opinions on old school amps

I was thinking of going with some older series amplifiers for my 07 Ion3 and was wanting to see what ppl think about the older brands of the early to mid 1990's. I remember many of them and had enjoyed them very much back in the day. Soundstream Reference series, HiFonics series VIII, the old Rockfords that were oval shaped and black... those are a few that I was thinking of. Targa was another brand that I just thought of...

Also, I was wondering if anyone had any opinions on a company called Alphasonik. I remember this company back in the late 80's when I was a boy looking through Crutchfield and learning about stuff. I searched for the brand tonight and was surprised to not only find a website but also find a variety of what appears to be pretty good amps.

Thanks ahead of time.

I was thinking of those soundstream reference amps mentioned above. In regard to the 705, is it 2ohm or 1ohm stable mono and does anyone know what the output would be (in other words, would I need one to push both of the G5 DVC 4ohm 10's I have @ 1ohm or would I need two of them, one for each ten @ 2ohms each)?

I looked at some pics last night of the Orions and it brought back some memories and Haemphyst, I've heard of ppl running them that low years ago. They are some powerful amps. My reluctance is how big they are. The amp rack I am thinking of doing is going to be on the underside of the rear deck with the amps facing down. So, I dont know if those amps would put like that would make them sit too low into the trunk, making them more of an obstacle in the trunk than anything else.

What about the HiFonics series? The last ones I liked were the Series VIII and I thought someone bought them out after that... maybe around 1996 or 97? And after that happened, the quality went down a few notches. The same thing happened to Autotek (remember the "Mean Machine Bass Thrust" amps? The ole Autotek44?) if I'm not mistaken. PPI too went through this round 1999? I was thinking of the HF Isis. I had a friend back in 1994-95 who had one of these jewels on two Pioneer "IMPP" 12s wired at 2ohms... the thing pounded. We had the 12's in a sealed box in a half camper shell on an S10.

With those comments, I'm looking forward to hearing the ones I have. I already bought mine: two 10inch G5 DVC @ 4ohms per coil, which is why I mentioned either wiring them both at 1ohm or 4ohms, *or* wiring each at 2ohms and putting an amp on each.

I remember the old fosgates well and one thing that I found is that they seemed to work well at a lower ohm load than what was recommended, and typically did it consistently. I was hoping to hear more about PPI and HiFonics but one of the things I am running into is finding an "old school" amp that is 1ohm mono stable. I have no problem with wiring two amps, one to each sub.

Regarding the G5's, do you have an opinion on sealed vs ported enclosures? You know many manufacturers will put specs for a ported enclosure out for a sub but some really dont sound good ported in spite of these specs.

So with the PPI: I was looking at the art series and the sleeker ones with the rounded chassis, usually black or nickel finish. They were pretty strong amps, or so I thought. Any comments on that?

Another thing: last night I spent some time on google and yahoo looking for images or info on the *old* Lanzar amps that were out before Optidrives, before Boss(i think) bought them out. We used to call them the "butterfly amps" b/c of the design of the heat sinks. I am not wanting to go with them but I just wanted to reminesce a bit. Wish I had some model numbers as that would probably help...

ppi art series:  all day!  awesome amps- i have had several old ones, now i have 4 pcx series in my truck (powerful,but they only run down to 2 ohm stereo-and have a HUGE current draw- like 400 amps altogether)

g-5's:  haven't run in ported enclosure.  i have ran in 1.0 and 1.25 cu foot sealed boxes (the 10's need like .5 cu. ft)- sound about the same-very tight, hard hitting. and hit the low notes good too.  when i added the gtr passives to the box, just really amplified the low end of the specrum.  didn't seem to change the excursion or power handling of the speaker.  i'm not a big fan of ported boxes, but i can imagine it would be hurtful.

I am thinking of using the GTR. I was wondering, would you have a better response with the subs facing towards the rear of the trunk and the GTR facing towards the front of the trunk, towards the small cavity that is usually present between the box and the back of the rear seats (provided that you did a typical non-sloping box). I was planning on doing individual chambers for each sub so I'd need two GTR's... only mention that in case anyone has done a common chamber with these and used one GTR with both subs.

The Art series sounds like the way to go. I surfed the net and found several on ebay. I picked out a four channel and a couple of two channels just to consider and I think I'll shoot for these eventually. I appreciate the input given to this topic tremendously. It's been fun to flashback in time!! For the time being, until I can get the PPI's, I'm going to run with a  Rockford Fosgate 551x on the mids/highs. I had this amongst my other things and figured I'd use it for now.

The front stage are a pair of Boston Acoustics SL65's... they sound really good, and a pair of Kicker Resolution R25's in the stock tweeter placement. The rear is stock... for now. This may sound crazy but I have some older speakers lying around that are still in great condition and work very well: a pair of Kicker Impulse 6.5 midbass drivers, a pair of Eclipse Point Source 4", and a pair of Diamond Audio 1" silks. I am thinking of putting the midbass in the stock rear locations and making a fiberglass pod to how the 4's and the Diamonds. Those would be positioned in a way that really gives a good image from the rear. It may be a waste of time but I think it would sound good.

I have a couple of eq's that I've wondered about using: the Eclipse 2101 and the Kicker KQ5. In the past, I'd run a separate eq of sorts; however, my last personal system used a Pioneer Premier DEH-860MP for a head unit and all the equalization was built in. I've considered using another Pioneer model like that again but I've also given thought to using one that may lack the on board eq but still does MP3 playback and is XM ready. I have a Pioneer XM receiver in the car already so Pioneer would probably be the route I'll choose. Any thoughts here?