What equipment brings back memories?

[mitch_04]

Not sure if this should be posted in this general or the other...so if needed, please move!

I was getting a bit nostalgic today when someone on a Facebook group said his opinion is that Rockfords "vintage" amps are pre-2000....got me thinking. I've been pickup up some old school Audiobahn, Jensen, etc etc cheaper amps simply because they make me smile remembering my high school stereos. Still trying to find a couple other memories, so to speak.

I'm just curious, which subs/amps/decks/etc take you back like an old song? I still remember my buddy having two Kicker Comps and a Pioneer amp, probably late 90's...the pioneer amp had dual cooling fans and the kickers beat the hell out of his Chevette! I remember seeing the chrome PPI amps in catalogs, drooling over the Orion HCCA amps, curious about brands like Image Dynamics that always seemed to show up in SQ builds but I could never find locally. Not a big surprise when you live in the middle of South Dakota, 2 hours from any town over 15,000. Loved hitting the bigger cities and getting demos in serious builds!

[Theslaking]

A belt is a piece of equipment that brings back memories. Ouch.

[Smitty]

PPI ProMos amps, original JL W1 subs.... much, much more but those are probably my most nostalgic.

[farfromovin]

Soundstream reference amps, RF dsm amps, Punch subs, original JL W6’s, German MB Quart, Boston Acoustics pro separates. Those were the systems I grew up with and learned to love. Don’t get it twisted, I had garbage at first but saved my way up to those brands lol.

[blockrocker]

Alpine V12 amps, Cerwin Vega Stroker subs and Sony Xplod.

[bluedevil1]

MTX MTA 225 and MTA 250 amps in bright red, purportedly produced by PPI. First real system I put in my used 86 Honda Accord Hatchback. Had two MTX 12's in a box that filled the entire cargo area (and it was big)!

[Euphonic]

The first amp I ever used on the low end was a Phoenix Gold M50 and the first amp I ever used on the upper end was a Clarion 3200A. The Clarion amp is the only only amp I truly miss. The frequency response spec on that amp was 10Hz-60kHz ± 1dB and the signal-noise ratio was 107dB. (I still have the brochure and dealer price sheet from 1991. Dealer cost was $432 and retail range was $699.95-779.95)

[banshee28]

For me it would be the classic Alpine Cassette/CD decks with the Green square buttons!! Loved those units! Esp the pull-out models!

[Ge0]

This was my first true external amp beyond head unit power or EQ booster.


It failed while I was taking a long vacation up North back in 1995.

When I got back the first thing I did was strip it down to see what went wrong. It used BJT's to switch the power supply primary. They ran very hot. I stripped them out and replaced them with MOSFET's which were a lot better at just switching on and off. The amp lasted me another 2 years until I bought into the a/d/s/ PH-15 and it's successors. I loved a/d/s/. But, everything evolves. Time to move on to the future.

I used most of the stuff mentioned by others in my transition to modern car audio. MTX, Soundstream, Kicker, Rockford Fosgate, JL Audio, a/d/s/, Zapco, others...

Ge0

[BigAl205]

I had one of these Sony Diskman player sitting on a flexible mount in my '88 Pontiac Grand Am