Matt Schademann

One ting that makes me curious is that Pioneer axed the 80-PRS?? The only higher model is $1300 while the next highest model is like $200-ish!? Wonder why they killed it *update* - disregard. Their website shows 4 featured products in CD single din, and you can't see any others until you click 'products'

I think it was because I was sitting in a closed car without circulation (fan control and dash portion are in the back seat haha), we'll see when/if spring ever comes

I know, X-overs to be bypassed now.

I was able to find the BLT balanced line module online for only $50. Only thing is I don't know how that would work with proposed setup because there's only 2 ports for this. Or can these ports and BLT parse the highs and mids? Or would I use 2 of these boxes. One for L&R highs, one for L&R lows? http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_38337_Precision-Power-PPI-BLT.html I'd still be running the amp on 4-ch correct?

Thx M5 & Fi. I can't say it sounds better 4-way because I've only run it that way lol. So it's going to involve mapping out my existing X-overs (4 Diamond boxes) so I can get the right wires to their ports on the harness (PPI quick release). I'm terribly dyslexic so keeping track of things and numbering the wires w/tape is doable. Just may have to dedicate a half day on only that. But yeah after reading this I'm going to give it a shot. I wonder how many other HU's out there can go bi-wiring, IOW sep. high & mid RCA pre-outs? Have they been doing this stuff for awhile?

And for the record, I am completely stunned at the quality vs. cost. How can they pull this off? Just more efficient manufacturing these days?

OK...ok! That's intrigued me enough to make me give it a shot. I can't really complete it until I get a nice mounting kit anyway so it'll be a few days. Also making me take a 2nd look at my sub & amp. Seems to be all or nothing, from one tune to the next. Again, maybe it's the wild variety of genres but it's just light on one song and just way too heavy on the next. Thanks a ton for the help again. Is it common out there for HU's to have the ability to bi-wire the mid from highs with a switchable set of RCA? And perhaps because just sitting there with no air flow in the cabin the amp couldn't take advantage of circulation?

HOLY CRAP! After a couple hours of playing tweak-monster I made a huge amount of headway. Seems as though the settings in the pic was just about right, a lot of it came down to the HU EQ's and filtration that way. Also saw a YT vid about the 4 mid outs and the 3-way thing and it just jumps the entire program a whole nother level. So seeing as I can't live without rears I just may get a 2nd amp and bridge them that way..HA. Honestly, I can tell already the 115w/4Ω x4 is seriously pushing the limit of good sound. I don't feel like I'm distorting anything. But man that thing gets hot enough to fry an egg on. And that was sitting in my car on this 50˚ night. What gonna happen when summer kicks in? The lights flicker a bit, wonder if it's worth looking at a better alternator for this '08 Liberty. But yeah, the highs are a tad bright coming from strings in symphony to other stuff, but so far NIN sounds decadent. The router in my attic was barely reaching my garage, so I had to kill the wifi and use Verizon LTE network. Spotify AND Plex streamed through at least 320 if not 1411 WAV! Without a hitch. Just have to watch my minutes each month now LOL Thanks for the feedback! PS - one thing I learned this time around (as my neighbor set the gains to full and adjusted the volume around it), is to adjust the gains based on how much Pre-out V'ge you have. So this is a mean 5v, maybe more since my HU reads 14.3 on avg. on the front! I had the gains about 60% and then while it got hot, it didn't go into protect like before I posted this. Looking forward to making this amp and setup even more musical! I see the amp has a special line-connection like a mini XLR, or more like an S-Video looking port. BUT the PPI site doesn't even have this product listed??

the amp arrived today, and I just fooled around with the buttons until I came up with something that sounded good. Between the Pioneer DEH-80etc. and this there's a lot more tweaking than in the old days! I have 4 sets of comps, one in each door so they're all identical. I also have a matching crossover box for each comp with sep. cables going to tweet & 6.5 mid. I do NOT want to bridge this. I want full control over all four comps to adjust for placement strength etc. But I will say this, after listening for an hour in my driveway the thing went into protection mode...already! At one point on the fader, fading to ALL front made the sound (except sub) vanish, and fading to rear made the sound stay the same! I understand the concept of high/low freqs going to tweets, or mids, or sub only. But when it comes to numbers and 'Passes' I don't have a clue what I'm doing except hunt and peck! I'm almost there, check the graphic and what would you suggest doing? Thanks! SOmetimes it sounds brilliant (symphony/brazilian jazz) sometimes it sounds so shrill my ears are bleeding like a Chekov (most top 40)

"After snooping around inside it, I expected the amp to sound good, and I wasn’t disappointed! The PC640.4 is one of the more musical car stereo amps I’ve heard in a while. The amplifiers sonics were very similar to my studio reference amplifier, and that’s saying something...." - Garry Springgay - PASMag Review Sorry...just saw this, couldn't resist!

SAW that!! he used the A-word :-D OCS was out, it was their hot-deal of the week but I got hooked up. I love that I can add some PPI goodies to the thing later if I want, DSP's etc. This and almost all of SSA's items are pretty much unknown in these parts amongst the mainstream. I love any newer hungry less known company for everything, makes sure they don't take things for granted or just ride a broad fan-base. Oh over the phone, the guy sais Soundstream and PPI are pretty much the same company

OK so after being OCD with whatever research i can do without actually hearing one (most of these non-popular brands are very hard to find in a store like Ken, JL, Alp et al) I think the PPI Powerclass series is looking really good. Good connections and build, terrific price. Their website has it listed as unavailable, but I've seen it for about $200 online. I would eat the tax and get it from local just to support local biz but can't find any dealers in Chi that carry it! Unless anyone is going to stop me I'm going to pull the trigger on PPI PC640.4 - I don't think I'll be that starving for power with the Diamond Hex 600's. http://precisionpower.com/store/products/amplifiers/power-class/pc400-20.html I'll play with this and try to give some feedback to the forum with quality pix etc. And because Admin's here didn't try to steer me to one of SSA's lines, I think that's so classy I'll come back for the Crescendo I really want after I get this one tried out for awhile. THanks all! Wish I didn't have to wait for California shipping. It's going to be a LONG week, Xmas in April lol. Thanks again for the thoughtful replies. -matt

Yes, any headphone jack is going to be pure crap! That seems severely cheap though, it can't possibly be much of a quality conversion. There must be a mobile version that bumps up the audiophile processing at least as good or better than most nicer HU's that take the file via USB from ipod etc. you can throw in the glove box?

I'm trying to wrap my mind around this, but would anything like this be what you mean? http://precisionpower.com/store/products/accessories/signal-processors/deq-8-127.html#!prettyPhoto (granted 10x the cost of that Behringer)

cranking up volume and/or gains to compensate for not enought power causing clipping...?