Just got back from listening to a few different brands! I'm no Audiophile but its amazing how each speaker or kit sounds when you have them playing side-by-side! For what I'm looking to spend or budget on this part of the system I was really blown away by Diamond Audio! We listened to MB, JL, Image Dynamics, Kicker, and Oz. I really liked the Diamond, the Image Dynamics was pretty close, they would have to be my second pick!

It would be the S600S's for the fronts and the M361i for rears. I'm like 85% sure I will be doing these (but going tomorrow to listen to a few other brands). So now I need to decide on an amp, I definitely want a "good" one for them! If I'm spending the $$ on the speakers I'm not going to short myself on the amp! So it needs to be clean, stable, efficient, true power etc!

Diamond says the S600S's power range is 50-170W, (for the fronts) and the M361i's are 50-100W (for the rears). So need an amp that will produce these types of numbers @ 4Ohms! Totally open to suggestions, comments, what to look at, what not to look at etc. !

 

what is your budget you would like to work with for the amps?

 

MTX 6304

Excellent quality. Excellent price. Excellent sound.

I have one on two sets of Polk DX components, and I installed one on a friends 2 sets of Boston Acoustics Pro Series components in an explorer.

 

I was just looking at the numbers and started to think that since the fronts and rears have a decent gap in power between them that maybe it would be better to get two separate amps and make them speaker specific according to their ratings Vs one four channel since most 4 channels all have the same output per channel. Wont be under powering one while over powering the other??

 

I ran a JL 300/4 on my S600s's and S500a's within my last car. Sounded superb. Would recommend it if you have the cash for the amp.

 

No.

Adjust the gains on a 4 channel accordingly. My rears are not near as high as my fronts (personal preference.)

 

another option is using rears off the head unit for rear fill only.
then use a good 2 channel for the front stage.

some people have only front stage, since stereo is only 2 channels.

look at xtant, macintosh, linear.... all very good stuff

crossfire has great bang for the buck.

a good powerfull amp will control the speakers very well so you probably want something that is @ the nominal power rating

 

I too like the Diamond speakers but settled on the MB Quart PSD216s. The amp I'm going to use is the JL Audio 300/4. I've heard the combination in the store and really like it. Installing this weekend.

 

try some of these:

JL Audio 450/4 rated at 150x2 and 75x2
PPI PCX-480 rated at 80x4
Arc Audio cxl-4150 rated 75x4
Diamond Audio D7054 rated 50x4 D7104 rated 100x4
ADS P4100 PQ40 rated 100x4
Xtant x604 rated 75x4
DLS A4 rated 85x4


those are some options that you might want to look into. all of them are high quality amps and will make your diamond speakers very happy.

 

The power rating means nothing, look at the efficiency of the speaker (Sensitivity). If the front are say 88db's and the rears are 93db's, the rears are going to be much louder than the fronts, even with slightly less power. This rating is the max. amount of sound at 1 watt. I think I stated this in your previous post, but if you send even half the power to the rears, they are going to completely overpower the fronts, which destroys what is called your "soundstage." If I decide to use rears in the Z, they will be VERY limited.

Stock rears are 32 ohm speakers, if the fronts are 4 or 8 ohms speakers (they are one or the other) your rears are getting 1/4 or 1/8 the amount the power the fronts are. When you double the impedence (ohms), you double the resistance and cut the power in half.

This is done becuase rears are made to "fill" in the rear.

Buy a good 50 watt X 4 amp, and use a resistor or something to limit the amount of power to rears. If you do not use a resistor you will end up with 9/10 of the fader set to the front, or the gain for the rear set very low.

When I competed I used a 30 X 4 amp for my entire system (subs, 6.5 component set) and could easily hit 130 db's with no distortion. But, I ran the amp at 2 ohms stereo (120 watts) for the components, and 2 ohms mono (240 watts) on 2 subs all from a 120 watt amp (Adcom, if you are curious).

My advice is go with an xtant amp that is 4 channels + 1 channel for the subs. Anything they make will be more than enough to power 99% of systems out there, especially if the speakers are half way efficent.

Sorry, for the long post, just trying to explain the priciples of an audio system.

Great choice on the Diamond's, you will like them a lot....

