Does anyone have a MAaudio amp?

imbrognolouis · Post by **imbrognolouis** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 9:41 pm

i base my say on not liking his ma audio amp by runing the same sub as my zapco reference 200 (200x1rms at 4 ohms bridged) and his ma amp runing 400rms x 1 at 4 ohm(this is what he said the tech spec sheet he has says so asuming hes right) in his car. A 2004 lancer, its his ma audio 8" sub. With my amp at the same gain and crossover point it sounds louder, and more musical. He agreed with me on the matter as well. Not on tech specs at all.

So before you post a flame on me about how i judge things please ask what i'm judging by.

And what we were debating on was the SQ side of the amp if you read on one of my earlier posts i said this amp can be used for spl just fine.

not to mention a few years back my buddy shawn had an ma audio amp brand new and installed by best buy. Amplifier had problems within the first month had to send for service. came back few months later again back to the shop for repairs. he ended up selling after this. Was my first impression of ma audio and first impressions have lasting effects. Coulda just been a fluke amp, but it sure made me think they made junk. Not to mention the cheap price tag. I figured you get what you pay for. Not to mention look at all the other brands the company makes...

Post by **GlassWolf** » Fri Jun 09, 2006 9:44 pm

I still say MA Audio gear is cra, built with inferior internals for cheap, but if all you want is cheap and loud, I'm sure they're wonderful for you.
Personally, I prefer something that will last me for ten or more years and offer outstanding SQ and ample power at or beyond it's CEA specs.
Don't even bother referencing CAF here. I can count the people on CAF who know dick about car audio on one hand, and have fingers left over. That forum is full of nothing but flame wars and egotistical fools.
As for SPL events, that really proves very little, considering I've seen people win SPL "events" using Sony subs and BOSS amplifiers.
I still wouldn't own any of it, if it was given to me for free.

I do however recognise and understand the zelotous approach people take when someone else has a low opinion of a brand they personally use or own or even just prefer, and with that taken into account, you're welcome to like whatever makes you happy, since in the end that's all that really matters, right?
Someone asked for opinions on MA Audio though, and having worked on, and been inside of their amplifiers cince even prior to their name-change, I've yet to be impressed by anything I've seen to date.

audiobass10 · Post by **audiobass10** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 7:24 am

Waldodamon wrote:Are they SQ amps?

What's an SQ amp?

joeyc · Post by **joeyc** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 7:26 am

ma = sq = supremely questionable

Waldodamon · Post by **Waldodamon** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 10:24 am

imbrognolouis wrote: not to mention a few years back my buddy shawn had an ma audio amp brand new and installed by best buy. Amplifier had problems within the first month had to send for service. came back few months later again back to the shop for repairs. he ended up selling after this. Was my first impression of ma audio and first impressions have lasting effects. Coulda just been a fluke amp, but it sure made me think they made junk. Not to mention the cheap price tag. I figured you get what you pay for. Not to mention look at all the other brands the company makes...

Can you spot the first problem? I can. I have heard installs with Alpine and Fosgate's older stuff sound like complete ASS due to Best Buy's install. Please don't base ANY opinion on ANY product solely on a BB install.

GlassWolf, I agree with you. MA is garbage on the inside, no doubt. If the poster took his Zapco amp apart and his bud took his MA apart, the poster would laugh and his friend would cry. I won't argue that there are MUCH better amps out there, I would be a complete fool to do so. I also would not base judgement on ANY company by hearing only one product, for the same reason.

I laughed my ass off when I read what you posted about CAF. Funny thing is, Geo posts here AND there too. Now I know you weren't talking about Geo, OR Ryan From Ohio, but there ARE SOME people at CAF that unfortunately don't post here that DO have insight and know what's going on. Unfortunately they are a vast MINORITY.

SQ amp? Well. Ok. Take a Z1, hook it up to my EX15's. Let's pretend, I know this isn't Mr. Rogers, but still, humor me, that my MA puts out 5000 wrms just like the Z1, and in the same car, with the same box, same alt, EVERYTHING THE SAME except instead of the Z1 we hook up the MA, you're going to tell me you won't hear a difference? I believe that though we're pushing 5000 wrms and we're WAY past the threshold of SQ, with both amps pushing true 5000 wrms, the Z1 is going to sound much, much better. So maybe I was incorrect in relating to amps as I do subs, as "SQ" models, but I was hoping someone would catch my drift.

