You'll be fine with the Kicker amp.

 

"Does amp quality matter even when using a DSP?"


Yes.

 

you cant fix bad signal. you can only shape what you start with

 

YES...

Quality matters... in amplifiers, speakers, subwoofer... and yes even DSP's...

The old adage "Crap in, Crap out..." does still apply...

Now this doesn't mean you must spend tens of thousands on equipment... but you should perform your due diligence and use quality equipment.

 

Noise floor matters. Adequate power matters. Reliability matters. That's about it. Even FR is basically irrelevant with a DSP front end and in situ measurements.

Anyone who talks about amp "SQ" is functionally deaf, incompetent at setting gain structure, a sales-hack, or some combination.

 

You have your own special way of forcing your opinion.

 

Oh god.....here it comes again......:dead_horse:

 

Haha!

 

I'd keep the kicker amp, the jl is nice but its got a lot you don't need and the kicker has more power which may come in handy. the kicker is not a cheap crap amp so I wouldn't worry.

 

thanks, i just wasn't sure if my kicker amp was classified as crap lol. I no its cheap.. but if i wont be able to hear a sound different with my kicker vs a JL audio amp than ill be happy with my kicker.

 

Someday (hopefully) one of the major manufacturers is going to see that some people don't need or want processing in their amplifiers. Especially with more and more headunits now being offered with excellent onboard crossovers and DSP.
That might be counter-intuitive to marketers but, offering less sometimes is more!

 

cool thanks guys, and i was more talking about mid grade vs high grade amps, not so much cheap-o stuff.

when i had this zx850.4 installed in my last setup i was in the shop with the shop owner and I watched him do the install "mostly because it was a 1 room place and i had no ride home lol" and when he was tuning or whatever with some kind of measuring device he said it was a really clean signal, he even asked if i wanted to sell the amp.. i was like no.. its being installed, i want it.. lol

 

While this is a heated subject here with people on both sides, I am on the side that you can hear a difference between two properly designed similarly rated amplifiers that are at different price points.

No other changes, I swapped directly from a perfect condition JL Audio 1000/1 on my subwoofers to a Mosconi Zero3. The Mosconi has about 100 watts more so you should not be able to tell a difference. The difference was night and day. At volumes where I thought the subs were at their limits it turned out it was the amplifiers. The JL could drive them to distortion. The Mosconi is significantly louder and I have never heard one miss step from the subwoofers with it.
Even switching the JL 450/4 for the Zero4 was a large change in SQ. Highs were crisper and midbass had more impact.

Mind you, this is with no EQ changes or TA changes at all. Same crossover points too. Just a simple amp swap.

*sees pitchforks and torches approaching*

 

generally speaking, amplifiers are vastly less responsible for tone and acoustic accuracy than speakers would. Switching between different drivers will definitely sound differently, but switching between amplifiers is much less likely to be noticeable, especially if you are comparing 2 amplifiers that have similar power ratings and exist at a similar price point.

Comparing a JL amp to a Mosconi amp with twice the power isn't really fair. The Mosconi amps, even if they were near the same wattage level as the JL, would probably cost 3 times as much. They aren't really comparable.

In my past experience, because I have discriminating ears, I can hear the difference between varying amplifiers but most people can't.

The HAT 3 way components are high enough quality that I would probably change the Kicker out for an Arc Audio XXK or KS; they are affordable and widely touted to be excellent sounding. I used to love Kicker, and the amps put out good power, but they are not sonically the cleanest amplifiers in the world.

 

In my past experience, because I have discriminating ears, I can hear the difference between varying amplifiers but most people can't.

The HAT 3 way components are high enough quality that I would probably change the Kicker out for an Arc Audio XXK or KS; they are affordable and widely touted to be excellent sounding. I used to love Kicker, and the amps put out good power, but they are not sonically the cleanest amplifiers in the world.

Interesting how some people have "golden" ears but can say with confidence that others dont. Lol

I say try it. If you like how it sounds then who care if people here think that it'll sound better with an expensive amp. As long as it's not a junk amp it'll sound good enough to not hear enough difference to justify a crazy expensive amp.

If you were amp shopping I'd have a recommendation, but I can't justify getting a new amp just because you might hear a difference.

 

Agreed....just go with the Kicker that you already have. If you like how things sound, you just saved yourself some cash.

 

yes, some people have golden ears and some people don't. I work for one of the world's largest professional audio companies and in our headquarters, we only have 3 people who have good enough ears to detect tine changes, which can be detected using an Audio Precision, CLIO or Klippel. I am one of the three. I was born with good ears; I can't claim that I earned them.

