smsa4

I am looking for highend amp to drive front MBQuart seperates. Friend tells me McIntosh is the best. Is there any other high end brands to consider that are similar to McIntosh sound quality.
Thanks in advance for your help. I am a home audio enthusiast, but am clueless on the the car audio mfrs.

TEDS4

there are several other mfrs. that come clost the the quality such as xtant, us amps and zapco. these all have very little THD and come close to the Mcintosh. If u have the money definateley go with the mcintosh, you cant really beat it IMO.

D.T.Sealy

Sure, McIntosh amps are good. But do you really think that you'll hear the difference going down the interstate at 80mph? I'll help you with the answer: Hell no! You would have to be in a true listening room and running the amps of choice in a reference quality system to hear a difference. Even then, unless you know what you are listening for, you still won't hear a difference between amps. And if you are listening for sonic flaws that carefully, you are missing the point of enjoying the music.

But hey, if you really want to waste some cash, buy a pair of Mac's and bridge them, running one for the left and one for the right! And don't forget, the amp is merely increasing the volume of whatever signal it is being fed (at least ideally, anyway). Therefore, if your source, or any components before your amps are of specifications inferior to the amp itself, you aren't getting the maximum performance potential from the amp.

Good luck!

2.8Sleeper

If you're only planning to drive Quarts with McIntosh...it'd be a waste, at least go with DynaAudio speakers...for Quarts anything less than what you are planning to shell out for Mac car amps would suffice
oh and I have Mac MC30s at home...don't get me wrong but your car isn't the ideal soundroom...

BetterThanVW

General rule: If you can buy it at Circuit City or Best Buy, its not that great

siberian

I wouldn't put too much stock into what one guy says or another guy says. Opinions are like *******s... everyone's got one and they all stink!

If I were looking for an amp, a coupla things I'd look for...

1. honest to god real world power ratings. Watch out for brands that play games with power output ratings. Some tell you the power rating per channel, but what they don't tell you is that the rating was measured as peak and not RMS. There's a big difference.

2. I wouldn't totally rule out magazine reviews. I realize some are biased, but you can still pick out useful information from them.

3. Pick up some audio mags and look at review websites like carreview.com and look at what other enthusiasts are using. Especially what IASCA competitors are using. You'd think if these guys are serious about their audio systems, they're going to look for the absolute best stuff they can find... and not put junk in their cars. You'll probably notice a trend towards certain brands of amps after looking long enough.

Good luck in your search

smsa4

Thanks for the input!! Doing the research is half the fun. Time to go listen...

sack lunch

I used Phoenix Gold's ZX-series amps to drive MB-Quart Q's with no problem (it was a bridged 4-ch)