I think the psoter can even vouge for what I mean by referring to his Zapco as opposed to his buddy's MA. Yes I am sure the THD on that Zapco is much lower than the THD on the MA, but there are more factors. IMO, there are amps out there that just sound cleaner and amplify cleaner than other amps. Whether it has to do with better internals, better Q/C, whatever.

I used to use a Fosgate Power 551X, 70 wrms x4 amplifier. I admit, it was clean. Used it bridged for my old mids and highs. Threw it on my new Cadence CWM6-Kit mids and highs, sounded GREAT. Then I won 2 Cadence Q3000 100 wrms x 2 amps on E-Bay refurbed, both for 64 bucks, I was happy because if I didn't like them for whatever reason, I could sell them at triple that easy. ANYWAY, I "thought" that Fosgate amp was clean. I was wrong. The Cadence amps blew it right out of the water, which is why I can't wait to get this Mark VIII project going. It's also why I would say that my Cadence amps seem to have better SQ than the Fosgate did. Am I incorrect in saying that? Possibly, but until someone explains to me exactly WHY that is incorrect, that is what I am going to say......

I am already selling one out of the three HC4002's I have on E-Bay. Hopefully I can get it sold, and use the money towards a better sub amp. If it does sell, I will also sell my two used HC4002's. There's always a buyer out there, that's the way I see it.

Again guys I wasn't aiming to start shit here, I try not to do that. I was just making a point, don't judge a product unless you absolutely know that you have heard it in a proper install, that's it.

imbrognolouis · Post by **imbrognolouis** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:42 pm

i understand what your saying. Truth is BB dont know shit lol. Buddy of mine took his explorer there told em not to mount his kicker amp on his l7 box. well we end up walkin in the back, see the dumbasses reading an install manual and the amp was mounted on teh back of the box. I dont know why he didnt say anything to them. He should have. Not a few days later he was bumpin that sub realy hard and guess what happens? i guess it rattled some stuff loose in the amp and it had to go for repairs. Guess who wouldnt pay for the shipping even to get it repaired? lol nuff said. your right they suck.

I do kinda want to ask just because i dont know. If your just tossin in a sub and amp, how is there a instaling it wrong if the sub ends up playing? could you expand on it a bit?

audiobass10 · Post by **audiobass10** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 12:51 pm

Waldodamon wrote:SQ amp? Well. Ok. Take a Z1, hook it up to my EX15's. Let's pretend, I know this isn't Mr. Rogers, but still, humor me, that my MA puts out 5000 wrms just like the Z1, and in the same car, with the same box, same alt, EVERYTHING THE SAME except instead of the Z1 we hook up the MA, you're going to tell me you won't hear a difference? I believe that though we're pushing 5000 wrms and we're WAY past the threshold of SQ, with both amps pushing true 5000 wrms, the Z1 is going to sound much, much better. So maybe I was incorrect in relating to amps as I do subs, as "SQ" models, but I was hoping someone would catch my drift.

I'd have to say I disagree 100%. You even proved yourself wrong in your post. In your example you are "WAY past the threshold of SQ". You're not going to hear the difference. It's gunna be loud under the circumstances you've given.

Now lets take one 8" sub played at moderate SQ volumes and do the same swap with the amp..a smaller amp take a Boss, Legacy and Pyle amp and a super SQ Zapco amp. Have someone install each amp and play each amp within its limits. You WILL NOT tell the difference. However, the majority of people who buy cheap amplifiers turn the gain all the way up from the beginning.

Bwcad1 · Post by **Bwcad1** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 3:08 pm

and wont have equipment in 2 months. there is a reason i run autotek amps there thd is .1% with that low of a percent i can run much much much more power to my subs because they arnt getting near the distortion of a cheaper amp.

Post by **GlassWolf** » Sat Jun 10, 2006 5:08 pm

working a bit backward here, putting a sub and amp into a car does not a good install make. To expound on this, things like proper box tuning and construction, driver and enclosure positioning, and amplifier setup can make a world of difference (I've personally fixed a lot of systems for customers free of charge simply by properly adjusting gain, crossover, etc on an amp installed by CC, BB, etc.. because the installer simply maxed out the settings for peak "power" (and distortion)) Install can make or break a system as much as choosing the right components for your goals.