We also have industrial engineers and graphics designers who have "golden eyeballs". I definitely don't have those and I don't know if I could develop them if I wanted to. And there are people who are super sensitive with their eyesight, or smell.

The OP bought HAT components so he might actually be interested in optimizing sq.

OK, so here is a recent experience:
I designed a set of professional audio loudspeakers and met with our distributor to demonstrate them. We hooked up Powersoft amplifiers built in Italy, and the speakers that I had designed, with passive crossover tuning, on Crown amplifiers, suddenly sounded harsh on the Powersoft amps. In fact, they sounded so harsh that I didn't want to listen to them any more. Then we switched out some other old school G/H class amps and suddenly they sounded much better.

The distributor I was meeting with sells millions and millions of dollars of equipment in China each year, and I think he is the #1 distributor for Powersoft in the world, but he acknowledged that these amplifiers sound bright.

Generally speaking, I did not expect the tonal difference to be so pronounced. In general, as we design loudspeakers we accommodate for cabinet design, transducer performance and crossover overlap through DSP tuning. Amplifier architecture usually isn't as significant in its impact to tone as the mechanical variables, and those places are where spending money has the biggest impact (usually).

But as people have said before, if you get an MS-8 with your Kicker amps and HAT components, the final product will probably sound quite good. I can't say that changing out the amps would make a huge difference to your ears. There is no way for me to predict whether or not you have critical ears, how much money you have or if it would be worth it to you.

 

NwAvGuy: What We Hear

Just saying............

Also isn't it funny that the car audio component that the majority of people say makes the biggest difference in car audio SQ is the one that is easiest to swap out and compare. Not including speakers of course which everyone agrees does affect quality. Yet in home audio where everything is easily accessible, everything pretty much make a huge difference down to how high off the ground you put a cable. Isn't there something to that?

Not saying people don't actually hear what they claim. It just might not actually be coming from outside stimulants. Which at the end of the day should not affect how you choose a product, but it definitely should change how you express you opinion on it.

 

My $.02... I know some amps sound different, however I don't think it is necessarily due to cost. Some amps sound different because they were made to sound different. Amplifiers are so low tech today there is no excuse to make one that colors the sound unless it was intentional, which it very likely was. It would take a D student to make a poorly working amplifier and even stupider management to go ahead and manufacture it. The only amps like that are 99% likely to be no brand name amps, even most chinese amps (before most all of them were lol) the circuits were copies of very common amps in use, proven designs. Not saying expensive amps are not better or don't do more than they spec for, just saying its hard to find a bad performing amp within its published specs that has a brand name on it. Cheap amps do like to break much faster.

I had a kicker 700.5 I ran for years. It was only 4x70 on highs and that amp would play into distortion softly and go louder, just more harsh, but it didn't fall on its face like some amps do at clipping. So it went loud for 70rms but didn't sound that great at those excess output levels. I ran other 75rms amps and clean power was about the same output level, some went louder some did not they fell apart. Finally got the kappa 125rms/ch and it sounds 99.5% the same until I exceed those levels and it stays clear to significantly higher volumes which are loud enough for me. So the kicker seemed to be a nice amp you can over run, but don't expect it to shine when you ask too much just like any amp but it does clip nicer than most. Since it sat an inch away from four 12s all the way around it and never failed mounted to that ib baffle, I have to say build quality was quite good. I actually bought that amp as a factory refurb with all new stuff and years later sold it for more than I bought it for, now thats a good amp lol. So I would try the kicker since its more power than you need it should work fine.

I have changed amps to change the sound of my system many times, but that was a lot more common in the old days than it is now. With 80s amps you never knew what you had unless it had a big brand name on it, and some of those sucked while a little known amp could work really well though it had less chance of doing so. Now a ton of amps are made by the same few companies anyway and high school kids make amps for fun projects. The smart ones make class D amps, at least in some countries they do.

 

the people that are answering "yes it matters!" are likely forgetting that car audio is a finite resource hobby for some, and the proportion of "matters!" vs. "really freaking great, really!" is so slight but the expense is quite high.... for some of us.

if you have a DSP the odds are you have enough control to bump the ends of an amp's response if it is actually deviating, and the noise floor is going to come from the DSP more than the amp, 9 out of 10...

even with cheaper dinky amps, the noise floor is the single most important tell, and DS-21 gets a star sticker for his post, haha...

the resolution is what we are really discussing in "sound quality" concerns and if we have control of the signal using DSP technologies then we have resolution, we have means to combat large-signal, or as lycan used to put it... small function, large function? no... something else...


anyways, the DSP is the contributing device that mediates the importance of amp quality and anyone who builds a system using low-spec/price/rep amps but using high quality DSP and speakers, is going to play ball on the same field as those with the uber pop amps, and their respective entry fee/pricing concerns.


