Cerwin Vega Amps on ebay/ubid - cheap zapco/arc power

[durwood]

Want some cheap and solid power and don't care it's mfg in China like everything else?

Search for Cerwin Vega amps on ubid and ebay.

It appears to be a Robert Zeff design, but they must not have been selling and Cerwin must have unloaded all their old stock to many retailers.

http://www.nikola.com/serv01.htm

Cerwin EXL350.2


Clarion APX401.4


Arc Audio 2100XXK


Zapco Z200C2

[JayBee]

yeah, those vega amps have been going for next nothing on ubid for about a month now. I've seen the 1200.1 go for <$100 on several occasions.

[OldOneEye]

Be VERY careful with the shipping. They have $23 for one amp and $50+ for the other Cerwin Vega I saw. Get a quote before bidding on anything on Ubid.

Juan

[bottom3]

Here's an internal of the elx1200d
http://www.caraudio.com/forum/showthread.php?t=288845

[durwood]

And here too:

Amplifier Pros and Engineers tell me how this amp looks to you (1200watt Class D)

I did a quick power up and listen of the EXL350.2 the other day.

No turn on/off noises.
No/extremely un-noticable hiss (ear right up against super tweeter ).
knobs are solid and you can even adjust without a screwdriver.
Solid clean power

Plastic ends are flimsy but can be removed if you find them ugly.

Board has a date of July 2001 stamped in it. Have these really been out that long? I must have been living under a rock.

[atsaubrey]

gotta love fans on the bottom of the amp.

[bjayjr5679]

do these make rated power?

[dbphelps]

Originally Posted by atsaubrey

gotta love fans on the bottom of the amp.

The fan is there to circulate air around a certain set of components, not necessarily to cool them off with a blast of cool air, so even if you mount it on carpet, it creates enough turbulance to do it's job...

The 1200D is an evolution of the same design used in the SoundStream Picasso 1400.1, the Kole Audio QX1-2400D, Lanzer Heritage HTG2600D, PA A2400dB and SPL Z1X-2400D... Those were overrated amps and the Cerwin Vega is underrated a bit, as it should put out close to 1500watts into 1 ohm at 14.4 volts...

The Cerwin Vega rating of 1200watts is still slightly underrated at 12v as my buddies benched out over 1350 @ 12v @ 1ohm about 5-6 months ago...

[3.5max6spd]

Yep, those are Zeff designs made by UBUY in Taiwan. More in line with the KAR series stuff they sell through Arc over here.

[dbphelps]

Originally Posted by bjayjr5679

do these make rated power?

Yes, they use unregulated supplies and are about 10-15% underrated...

They are exactly the same as the Arc Audio 2100XXK/CXL/4050XXK/CXL as well as the Zapco Reference 350.2 and Reference 360.4... Same exact design right down to the crossover section and options... The Zapcos only added thier balanced line driver stuff...

I have to admit, I did pick up 8 of these amps (3 1200Ds, 3 350.2s and 2 400.4s) as they are a hell of a deal...

I was even entertaining the idea of possibly 6 or 7 of them in the same install for the 'insane' factor... Just imagine 4 DIYMA 12" subs on 2 of the 1200Ds...

The CV logo on the amp itself is the only real 'detractor' to the amps themselves... Thank god they removeable stickers on top... I talked to a buddy about making a custom grey CV logo to match the lettering on top of the amp... Either that or another custom logo...

[durwood]

hehehe. I picked up 4 of the 350's and 2 of the 400.4's all of which are going in my car. I just missed the 1200 boat, but I'm not concentrating on sub power. I just want headroom for my array project in the car. Finally ditching the oldschool A/D/S stuff that had no headroom.

[3.5max6spd]

Originally Posted by dbphelps

Yes, they use unregulated supplies and are about 10-15% underrated...

They are exactly the same as the Arc Audio 2100XXK/CXL/4050XXK/CXL as well as the Zapco Reference 350.2 and Reference 360.4... Same exact design right down to the crossover section and options... The Zapcos only added thier balanced line driver stuff...

If I'm not mistaken those amps use 4 layer boards...or maybe just the 4150 and 2500 did...not sure on the zappy's.

But that red board on the CV pic looks like some of the early first gen KAR series 2layer boards.

In any event, def nice price on what should be pretty bulletproof designs.

[durwood]

the 2100 and 4050 are SMD, so they could be 4 layer, but SMD doesn't dictate it's 4 layer. IMO, it's a simple clean design-I see no reason why they would use 4 layer to raise the cost up. Not much of a benefit IMO, but who knows?