In regards to CAF, Thy, Geo, and a handfull of others there are highly skilled, and very intelligent. It still baffles me why they bother to stay in that flame-fest of a forum, honestly, but people like them are the reason I said there are a few good ones there.. and as you noted, they are few and far between, and don't sadly make up for the overwhelming decline of Western civilization exhibited there.

About SQ (sound quality) amplifiers. As we've discussed many times here in the past, power is power, and a watt is a watt. The measure of an amplifier's quality or worth in any setting in my view, is based on it's transparency (ability to amplify the signal without adding any coloration), it's ability to produce it's full output without clipping the amplifier's power supply (headroom) thereby always having enough reserve juice for transient demands, and the overall build and design quality of the amplifier which details things like board and circuit design, choice of components and approach to things like power supply and circuit isolation, etc.
What all of that means to the owner is:
the ability to put out a lot of clean power without sounding flat of two-dimensional at high volumes
long lifespans for the amplifiers (think 10+ years of hard use without failures)
and things like well thought-out ergonomics for cable placement, connection types, setting panels, etc.

Any amp can put out a lot of power, but how long will it last? how clean or transparent is it? how much abuse can it take without sapping the power supplies? How easy is it to adjust settings once it's installed in the car with everything wired up?

I don't really draw any lines between amps for SQ and SPL, but I do draw a distinction between well-made nd cheaply-made products in this case.

Waldodamon · Post by **Waldodamon** » Sun Jun 11, 2006 3:41 pm

audiobass10 wrote:I'd have to say I disagree 100%. You even proved yourself wrong in your post. In your example you are "WAY past the threshold of SQ". You're not going to hear the difference. It's gunna be loud under the circumstances you've given.
Now lets take one 8" sub played at moderate SQ volumes and do the same swap with the amp..a smaller amp take a Boss, Legacy and Pyle amp and a super SQ Zapco amp. Have someone install each amp and play each amp within its limits. You WILL NOT tell the difference. However, the majority of people who buy cheap amplifiers turn the gain all the way up from the beginning.

I understand (or atleast THINK I understand) your point. However, GlassWolf hit the nail on the head in the post under yours about transparency, clipping, and headroom. These are all things that I was trying to explain in my post with lack of sufficient or correct vocabulary. I was using SQ to cover all of them, which I now see is a wicked mistake.

Keep this coming guys, I want to learn what terms I am misusing and what concepts I don't understand at this time. Constructive criticism is great, which is why I like it here. At CAF, well, we all know what these replies would have looked like over there, and where would it have gotten myself or any other reader education-wise? Nowhere.

Now that I know that transparency is the term used to describe the "coloration" or "lackof" in an amplifier's reperoduction of sound, now that I know that "headroom" is used to describe the amount of clean power that an amp can use for spikes at a particular gain setting, let's run with this. I already have a moderate understanding of good and bad clipping, and its effects on amps and subs. (Thanks to some Geo posts at CAF) I am versed on the damping factor of amps, however illegitimate that number may be due to too many parameters for one number, ie different impedances at different frequencies, I know it exists and a basic definition could be that it is meant to describe the "control" an amp has over a subwoofer. A damping factor discussion alone could fill 20 pages of forum.

What defines optimum transparency? I am believing that if transparency could be related to number-wise, from 1-10, 1 would be low transparency, meaning that the amp would sound less clean than a 10, which, with transparency, would not have a lot of "colorful" fill. I could be quite wrong, but please correct me if I am. Back to defining it, what I mean is, what PRODUCES better transparency in an amplifier? Better quality "innards"?

Headroom's next. Again I have my own "theory", and had I not been so excited to respond to you guys I would have read about this first through the search, which I WILL do after this post, but it's always good to have an open discussion on it, epsecially with open-minded people who know exactly what they are talking about. It seems to me that headroom would BEST be measured with an oscilliscope. This way you could play tones through the amp and use the scope at any certain gain to see at what gain settings the spikes start to clip, no? I am sure you could use a DMM to find out how much of a voltage peak you get with these spikes, but a DMM isn't going to let you know when there is clipping.....

This is all interesting stuff. When I first joined CAF 1000 and some-odd posts ago, I was like a dry sponge looking for water. I am personification proned by the way. After a while, I, the sponge, was starting to suck up the scummy residue left by the flame wars, and that sucked. Now, I have run myself under the sink, cleaned off the scummy residue, which there was a lot of, recycled the clean water I had soaked up from over there, and am eager to start soaking in more knowledge.

Thanks guys!!!!!!!!