infinity beta digital 100
Written: Jul 02 '01
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Pros: price, size
Cons: does not put out what's advertised
The Bottom Line: for the price, i don't think i can get any better quality and i am satisfied with it and have little or no regrets.
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| geoffreysnow's Full Review: Infinity Beta Digital 100 |
i should start out by saying that i only had a stock sound system in before i bought and upgraded. so this was my first purchase of amps and subs.
i was looking to put some thump in my car and didn't know what to go with. i asked around and it seemed like 2 12 inch subs seemed to be the answer. i had originally planned to go with 2 15's, but that seemed like overkill and not for me.
so after knowing what i wanted, i had to choose the subs. i looked around, online and in stores. i also asked around. all of this in about a 3 month time period for all of my research. my spending was limited to about 150 dollars for the subs, and i wanted 2, so that didn't leave much to spend. everyone who i had talked to said that kickers were great and hit hard, so i went ahead and picked up a pair of kicker comp 12 inch 8 ohm single voice coil subs.
so next it was time to choose the amp. again, i had looked around and asked and i got a lot of info from a lot of different people. but for the money that i wanted to spend (less than 200), i only had a couple of options. i have a friend who swears by US Acoustics and believes that they're the best deal out there. i was looking at the 2150 which was about 200 dollars and had 2x150 output. the other option that i saw was the infinity that i am writing the review on. it only has 2x100, but when bridged is 1x400 rated. i had read online that it really only puts out around 300, but since the RMS on the subs was only set at 150 each, or 300 for both, i figured it would be alright.
so now i'm down to 2 to choose from and i didn't know what to do. the only place that i saw online that sells US Acoustics for the cheapest price was Crutchfield. the infinity was 189 in the scratch and dent section too, ad that was the cheapest available. so i decided to call them and see what they recommended what to do. when talking with the sales advisor, he said that the Infinity offered more quality and should be great for me. i figured that he was just trying to sell all of the infinity's that they had in stock, but it seemed like too good of a deal to pass up, so i went ahead and got it.
when i first hooked it up, i was not too bright and had done it in series when i thought that i had done it in parallel. in series, i was happy with the sound that it made. it wasn't too loud, but it was enough to shake my rearview mirror.
after hooking them up in parallel, it not only shakes the rear view mirror, it shakes the whole car. i am certainly very happy with it. it's small too. since it is a class D and digital amp, it is really small compared to other amps, and does run cooler. the only overheating that i have really experienced was when the car was in the sun for a while and i had felt the amp after and it was warmish/hot. i think that most of that can be attributed to the sun though because i have run it loud for hours on cooler days and i have felt it after and it's not really that warm. that was another concern that i had with the infinity was that some friends had said that they had overheated it, but so far i have had no problems even when run in parallel.
i do believe that this amp does not put out 400 watts. i was running my subs off of my friends precision power amp that was rated at around 425 and wt high levels, it feels like the sound waves could change the beats of my heart. i would say that 300 is about what it's rated, but i don't need that power because i rarely listen with the bass up so loud that it shakes the car anyway.
one problem that i have a complaint with is that there is no built in crossover. so unless you have a receiver with a crossover built in or an external, you may run into problems.
the last problem that i have had is that it automatically cuts off it i turn the level of the volume up way too loud. this is when the levels shake the car, and on especially bass filled songs. it's at levels that i'll never listen to, but it would be nice if it wouldn't cut off. but it's not really something that i can complain about.
i think that if you used one of these to run just one sub, it might be better, but overall i am very pleased and do recommend this amp.
later on i think i might go ahead and buy another amp to run the subs and use this amp to power the front speakers if i ever do upgrade to something better. but the subs are loud enough, so i rethinking that option.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 189
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Epinions.com ID:
geoffreysnow
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Member: geoff snow
Reviews written: 25
Trusted by: 1 member
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