Nothing wrong with thru hole and 2 layer. More solid and easier to fix if something goes south.

Definitely great price on a bulletproof design from the 90's.

[3.5max6spd]

Man that 1200.1 looks beefy....

old ArcKAR 900.1 class D

[ehiunno]

Any ideas on how long this will be around? Is it a limited supply deal or will it be here for at least a couple months. I dont want to miss out on this like i did the PPI DCX

[dbphelps]

Originally Posted by ehiunno

Any ideas on how long this will be around? Is it a limited supply deal or will it be here for at least a couple months. I dont want to miss out on this like i did the PPI DCX

They have been selling out like this for almost 2 months, so they are getting to the end of it...

Don't worry, I *may* end up liquidating my 'stock' as there may be a car purchase in my future...

[bjayjr5679]

I wonder if one of the 300.2 would power my 2 arc8d2's well with one channel @ 4 ohms going to each woofer?

[BLD 25]

those C-V amps are like $33 to ship, though.

[bjayjr5679]

i got the 350.2 and the 400.4 for 148 shipped.

[JayBee]

ubid will get you on shipping, but alot of the time you can pick something up cheap enough that it doesn't matter.

[Daishi]

I got one for $55 shipped

[drake78]

Is there any hard evidence that these are indeed zapco/arc audio quality? Even if it's the same design but with different components. The sound will be different. I look at ampguts and the components are different.

[durwood]

Originally Posted by drake78

Is there any hard evidence that these are indeed zapco/arc audio quality? Even if it's the same design but with different components. The sound will be different. I look at ampguts and the components are different.

Perhaps you missed the link I posted in the first post?

Engineering Services
Circuit Design
Audio
Power Amplifiers, switching power supplies, & signal processing.
Embedded Design
We have complete development tools, ICE & C-compilers for:
Atmel
Microchip
Motorola
Zilog
Mechanical Design
All mechanical design aspects for consumer or commercial packaging.
PC Board Layout

Single and multi-layer PC board layout using Mentor Graphics PowerPCB tools.
See our designs:

http://www.thermioncs.com
http://arcaudio.com
http://agsense.net
http://Clarion.com
http://vibeaudio.co.uk
http://cerwinvega.com
http://xradia.com
http://www.zapco.com

Did I do a circuit analysis? No. Do I need to really? Not really. Logically it makes sense to design a solid design once, sell over and over. That's how you maximize profits and save you from doing lots of extra work.

The basics are there,

TIP35/36 outputs fed by tip31/32 pairs
current sharing resistors 0.1ohms
caps are of same value which pretty much means you can assume the same rail voltages were used and the transformer appears to be the same size.
Only thing I didn't bother to look at was the transistors and diodes used in the power supply, but they are there in plenty and do their job.

Does it matter? It's an amp. Any "signature sound" is going to be thrown out the window since DSP is going to be used to correct gain, frequency response, etc etc.

If it really matters to you, I can locate a basic zapco/robert zeff schematic and you can imagine the "SQ" this amp can deliver.

Hell, get two of the 350.2's and you pretty much got yourself a TRU S44-just in a much larger footprint.

[drake78]

Originally Posted by durwood

Perhaps you missed the link I posted in the first post?



Did I do a circuit analysis? No. Do I need to really? Not really. Logically it makes sense to design a solid design once, sell over and over. That's how you maximize profits and save you from doing lots of extra work.

The basics are there,

TIP35/36 outputs fed by tip31/32 pairs
current sharing resistors 0.1ohms
caps are of same value which pretty much means you can assume the same rail voltages were used and the transformer appears to be the same size.
Only thing I didn't bother to look at was the transistors and diodes used in the power supply, but they are there in plenty and do their job.

Does it matter? It's an amp. Any "signature sound" is going to be thrown out the window since DSP is going to be used to correct gain, frequency response, etc etc.

If it really matters to you, I can locate a basic zapco/robert zeff schematic and you can imagine the "SQ" this amp can deliver.

Hell, get two of the 350.2's and you pretty much got yourself a TRU S44-just in a much larger footprint.

Thanks for the efforts, I learned something new. appreciated

[t3sn4f2]

I'd take these things apart and go over them with a very fine tooth comb. You never know where there might a little spec of solder just waiting to fall off something and fry your $200 dollar tweeters. Especially under the board where you can't see and where these things are more likely to be. I would even poke ever single last component on there just in case. If everything checks out with yours, then you got yourself a nice gem.