I would guess a house brand made in China, though near all amps are made in China today so hard to say what the quality is. They don't say what class the sub amps are, that is kind of scary.

 

Might be their new "house" brand.

Personally, I've never heard of them.

Why not contact them and get some info.

 

Sorry for bumping, and I DO hope you read this.

Sound Ordanance is not a cheap china made brand. It's Crutchfields item. I called about it a few nights ago and got this info.

The products were engineered in England, with the help of Crutchfield and what CF customers wanted.

They aren't cheap products. All items would be pretty cheap if it wasnt for 2 people before the company sold it, had to deal with it. Think about it. Most valuable items go from the manufacture, to the Middleman, then to the retail person who's selling it. That calls for TWO more companies that need to make profit, before the person you are trying to buy from sells the item to you for THEIR profit.

In this case, since crutchfield doesnt need a MM or to buy from another company, it cuts down on the price a Ton!

Now do you see where im comming from? Don't complain about an item until you atleast have tried it.

 

so you have no experience with these either, right? you only know what a representative for the company selling the products told you, right? what proof do you have that they are not cheap / low end products? just because something was designed in England does not mean it is any better than something designed in the US or China.

these could turn out to be quality amps or they could be quality paper weights. until someone has bought and tested them no one can do anything more than speculate.

 

I'm going to take an educated guess, based on what Best Buy and Circuit City did with their house brands. They both went with established manufacturers (Bazooka, Audiovox, etc.) to help them since those manufacturers have experience managing the design and sourcing of products in Asia (I'm going to assume that Crutchfield has very little of that) so CF did the same thing, go with a manufacturer with a established relationship with all the prime manufacturers.

Not sure how good of a move it is for them, typically you have to buy big volumes to make it worth it... but if you factor in some of the savings (hey, they can have the manufacturer ship directly to CF, it might not be too bad).

Juan

 

I'm curious to see if someone actually has any playtime with this brand... They have a 4x100 amp with some decent numbers for $179.99
Sound Ordnance™ M-4100 4-channel car amplifier — 100 watts RMS x 4 at Crutchfield.com

 

Did a little Google-ing, and found that S/O is using the same manufacturer (Jia Shan) as Rockford Fosgate, at least for speakers it seems.

Speaker Electronic (Jia Shan) Co.,, Ltd 385 2 Huimin Eco And Devp Zn Jiashan Cn 573 4645778 | Manufacturer Report — Panjiva

May turn out to be a decently priced alternative to the likes of Kenwood, Sony,etc.

 

Sound Ordnance is actually a really good brand. I have the m-4100 amp and it's still kicking after a year of use. Go get one if the others are too expensive.

 

Think about it this way, Crutchfield is known to overprice their items. If they're able to offer these items at these prices, just how cheap are they in reality?

They'd have to be incredibly cheap for Crutchfield to offer it at such low prices.

 

This

Companies don't just give you good deals because they are feeling nice..
ESPECIALLY Crutchfield! I've heard of Sound Ordinance but I cannot say one way or another what type of quality to expect. I however, will stick to what's tried and true even if it costs me extra to do so because RMA and refunds suck ass. My time is worth more then the savings could ever be

 

good job digging up a 4 year old thread

 

I kinda wondered how Sound Ordinance was new to these folks Now I feel dumb having posted anything at all lol

 

Hey, at least the noob knows how to use the search button.

I've never personally heard S/O stuff, but it can't be any worse than Boss or Pyle, or similar names. The stuff does come with a 3 yr warranty so they're either desperate to sell them or they're that confident in their product.

If I were to ever consider buying their stuff, I'd call them and make sure that's not a pro-rated warranty (coverage diminishes over time) and find out what the process is if you ever do need to file a warranty claim. Not that any of them are "easy", but being an in-house brand maybe you actually ship the stuff back to Crutchfield.

I've been considering their stuff for my son's '86 El Camino just to get him started. He's 14 yrs old now so we have a couple of years to decide.