 

The fronts, S600s are 91dB with a Freq,. Response: 42Hz-22Khz. 50 / 170W Pk

The rears, M361i are 90dB with a Freq,. Response 50Hz to 20kHz. 50W / 100W Pk

 

I also second the DLS A4 amps. Not many people know about them, but they're excellent amps. If you have the money though, I would recommend checking out Brax. By far, the best amp I have ever listened to. I would suggest Xtant if you weren't worried about people asking why you have a gold bbq grill in your hatch. Also, I've seen many of their amps fry themselves cuz of debris getting inside. I like the older McIntosh amps too. In the middle of the scale, PPI Power Class stuff and Arc Audio are very nice.
Good choice in the Diamonds.

 

First off the Diamond S600S component set is sweet sounding. If you look at your original post it was one of the two options I threw out, these are amazing speakers.

As far as the amps go you'll have to put a price tag on what you want to spend. Brands like xtant, JL Audio, Precision Power, Zapco, Arc Audio & A/D/S all make great amplifiers. With that beign said, you could drop $1000 on an xtant x603 or x604 for a 3 or 4 channel amp or spend $500 on a JL 500/5 5 channel amp. Both are great amps but the xtant does have way more to offer for clairty, features, and peformance.

 

A 50x4 will be plenty to push those, that is an average effeciecy rating. More power is always better, I mean you could in theory use a 200x4, and it would be great. Some people seem to think that too much power blows speakers, but it is disortion that blows speakers (or, turning them up too loud). So, any good amp 30x4, or more will be great for those speakers.

 

HOLD ON!

Nobody moves. If you like the Diamond, ask what kind of amp and preamp are they using for the demo. Ask about the wires too. Speakers can sound different because of different amps, wires, or pre amps. Just like high end audiophiles, we can be here arguing which brand is better. Also, what you hear in the store might not be what you hear in your car.

Anybody agree with me on this?

with a little luck you'll find the right setups that everyone will envy.

 

Agreed--

The biggest mistake you can make is buy nice stuff and buy cheap wires and interconnects. If you invest in I nice system, buy the best speaker wire and interconnects as possible. When I sold audio stuff I hated it when someone would buy decent stuff, and want to buy RCA 18 guage speaker wire and cables. You are better off buying cheap components and better interconnects IMO.

He is looking at some pretty good amps, so whatever they had at the shop should not be too much better. Diamond is pretty good stuff, it is one of the brands I used when I competed, and I did better with it than anything else other than Image Dynamic's horn's and MB's (which require a kick-a$$ EQ). The diamonds were so flat, I could have probably got by without an EQ.

 

Listened to some others today, but have to get ready for work now so will post about those late tongiht. I did buy/order the headunit today though! Went with the Kenwood Z910DVD!!

 

If you or jran76 can tell a difference between monster cable and/or phoenix gold speaker wires vs no name brand speaker wires (same gauge) in the car, you should take this test that Richard Clark holds. I think he'll give you his house, bank accounts, and some other stuff if you can guess right.
In a noisy environment like a car, you won't be able to tell at all... and even in a quiet house environment, it's really hard to tell a difference too. It's mostly psychological than anything else.
For interconnects, again... in a car, you probably won't tell a difference, but do get ones that have good shielding cuz they can pick up lots of noise if they're not shielded right. And I tend to usually stay away from coaxial rca's.

 

I'll pass, Clark knows a HELL of a lot more than I could ever know, and there is a reason he will give you his left, uh nevermind. So, I agree, there may be a marginal difference at best. The below examples are NOT to disagree. However, I can tell a difference in some cases. Here a couple examples from first hand expirience:

I set up 2 pairs of the same speakers to a Onkyo stereo high current reciever, one set on A, the other on B. One set hooked up with moster cable 14 gauge seaker wire (by no means the high end stuff), and another set with 18 gauge RCA speaker wire (the cheap stuff at Wal-Mart, CC, BB, etc.), and there was a tremendous difference in tonal quality, defenition, and depth to the music. I will put my Z up that in the same test, I can pick the monster cable blind folded every time. If you come to Dallas, I will set it up. And, I will toss in the Stoptech's and wheels....

Secondly, I thought the same thing in my first competition system, and I had a high pitched whine that plauges many car audio systems. I switched from a set a single shieled Streetwires, to the super dupper shielded Streetwires stuff, and no more whine.

That was my point, and if you notice I specifically mentioned RCA speaker wire. I will agree with you on your point (the point of this post was not to disagree with you, but to prevent people form buying the CHEAPEST stuff out there), A similar sized, or similar shielded wire will preform close to the same (maybe 10% difference at best). There is a difference, but the human ear is not sensitive enough to detect much difference. But, in most cases similar sized/shielded wires are going to cost close to the same.

 

Ah, yeah... I agree with ya on those points.
Sigh. I need to win the lotto so I can make the system I've always dreamed of.............