carls2004

Tho's you mentioned must be fetching 1,000 in great condition.. sweet

racebum

they get up there if they are really clean but they are one of the crown jewels of the 90s. made in portland, ore, top notch components. best amps to ever come out of PG for SQ

02BlownZ06

I still have a couple pair of Boston T-830 home speakers I bought in '96 and they still sound great today. I had to re-cone the woofers cause they had foam surrounds but that is it. I used some Boston 3-way components and 2-way components in my car in the late 80's and they performed decent, too but I never tried out their car amps. This is one of the first times I had heard of anyone really talking about them. I always the liked the company though. We stocked it at our store back in the day.

racebum

they were pretty good. all of this was before the massive mergers and move to china with audio

a lot of the really hardcore audiophiles who were into top tier car audio went their separate ways. robert zeff from zapco helped arc audio. the lead from precision power moved to JL. the lead from phoenix gold lives about 30 min from me and cruises around in a smartcar and lives a very low carbon footprint life. brilliant guy.

morel still has their old talent
dynaudio does as well
scanspeak was one of the only scandinavian brands to survive and adopt the raw driver market

even brands like bowers and wilkins moved entry level production to china. all the 6 series speakers stopped being made in england around 2007. now you have to really spend to get the english made stuff

carls2004

Back near 2012 you see where one's were picking up the boston GT amps that were made in indonesia (black end cap's on amp) and they claim they had the same gut's as the Italy made one's..(all silver) But after hearing my new B stock GT-2200 from boston ,, I really dont agree. It is a very clean bright amp,, but as stated earlier it just dont have that ? warmth sound..
Wish i knew more about the gut's of amp's and i would attempt to take pic's of gut's of my GT-42 for the amp guys on here to peek at and point out the good and or bad..
This is so addicting...

racebum

i know exactly what you're talking about and it's really hard to find new without spending $$$$$

the JL slash amps have that sound. the v2 and v3 are the good ones. they aren't perfect up top and can have a slightly off midrange at times but they are really good for 2017 amps. sound like old PPI.

the audison thesis is magic. insanely good. i wish i knew more about that brand because i have heard some amps i liked and others i didn't in the lower end.

refurbishing older amps really isn't a bad idea. if i didn't have the slash 300/4v3 and 600/1v3 i would consider finding older amps i liked and just going through them. a lot of new gear is clean but they just don't have that hi-fi sound

btw car audio mcintosh amps aren't really that crazy expensive used. i have never heard one more than briefly but would buy on their name alone. i have never heard a bad mac amp

02BlownZ06

I can't see Mack putting their name on anything that isn't good.

carls2004

My boston GT-42 is sitting next to me.. lol,, Should i take pic's of the guts. ??

racebum

found guts online. looks like metal films resistors. name brand caps. great layout.

Curt D

I swapped a JL HD900/5 out for 2 Mosconi AS200.4s and immediately I could hear the smoother sound from the A/B amps.

carls2004

Ok... I took the Boston GT-2200 (made in Indonesia) 2 channel back out as i missed my sub and at this time i cant spare money as other issue's more important.
And now the Boston GT-42 ( made in italy) is back in veh and im running channel 3-4 bridged for sub..
Dam it blows away the GT-2200 for my ear's.. Saw a old post somewhere a year ago and it said it most def will put out more power than rated too...
Back near 2011 there were some debate on audio forums if the indonesia one's were as good that had the black end cap's ,,but was always a debate... I feel not !!!

Oh, I fixed the whine i had coming thru speaker.. I ran my own ground from head unit and back to the amp's ground point and all good now..

-=Jeff=-

some of these amps you mention seem still new to me..

I have had Phoenix Gold M44 and MS275 at on point.. also Orion 225HCCA (Gen 2)

I miss those..

racebum

well all 3 of those were great amps

daverulz

I have always regretted selling my ESX Q series amps. I sold them to move on to something else, but those things were beasts.

The Boston GT amps have always been great. I have an Italian 4 channel running my cherokee's system and it surprises me whenever i turn it up.

carls2004

Yes, i currently running the GT-42 and it is sweeter than the newer GT line (black trim ) So it is no dought that the italian one's built next to Mosconi STEG...are better... The die hard user's that had the Malaysian built one's said they were the same but that is not true..
I almost bid on one that was on ebay recently just to have a back up,,, but i didnt.. Then i saw it sold for just over 140. dollars. Wish i grabbed it up now..