 

I think you'd actually be pretty safe buying them. I've never blown my Boss A/B amps that I have and I've pushed them to thermal shutdown lots of times, and my class D's have no problem. In fact the only amp I've ever blown was my old Profile California amplifier, the old blue one's with the curved top. After years of consistemtly running it in an enclosed area the caps swelled and inductors were just toasted to charcoal and eventually it just stopped working. I never bothered to try to repair it.

I don't know why people are so afraid of these inexpensive amps somehow breaking faster than any other electronic product. And from reading on this board about actual amplifier breakdowns I seem to consistently read more about JL Amps breaking down more than any other.

So pretty much it would seem that if your amp works right and is installed and setup right it's a rare occurrence for it to really fail on you.

 

Yeah. Sound Ordnance is really good in my opinion. I've had the amp for about a year and it never got hot. It pushed two Pioneer 6x9s and two 6.5s and they sound great. Doesn't hurt to try something new.

 

So I hope this helps settle the question. I purchased a Tacoma some time back with a rather impressive sound system from the prior owner. I mean this thing was loud as hell and clear as glass. It Consisted of 6 1/2 Polk Component sets front and rear with a JL 10" behind the rear seat (double cab). When I went looking for the source of all this wonderfull sound I lifted the driver rear seat and found this beautifully installed SO amp. My thoughts? "Sound Ordinance? WTF!?!?) So I went to doing some digging. Turns out that Sound Ordinance is made by the parent company for Rockford Fosgate. Yup. Same as Husky tools are made by the parent company for Craftsman. As it turned out the rig was powered by three SO M-2100's. One front, one rear, one bridged for the sub. I've since traded that truck for a Ram 2500 Quad Cab and aside from an updated version of the Tacomas head unit and finally getting my old Fosgate HXE 10's with my 1800W Kenwood installed, I purchased two more SO M-2100's. I've not done an actual SPL test but I'm guessing from oh... 25 years of building big car audio systems that I would be near the 115 db threshold. These amps are fantastic. No clip at full volume. Of course knowing how to calculate that stuff helps.. As far as the 1% THD confusion is concerned. Most every amp out there claims 1% THD Not 0.1% (that was a system that was debunked because it was established at the lowest audible settings or, 1 watt at 1 metter). Oh, These are a class AB amp. NOT class D. So if anyone is still on the fence about these bad boys. Try them out. You will not be sorry you did.

Random tidbit. Back in the heyday of car audio and up until not too long ago, all car audio speakers no matter what brand where made by only one of three companies. For instance Kickers which are the low quality variant of Blues are both made by a company called Stillwater Designs.

 

Pretty sure that isn't right. Credence was making stuff for Kicker (Stillwater Designs) back in the day before they took much of that work to China.

Blues and Kicker weren't owned by the same company as far as I know. Maybe they shared the same build house.

Random tidbit. Back in the heyday of car audio and up until not too long ago, all car audio speakers no matter what brand where made by only one of three companies. For instance Kickers which are the low quality variant of Blues are both made by a company called Stillwater Designs.

 

There has been more than 3 companies building these drivers for a LONG time. I can think of more than 3 within 100 miles of me (granted, Eminence and Credence were fairly popular builders).

 

There are many now yes. Over the past 15 years or so things have changed quite a bit. It's funny how things evolve too. I remember when MTX was a joke for folks that where serious about their mids and highs. Now the Road Thunder series from MTX is probably one of the meanest speakers you can get. Remember when you would go to Walmart or Kmart and see their excuse for car audio selection and it was full of Audiovox? Take a look at the brands that Audiovox (now Voxx) owns. I know I did a search after I posted and saw the list of speaker manufactures. Holy crap too many to list nowadays.

 

I remember when MTX was a joke for folks that where serious about their mids and highs. Now the Road Thunder series from MTX is probably one of the meanest speakers you can get.

ehh, theyre still a joke

 

Crutchfield seems to have a knack for sourcing good product to put their name on.

