jbeez

I am having some difficulty with my zapco currently, and if I don't get it sorted out I'll be replacing it, and while I'm at it I'll bump the watts up if I have to purchase something. Researching my options, I'm actually away from home this week so I can't troubleshoot on my car, so this is all I can do for now If I wasn't having problems I think it would be fine for the most part. Also getting support from anyone at zapco seems really difficult atm, I really love their products but the support has me second guessing them.

Sorry, the topic may be a little vague. I've recently found myself researching amplifiers as I may be replacing my zapco c2k 9.0xd amp shortly. I have 2 12" dvc subs with 1ohm per coil, and they handle 1800wRMS/ea. they're situated in a 4.2cu/ft box tuned to 30hz. The zapco puts out around 2200wRMS and I was looking for something a little closer to the subs rated input or over. So I've been working on a spreadsheet to compare different amps to try and discern a value. This task has been pretty difficult, most of the amps I'm looking at seem to be extremely similar or clones of one another? My understanding is that an "OEM" would reach out with a chinese or korean manufacturer and pick from a list of qualities they would like their amps to have, and based on those qualities the build house makes them, chooses various components to make this happen and ships them a lot of 500 or whatever units and the OEM then distributed them. Basically I'm not familiar with most of the brands, and some of the ones I am familiar with, I have no RECENT experience with them so I'm unsure on if they are still good, or what. Hoping some people can chime in and give me something to help decide. At present from all my research I'm looking at the US Acoustics Big Ben or a Zapco amp as top contender. It seems big ben has alot of value, although its an asian buildhouse amp from what I can tell, I see they specifically offer a 2yr warranty, Mike Nicholls is associated with this brand(a plus to me), and the SNR/THD numbers look good. Not that those would be deal breakers but I'm having trouble finding anything else to differentiate these amps by. If ZED made something closer to the power level I was looking for I would be considering that as well. So the brands and models I'm looking at are(copying from a spreadsheet I'm building with stats and prices) Brand Model Zapco C2k 9.0 XD US Acoustics Big Ben Zapco Z-3KD Arc Audio KS2500.1 Sundown Audio SCV-4000D Ampere Audio AA-3800.1 Crescendo Audio BC-3500D Sundown Audio SCV-3000D DC Audio 35k Crescendo Audio BC-2000D Crescendo Audio BC-5500D Digital Designs M3C Zapco Z-2KD Zapco ZX-65k Ampere Audio AA-5000.1 Icriminator Audio IA40.1 Zed Audio Minotaur Sound Qubed Q1-4500D.1 Synergy Audio WFO 15.1D Skar Audio SK-3500.1D Some of these just won't work out but I've listed them for consideration on things like strapping some smaller amps, but the impedance doesn't seem to work for me as I can only show a mono load of .25/1/4 ohm or a stereo load of .5 or 2. Also I'm trying to keep this simple. The US Acoustics earns more points as well because I can replace my rockford fosgate 800a4 with a barbara ann to run my highs and have matching new amps, and its really inexpensive with great stats on it. P.S. If you don't feel comfortable bad mouthing a brand or something like this on a public thread I understand, you can PM if you want or hold your tongue. I'm a brand new account on this forum and just signed up with the help of Aaron. If anyone is interested in the spreadsheet I have it in google docs I can share the link. current sub amp: https://photos.google.com/u/1/album/AF1QipN04tF_82tE1tcrdolXGSNhwhcgpR3srY3HPdlT/photo/AF1QipObdJkFPljwFH6kWSATKxoNboQMznNrNEkQ52ri current highs amp: https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/GsoTvSufeBtfXjumyGKBSM097TTOHpWBQKYiKo5h6ik=w507-h381-no Thanks for your time, sorry for the long post