I'm asking so many questions; I wanted to go with an HCCA because they are unregulated, (right)? I was hoping to eventually (maybe not with this car) feed it enough voltage to power my 12" sub. However, I don't want to drop the ohm level so low as to make the amp all hot and uncomfortable. I don't want shutdown or permanent damage.

Here's my problem, I have a DC Audio XL12 (d2). It's rated at 1500 rms. I have a pair of this same company's Level 2 8's and I can assure you with the utmost confidence that the 1500 rms to 3000 max rating is unbelievably conservative, When I got my 8's I thought they were frozen; very stiff suspension. Same with the 12. Anyways, I wanted to be able to convert my whole system to HCCA amps, (again, probably with a different car). But I don't think the 2100 is up to the task and I can't afford to put one on each voice coil. My ohms aren't low enough for that to work anyways.

So I guess it's back to the drawing board.

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Fine the employers.

Why not a bridged 250? Parallel the voice coils, for a 1-ohm load...

Bridged into 4-ohms = 200
Bridged into 2-ohms = 400
Bridged into 1-ohms = 800

Find a pair, and run one 8" woofer on each! :)

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

The 8's would be happy with that. I should have ordered 1ohm voice coils on the 12! Didn't want my quality to be too terribly bad though.

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Fine the employers.

I just re-read and realized what you said about running the 225 at a 1/2 ohm bridged. Holy crap! (A nod to Ravendarat as well).

I just got into a situation where I'm probably going to aquire the HCCA 2100 "Competition Amplifier", and the 225 "Digital Reference". Can you tell me what DR means? The reds all seem to change a little with each subsequent generation. This was mostly the info I wanted from this post (well why didn't you say so in the first place). I want to know what I'm looking at when I see things like DR, or Competition, etc. Thank you again!

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Fine the employers.

Wow! Back in September is when I began my quest for the old school Orions. How far we come when we put our minds to it. I have a few things now. Even a couple things that not everybody has.

I'll take this over the new stuff anyday!

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Fine the employers.

The original designer of the Orion HCCA amplifiers was Lonnie Vaughn, who is now the head of engineering at a company called Emotiva.  He could answer any questions you have.  Go to www.emotiva.com and drop him a line.

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