If anyone remembers, when they first started this "rebadged" offering, they had amps built by Precision Power with the Crutchfield name on them. Great amps from what I've read, and then they went to a Zed design built by US Acoustics, which was Alphasonik at one time. Sort of how Fultron became Memphis Audio, but Crutchfield was able to offer those amps at a discount, each time.

Now, I haven't heard, ran, seen, or tried Sound Ordinance, but I'd guess if Crutchfield's marketing department was running a scam on it's loyal customer base, the heads would eventually roll because they value their reputation.

 

I do not really like the quality of the Chinese, because not too durable

 

I do not really like the quality of the Chinese, because not too durable

The majority of the components inside your computer are made in China and it seems to be holding up quite nicely, imagine that..

 

That's Crutchfields house brand and they are NOT low quality products, that being said read the reviews and form your own opinion..

 

I just installed a set of Sound Ordnance P-57 in my Escape

These are terrible speakers. The stock Ford speakers are awful for sure. These are not much better. The stock speakers are muffled paper cones. But at least they don't distort. The P-57 have more highs and more lows, but really thin mids and they fart and hiss more than make music. AWFUL. Also very cheaply made. Box weighed nothing so I know I was in for it. Wasted my time installing these things. I would be shocked if cost on these is more than $5 a pair.

To their credit Crutchfield ships fast and the instructions were good as were the adapters to install the speakers. To bad the product is so lame that the install time costs more than the things are worth. Highs sound like hiss/scratch and lows fart away even at low volume. Cant say the stock speakers sound better but not any worse either.

 

My 2005 escape stock headunit had built in eq that made any speaker sound bad. Did you change your deck or just change speakers?

 

Just the speakers. I know the stock stereo is junk. But the speakers are also junk. You dont want to go crazy upgrading everything when the speakers I bought - the P-57 are meant for this very purpose, stock door replacement.

 

yeah but ford boosts treble and lowers bass depending on volume to compensate for their speakers which only sound good(ish) with the deck. With this car, when you just swap speakers you need to put a new deck in (or processor) for any speakers to sound good. Otherwise you are not really going to see any improvement except for the addition of tweeters.

 

Nope. Wrong. IN fact the P-57 have way more bass. UNfortunately it also distorts horrible.

Are you Crutchfield or what? Because I am the only real experience here and you seem trying to dispel the truth based on zero fact and your conjecture.

 

Tyroneshoes isn't saying anything other than the factory head unit is set up to compensate for the factory speakers. You are not able to fully evaluate the new speakers performance because the factory head unit is set up to make the cheap speakers sound as good as they can by manipulating certain frequencies. A good aftermarket speaker won't need near as much compensation to sound good. Go back and read his first post.

 

Then it sounds like you have a newer year escape than I had and I cant speak from experience then. They do have adapters that allow you to keep sync, and various other options like dsp units that provide a flat signal using the headunit but it does increase the price (as you would need amps with a dsp since they dont provide power) and Im assming budget is a concern or you wouldnt have s/o drivers. I would certainly consider the adapter that allows all to be kept with an aftermarket deck however. Not sure of the cost and model as I dont know the year and trim of your escape but crutchfield should have it.

 

2011 escape. Budget is always a concern but actually I wanted good drivers. Crutchfield said there drivers were BETTER than other brands but cheaper because they import direct from the factory. They SOLD those to me and they sell them hard on Youtube and forums with that same line.

Its going to cost more to return them then they are worth. Last time I buy from Crutchfield. I dont like BS'ers who waste people time and money like that.

 

Sounds like you need a way to HPF the SO speakers, by means of an inline filter, an aftermarket HU, aftermarket amp, or an external sound processor.

Chances are most speakers won't perform too well off the factory HU/amp.

 

I can't speak to the quality of S/O coax speakers but the amp and sub I installed in my Ex's car performed very well for the price. They were good enough that I was very tempted to pull them and save them when she left me.