I'd run the Kicker amp if there's room for it, and I'd be happy that it was one piece less to lose sleep over since it has the necessary power, and is generally quiet, so that it won't be the weak link in a DSP system.

I know it's great that we can buy huge Italian amps or German amps and they are special, of course it's more than price alone but for 99% of us the install that swaps to Kicker amps using similar power capability is not going to make anyone leave the car due to amp differences, and it's possible that some people choose the Kicker in ABX blind because they guessed better than others.

If it were a problem where price was no deterrent then use the UBER spec, otherwise be happy with your DSP investment and let it do what it do, and enjoy your sound.

 

If it were a problem where price was no deterrent then use the UBER spec, otherwise be happy with your DSP investment and let it do what it do, and enjoy your sound.

Yes sir, well put :laugh:

 

Yes it does matter and you get what you pay for.

Sent from my One Plus One using Tapatalk

 

Really? Where did you learn that? Team BHP?

 

Have a car running the cheapest sub/amp on the planet a visonic I think, 10" and little amp and box came in a kit for $40 or something on ebay. Its been in there for like 5 years hooked to a trailer plug so it can be removed for cargo, on a stock stereo system. It quits and she says can you look at it? I pull it out, the power wire is not hooked up the set screw is all the way out. All screws are loose. I tighten all of them, it works fine, I shake my head and laugh. Yeah output is modest but all that is needed with stock system really. Just saying, dirt cheap junk its still rolling just fine, sounds ok for a cheap 10, has not broke yet. A brand name should work better. While better amps last longer they don't sound different in a noisy car anyway, you need a really nice system to tell any difference and even then it may be in your head lol. Even if you can, it is likely to be a FR difference and not a THD difference assuming you are not clipping it.

 

well this that response im completely clueless why your on this message board :stunned:

 

What I can't get over is how there are so many car audiophiles that seem to ignore the fact that your noise floor is gone as soon as you start driving the car. What point does it serve to spend all that money on high end gear to chase that last 1% when you're rolling around in something with a 70+db noise floor.

 

I'd say that 50% of the pleasure of car audio is sitting in your car on a quiet cool night and either tuning or just listening. That's the only time I really care about refined SQ, and is when very low system noise floor is more important than in even a dedicated home listening room. The rest of the time its all just can it get loud enough for the environment without the sound falling too much apart.

 

I remember that particular Kicker amp being a pretty decent amp. As long as it works I'd keep it.

Amps do make a difference in sound and I'm not "functionally deaf" either. An amp makes a difference in sound if it adds to the noise floor and/or can't amplify the signal without distorting. But I do agree that as long as the amp is at least of decent quality and makes the power you need it makes the least amount of difference in the sound of the system.

 

OP, keep your Kicker or get another, more powerful amp in a similar price range. That DSP will make you forget about which amp you 'think' you might need after you get it dialed in. I suspect you may only want to look at a more powerful alternative because of headroom.
So, bottomline....as long as you stick with a brand/model that has some positive user history, you'll be fine. No need for boutique or high priced amps.

 

Amp quality used to be more important because there was a time not so long ago that the ability to make a difference in a system was based on head unit controls, and then equalizer function, and then there was just a passive crossover's 0 db or -3 db selection after the amp, especially because the amp had no pre-amplifier functions.

I remember when you were enthused by a midrange tone control on a deck.

That was something to be excited about, and sometimes it was just the thing you needed before throwing a costly equalizer into the mix.

Of course, that all seems preposterous today, with all the stuff being considered mandatory like DSP either in the deck or outboard, for serious sound systems. Things like 5 band equalizers and electronic crossovers were esoterica, in the days before preamplifier chip circuits that have 3 or 4 band parametric equalizers and 10 band graphic, along with various drive high Volt outputs and sub crossovers...

it's actually better today than it's ever been, even with all the nostalgia over solid-feeling detents and push button clicks, and aluminum face plates or copper coated chassis...

the ability to adjust a car's audio response using just the controls built into the deck of something like a Clarion CZ-702, means no amplifier today is left holding a leaky bag of stop-gap measures, like built-in pre-amp tone controls a-la-Punch, or Hawkins Bass Control, or other single band parametric equalizer circuits named for the purpose.