-=Jeff=-

While we are in here.. what else is good?

I am currently using 2 Arc Audio KS 300.4s They seem to work as intended and I expect my audio to improve with the installation of the Alpine. Unfortunately I will be laid up for several weeks starting in Oct, so my Alpine will not get installed for a while

daverulz

Mine is the little guy, the GT40. For 65 shipped it was a great deal. Hides under the seat so cosmetics didn't matter. I don't think I'll ever sell it just because I got it for basically nothing!

Jeff - the arcs are great amps. So long as they suit your configuration I wouldn't even think about replacing them.

-=Jeff=-

Yeah not planning on it, I expect them to sound better. They will get replaced if they ever die

racebum

amp wise? not a lot unless you spend. robert zeff of zapco designed those arc amps and he is one of the best car audio amp designers on the planet. he has a good ear. some of his earlier zapco amps like the z220-2 and z150 were stellar.

there is a very short list of good car amps made today. the best is an audison thesis. below that there are still good choices. you have a couple of them. mcintosh car audio is good but again it's older, may need a refresh just like the amazing phoenix gold zpa amps. linear power from the 90s is very pleasing to listen to. precisio'n powers power class from the early 2000s was good. remember those big black 3ft long tunnel amps. soundstream class A also from the 90s, excellent.

i guess for new it's really audison, arc, high end zapco, JL slash series, mosconi and that's about it. JL owns what i consider entry level hi-fi. the slash 300/4v3 is about $400 if you find a good shop. you'll pay double that for a mosconi as 100.4 or zapco z150 4ch. arc i haven't kept up on and the entry level audison isn't terrible. would like to back to back it against JL for low cost options to see what i think. the audison sr4 is a $400 amp. less powerful than a slash 300/4 but it's the same price category and didn't sound that bad when i heard one

speakers are where i'm nervous. you have morel and....ummm...well...not a lot else. dynaudio obviously but they are money, nothing on the low and mid level. focal is terrible unless they are in perfect enclosures and ran through a dsp. imagine dynamics and some of the others may have good mids/tweets but it's hard to find stores that carry them. so much retail is just big brands.

nelson pass from threshold. some of the best home amps ever made wrote a piece about this trend in audio. home audio mind you. the number of people willing to pay for quality in america is small and growing smaller. some of the bigger hi fi audiences are overseas. the fall of peerless and vifa along with other quality raw driver manufacturers a decade back wasn't by accident. with a DSP you can make a lot of things sound pretty good. speaker building is a dead hobby and car audio is dying on the aftermarket level as OEMs get better and there is SO much integration. car audio is alive in the low cost market right now. few hundred dollar systems sell but even my local morel dealer said he had to look at pricing on the hybrid and elate when i was curious since they rarely sell. that's kind of sad. everyone buys the entry level or mid level like the tempo ultra {which is a great speaker for the $$}

daverulz

Pretty much on point, but there are many other good options if you are willing to take the DIY approach to your system. Passive systems are pointless in a car because a passive crossover cannot be designed to work right in all situations. They're always a compromise. Using active crossovers and DSPs opens the options for lesser known brands, but still high quality.

The raw driver market is still alive. Just from different players. Tympany still makes the popular pPeerless and Vifa drivers. Tang band has some very compelling offerings too. I've used the Dayton reference line, and they have blown people away with how good they sound, especially when you consider the price and they have other lines of speakers that are intriguing as well (Esoterics look a lot like dyns). There are more boutique speaker manufacturers now too.

You have Scott Buwalda's Hybrid Audio Technologies and Andy Weinheimer's Audio Frog drivers which both have some pretty fantastic offerings. Also some cool subs from stereo integrity. For amps you have Stephen Mantz's Zedd Audio, Zuki Audio, as well as stand out performers from a lot of the "lower end" manufacturers who just happen to get it right.

Does anyone buy this stuff retail anymore? I honestly do all my buying online now. There is such a wealth of information in the DIY community about drivers that it's pretty easy to find one that's going to do exactly what I want it to without hearing it first.

After chasing high end sound for years I finally came to the realization that the key to enjoying car audio for me was not to chase the most expensive or esoteric gear, but to seek out value. Get 95% of the performance for a quarter of the price. The key to that was choosing decent amplification, good raw drivers, and using a DSP. Because no matter how good it sounds sitting still, it all pretty much goes out the window (or the targa in the case of the Vette) once you start moving.

I still build my own home speakers too I guess I'm a dying breed.