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I was looking at a couple Sony Xplode amps the other day when pondering on my temporary WalMart system. Then I arrive at work today to find my friend and a couple of his buddies frantically pulling his box out of his truck after his Xplode amp went up in flames.

Sony is garbage, dude. There are far better brands out there that are cheaper and are not known to burn your car down. That said, I'm sure there was something wrong with the way their system was set u, most likekly too high valued fuse and drvers connected in such a fashion that impedence was too low. Memphis is where I put my Amp money and Image Dynamics made my subs.

x2 on the memphis - great speakers and awesome amps!

I agree on the Sony. Had an Xplode amp for all of three days...tossed it for a P. Gold.

As a former master amplifier technician, yeah, you can do a whole lot better than Sony for any audio gear, period. (Seems "Xplode" is appropriately named.)

-Mark

They named that line "Xplode" for a reason.

Sony makes horrible car audio. If you have the money, go with Kicker, Alpine, or a non-commercial company.

I never was a fan of their speakers, subs, or decks, and I knew there was no way in he11 that I was putting any of that in my car, but I saw the amps and thought "maybe they won't be so bad".

i like the Memphis speakers i was going to get a Memphis belle amp but the store i deal with stopped doing audio

Honestly, when it comes to amplification, there's only a couple ways to build an audio amplifier. The options pretty much boil down to: Tube -vs- Semiconductors, and in a car, we'd be talking about semiconductors. That splits into: Class A, class A-B, or Class D. For a car, we're usually dealing with Class A-B, unless you can afford really good Class D stuff. In Class A-B, that splits into discrete -vs- integrated. Purists will prefer discrete, but a lot of inexpensive amps will use integrated amplifier chips. Technically, it doesn't really matter, as it is possible to build a linear, low-distortion, high-gain amplifier using either technique, but that doesn't mean that everyone DOES. Still, distortion in even the cheapest car amps on the market will generally be lower that what you can hear, because designing an audio amplifier with rock-solid linear response just simply isn't rocket science, and hasn't been since about 1960.

So in the end, it pretty much boils down to the physical construction of the amplifier. They're generally mass-manufactured by machines, using the least expensive component available, with the least amount of materials possible. The worst offenders use cheap components with widely varying tolerances, that can't hold up under the heat that their application will produce, using poor quality solder connections with very small, thin traces, with very minimal protection circuitry since anything extra is just added expense. If anything goes wrong, this type of cheap amp will easily go up in flames. Amplifiers almost always fail by the output driver transistors short-circuiting (no matter if they're discrete or integrated, or whether they're BJT, JFET or MOSFET), and short-circuit failures are always the most destructive. Higher quality amplifiers will use higher quality, tigher tolerance components, and they'll have several different types of failure-mode protection circuits. They'll use thicker traces using more material, and have higher quality solder connections such as through-hole-plated double-sided-circuitboard soldering, and will use thicker wires and thicker heatsinks with more material, so there is a much larger safety-margin in its design. If anything goes wrong, say a speaker-wire short circuit, a better amp will have a protection circuit that can kick in and prevent the amplifier from destroying itself. A cheaper amp might advertise short-circuit protection, which can mean as little as "The amp has a fuse in it" -which might or might not blow before the amp destroys itself.

Sony, unfortunately, almost universally makes awful audio gear in terms of construction quality. Like almost any audio amplifier, theirs will sound as good or as bad as pretty much any other amplifier when it's working. Low quality amplifiers show their weaknesses under failure modes, and I would not expect Sony to fare well under those conditions. Flaming Xplodes don't surprise me one bit.

Sony makes some excellent quality video and digital camera gear. (They make some junk, too, as seems does almost everybody.) They're by no means at the bottom of the list for audio gear, but they're really really close. As I said previously, you can do a whole lot better than buying Sony audio gear.

-Mark

Eclipse FTW. lol

started off on oldschool soundstream back when it was made good quality before they were bought out. then i ran a memphis audio setup on jl subs...loved it. the Mb quarts were nice in that setup too. now, i just look for a well built amp from a known manufacturer that isn't offered at places like best buy..haha. my truck install is waiting, i got a group of oldschool ppi powerclass amps for that setup and my IDQ 10's also. Going to run diamond audio comps in that setup also. i just need to get off my butt and install it. just got done with my install today in the bonnie. went with older us acoustics amps and my kicker oldschool solo-baric 15 sub. running diamond audio comp set up front and rear fill kenwood 6x9s...not bad...but something is up with my sub setup..not getting near as loud as it should be.

as for sony, i use to run there mobile ES decks, never a problem there...nice SQ. but as far as speakers and amps, never ever heard anything good there.

I've used sony ES stuff in installs before on a friend's firebird. It's been running @ 1kw 1ohm stable for oh 5 years and he's not really a car audio guy, just wanted some bump.

But normal Xplod stuff, you can do better.

My ex had an Xplode CD deck in her car. It never really sounded good, and felt kinda cheap. It stopped working right within a year or 2 of putting it in. Just felt cheaply made.

Now, for something other than bashing of sony. I completely agree, that if your trying to win a competition, i wouldnt go sony.

But, with that said, I have a sony HU in my truck, sony 6.5's, and sony 4x6's. They are plenty loud for me, and stay pretty clear with the HU all the way up. They sony 6.5 3-ways KILL the Pioneers of the same specs and price. I had the pioneers in my truck for a month before I ditched them. Now I dont have components, and I'm not trying to win a competion or go deaf, but I have had no problems with my stuff. Take it for what its worth. I did go with a Kicker sub though.

i think the biggest thing to remember here in the post is that alot of the xplode series of sony is just plain and simple their cheapest line possibly made to go to mass market "wal-marts and so on".

Is there better than sony, oh yes......by far. But to base all judgements of sony off of the crap that wally-world sells isn't a good judgement to make.

First and foremost, if your building a system off of the shelf at wal-mart...you kinda get what you pay for don't you think? i know it is a cheap, but as stated, in audio, you get what you pay for.

I have had absolutely no problem with my deck or speakers that were both purchased at Wal Mart. My friend on the other hand purchased a Sony deck through a local car audio place, and has had nothing but problems. And I have went in electronic stores that sold the exact same decks as the ones at Wal Mart. IMO, just because it came off a Wal Mart shelf, doesn't make it necessarily bad. Now if I were building a competition system, Wal Mart would be the last place on my list, but for everyday use, I have no issues.

as stated, all depends on tastes.

Just wanted to through my 2 cent in, sony never liked it all bad for me but there is a site were you can get alot of good stuff for real cheap and its all real and good.

http://ikesound.com/

I've had a single Sony Xplode 12inch sub for about 3 years now and have never had a problem, and it sounds awesome and hits 125 or so dB with a Pioneer 760 watt 2 channel amp bridged (another Wal-mart special) The only problem i have is that sometimes when its hot out the amp will shut of for a few minuets but for what i payed i can't complain.