If the amp is relieved of all those duties it was once encumbered by, due to the addition of a purpose-built outboard DSP or even just what's in several decks out today under 200 bucks street price, then it is just a gain block and the value in it, is spread over how quiet it can be, how much power it can push cleanly, and how long it will continue to play. Besides fitment concerns, the circuit itself is relieved of producing sonic coloration that may stand out on a sound board but is considered less than optimal, since the DSP club is about the in-car response. And an amp that alters the response purposely is just one more thing to neutralize, along with the various horrors of the off-center positioning and resonant modes due to a reverberent capsule picking up and amplifying roadway noise in the form of tire rumbles and wind.

I think that is what is interesting about the camp that says the amp matters so much, yet deny the existence of a high sound floor when the gear is in use as important, they should stand in with their home audio counterparts and be counted in the favor of no equalization or DSP at all, corrupting the pure signal...

as this is normally how the debate threshes out.

However, this idea that amp sonics wouldn't matter if a DSP is in-circuit, cannot logically exist since amp sonics merely amplify whatever changes a DSP is capable of affecting in the audio, and by inclusion whatever amp sonics are imparted to the sound, it should help even the very best systems that have been adjusted using professional quality DSP parts.

So it's not as simple as saying "DSP makes amp's sonic contribution less important" unless one is defining the amp's sonic contribution by the preamplifier circuits that are no longer needed, in which case the maxim holds true.

That unidentified (as yet) physical property of high-value amplifiers that has owner's threads singing their praises, yet cannot be measured on any objective instrument, and which lycan so brilliantly presented in his "noise, gain, distortion or FR" deduced response, remains.

Is it marketing, that makes a Sinfoni owner feel compelled to argue on a message board, is it as simple as the power of suggestion?

Hard to say, haha...


but if you stepped up your game and picked up a deck with a DSP and/or an outboard unit, then it stands to reason that your control over the signal has eclipsed any small scale significance that amp circuit signatures were previously bedeviling us with, or by...

and the amount of change that can be effected in the car is orders of magnitude into the positive, in comparison with whether you buy a suite of amplifiers for 5 grand or 5 hundy, by the bye...

 

I'm not saying entry level gear can compete with high end stuff.

What I'm saying is there is a logical train of thought for the application of and the listening to the high end gear.

I have nice stuff in my listening room, but I have cheap PPI ion amps and some 75 dollar Pioneer components in my daily driver truck (and it sounds great) because it's noisy and makes a lot of noise going over bumps.

What it boils down to is that it just makes no sense to install high end gear in a car, unless all you do with the car is sit in it while it's parked. It's like buying a Veyron but never being able to drive it to its potential.

 

It's like buying a Veyron but never being able to drive it to its potential.

Not to change the subject, but I'd say 99.999999% of Veyron buyers are in that boat. Can't prove it, but I'll bet there might have been a half dozen guys that actually pushed theirs past 175....

 

I guess I'm one of the few that goes inside the house to listen critically to music on the good stuff instead of sitting in my vehicle out in the driveway.

My truck is loud enough that there is no discernable difference between expensive gear and average gear, so I'm more than happy with my ppi ion amps, 75 dollar pioneer components, and Sony head unit.

 

You'd be able to tell the difference if you put effort into a little door deadening, decent equipment, and a good tune. If you can't tell a difference then you have bigger problems on your hands. If you ever get a chance to sit in a true SQ car that's dialed in right you'll understand what's possible in a car. I've been lucky enough to sit in some of the better daily drivers in the country. Never been in a purpose built competition trailer queen though. I actually have a basic inexpensive system in the home that is used 100% for watching tv. NEVER music. I don't like exposing the others in the house to some of the music I listen to out of courtesy so I keep it confined to the truck which has a system built to be as good as my budget will allow. I'll stick with my mobile listening room that's also pretty comfortable too. Knowing how to tune for the mobile environment helps tooTime is getting away and it's supposed to get down into the 40's at night this weekend. PERFECT tuning weather under the cover of darkness

 

okay guys, i know that the quality of the amp matters to get a clean signal & other things that in turn give you better sound, but i was wondering does that still matter when connecting it to a DSP?

Yes, noise in = noise out.

 

of coarse it matters! your dsp isnt going to be able to repair your cheap flea market amp after it blows within a year

 

Don't forget about how those cheap amps usually fall flat on their face before they get anywhere near rated power. A watt is a watt until the power supply starts to sag way before the amp hits rated power:laugh: