The AAMP PG

[NewOldStock]

There seems to be a fair amount of concern about the direction AAMP is going with PG... my question is: how long ago did AAMP buy the PG name?

a year? a few months?

How long have they really had to really make any kind of impact other than somewhat superficial changes?

How long goes it take to R&D, Test (useability, durability, longevity, etc...) a bunch of completely new amps, completely new subs, completely new coaxials, completely new components (including crossovers), etc...?

I mean, I may be more optimistic than most, maybe even more naive, in my desire and hope that while the first gen gear is awfully reminiscent of the previous gear, brand new stuff will be worked on soon.

I know from my own personal experience, new roadmaps, products, product looks, marketing materials, testing and all that takes a heck of a long time - especially if the company doesnt already have an engineering dept put together that builds, designs, etc... Amps, Subs, Coaxials, Comps, etc...

I also know that if a new acquisition doesnt turn some sort of profit in an expected amount of time (lets call it return on investment - ROI) then it gets dropped. Especially in horrible economic times like say, the worst recession/depression since the mid 70's.

the PG name isnt what it used to be, its tarnished thanks to some folks that "didnt get it". It takes time and huge risk (monetary) to turn that around. I see a decent amount of effort spent on a product refresh, a turn in direction to smarter (as in no 2-chan amps) product lines and focusing on the 10" and 12" subs (high volume) as smart moves to prove out the viability of the PG name. Adding "the one" is icing on the marketing cake - it might be the same amp as others, it might not - I cant prove it either way (though I love the gold board!) but its eye catching and starts to distinguish the brand as being something special again.

Next year or the year after - once some real R&D time and money can be spent, will be the real test of the direction AAMP is taking PG and whether it will be exciting again for US.

Which is another point to make... we all love the old PG stuff, but from the sounds of it, the new PG stuff is just as solid, just as clean, just not as sentimental or "pretty" to us "oldies".

PG cannot and will not ever make any money marketing to us or building products for us. they can give us nuggets like bitchin LE amps, but they have to find what is going to make the new wave of 18yr olds fall in love with them the way we did... and times have changed... Kids have changed... tastes have changed. how many Audiophile 18yr olds do you know personally? I know 1 other than myself and until I introduced him to Focal, he thought his Pioneer fronts were "awesome" because they were on the "expensive" board at Best Buy

Rock on with your bad self PG... as much as I keep hoping for a return to the things that made me fall in love with the brand when I was young, I understand that I am not the person you are trying to capture with the new gear.

Flame on if you must - but you know what they say about opinions... the one above is mine and it smells like roses... today.

[fuzzysnuggleduck]

Great post.

First, Tom says about 3 months since AAMP really took over and I figure that's about right.

I'm with you. What we're seeing now is a fairly fast iteration of much of the current gear plus a few less-than-fantastically original items (the one, s amps?) but for three months, I think that's realistic from a business perspective. Unfortunately, that simply won't please everyone and I don't oblige that it does please everyone anyways.

I'm definitely not the person AAMP is marketing to, either. I love me my M44 and M100 and can't fathom replacing them... that said, I also run RSd comps and if the Ti line is actually an improved set, I'll definitely consider upgrading. Not a big impact on PG's bottom line.

I think business wise, what AAMP is doing now is actually fairly impressive. As Tom just said, we the fans are getting so much more say and involvement in the direction of the company than we've had in a long time. You can actually see some of the suggestions we've long been saying show up in this very first new line! The build quality looks great and while the actual cosmetics don't please everyone, they have definitely gone away from the flashy tuner-esque look to a more subtle and classy look and build.

Another thing to note is how much more attention the PG brand is getting from AAMP than it got from Rodin. It seems to me that more people are committed to PG's success now than in recent times. That is however, just speculation I don't actually have actual facts on this.

We'll see if the market responds and if the product stands up to the Phoenix Gold name better or worse than the last round of product.

[Bfowler]

everything he said^

[andy600rr]

Great post.

I'm prepared to wait and see what happens over the next 12+ months. Trying to judge how AAMP handles PG after a short 3 month period is fruitless.

Give 'em a chance guys. For god's sake, at least they have picked up the brand and decided to do something with it rather than just trying to run it into the ground.

[oldskoolmseriesfan]

I guess if you look at it that way I guess from a marketing standpoint it was a good move to just get the name on the right track again, and if I look at it this way, If AAMP took over and did not want to release anything until 2011, because they wanted to take the time to get out the really good lines... I guess I would still be pissed Now that Ive calmed down a bit, I guess I cant be pleased either way But Im done with holding my breath, and Ill take it as it is and roll with it.

[Rold Gold]

The more I read around here the more this situation reminds me of the auto industry.... It's kinda like buying a car that is 100% brand new / INTRO YEAR........ The die-hards him-N-ha over it before it hits the streets and when the first one takes a shit they all write the whole line off....... Never really giving it a chance to mature.......

3 months is a flash in the pan in real-time........ So ground-up designs are probly not the case with 2010's goodies.... I know there was some product "at the dock" overseas when AAMP bought PG....... That may be the reason the components are similar.......woofers aswell...... Can't say I'd blame them for it..... Product ready to tag and shelf...... Business 101 says that couldn't be a bad thing. Make a couple changes and tweek some things..... Sell it..... That way you have that much more time before CES 2011 when a years R&D can provide a better product that might just have US GUYS in mind..... I'd doubt that AAMP just had some shit in a factory and needed a real brand name to slap on......

**I KNOW AAMP WILL READ THIS**
EVERYBODY WILL AGREE- Your marketing department needs to make the guys here happy...... I'm not saying 100% FREE gear but alot better than dealer price. Get some gear on the streets BEFORE june and get the word-of-mouth advertising going NOW!!!!!! At the right price, I'd consider buying a whole new install..... I know I'll be at PIR (Portland International Raceway) this summer with my stang and even if I don't run the 1/4, 200+ people will walk by and look at my car in the pits on any given fri/sat night. It's not the same as a factory demo car though..... People laugh at some of those guys because the car isn't even really theirs most of the time. No street credit earned because everybody already knows those cars are gonna have kickass sound because thems are the cars that have $20K worth of gear/work/engineering into 'em. But when joe-shmoe at the races is rockin new gear people look and listen......

[NewOldStock]

Nice! - I'll probably be there this year as well with my Camaro full of PG gear - at least thats the plan - Dark Orange with Black stripes.

and if I can work it out with MHyde I might see if I can get the Roadster66 color matched for the install... that might be tough though since he is about as far away as possible inside the CONUS!!

I honestly believe that in the next year or two we will see some real amazing changes.

and in case AAMP does read this - as a Sr. QA engineer at a medical device company with a degree in physics (I know, NERD ALERT) who is married to a Sr. QA engineer in the audio division at a multi-billion dollar company (cant say the name without permission) - I know some excellent Test engineers that would be REALLY happy to help out with user testing...

[ttocs]

maybe you should try posting this on their facebook account?

[NewOldStock]

I suppose I could... but thats ok, here will work.

[dBincognito]

alot better than dealer price

I'm sure they won't be that expensive........................at Wal-Mart.

[NewOldStock]

I'm sure they won't be that expensive........................at Wal-Mart.

your absolutely right... AAMP should have been able to create earth shattering new gear in 3 months during the worst economy since the great depression.

for christs sake... you guys act like AAMP has taken a company that was doing exactly what you wanted and turned it into a pile of dogshit... I guess you were happy with the way Rodin was taking care of you and PG... well, there are thousands and thousands of pieces of Ryval equipment for you to buy.

Its time for you, me, everyone to accept that PG will never be the M/MS series again... but I would be willing to bet that if they have dumped this much effort into 3 months worth of product development during a time when I know at least my company laid off 45% of its employees... there is something more than a simple refresh on the horizon.

It makes me sick to think that anyone here on this site, that claims to be a PG fan, can so quickly and easily give up hope after a 3-month product refresh by a new owner.

It reminds me of those football fans that only cheer for their team when they are winning but badmouth them when they arent.

This isnt a personal attack - its just my thoughts, feelings and opinions. If its offensive, stop reading. If its too naive, stop reading. If youve already given up hope on AAMP and PG, stop reading... because nothing realistically possible is going to make you happy.

IMO - the changes that have been made in 3-months are impressive and give me MORE hope that AAMP is giving PG 100 times more attention than it was given in the recent past and deserve a more than a little respect be given to the new owners. If after a full set of AAMP gear, AAMP original gear (as in not a refresh or a cosmetic change) comes out and its garbage - which I highly doubt at this point - THEN I might understand the disrespect that AAMP is being shown now, but certainly not after a quick to market 3-month refresh.

Hell, has the paint even dried on the building yet?

[dBincognito]

^^^^^^^^^^

Someone is PMS'ing

your absolutely right... AAMP should have been able to create earth shattering new gear in 3 months

How about just one decent product, that would have been nice. It's not like AAMP is short on money. Have you seen how many brands they own ?

This isnt a personal attack

Really, what do you call it in your mind ? That's like punching someone in the face and saying, " I didn't hit you "

can so quickly and easily give up hope after a 3-month product refresh

PPI, DEI.....enough said

[fuzzysnuggleduck]

How about just one decent product

So nothing AAMP is putting out with this refresh is even "decent"? It's all worse than "decent"? And that's after you seeing a few product photos, and nothing else?

So that means the triple darlington tried and true PG design with Sanken TO3P package transistors is below the level of "decent"? So how high is the "decent" bar these days?

I thought the RSd amps and RSd speaker lines were all better than decent. And what we're seeing here is very much based off that product line.

[Eric D]

I am pretty impressed with what AAMP has done in so little time. I also think some of the new products look promising to me. They don't all meet my needs, but if they did, the company would not be successful as they would not be going after the real market.

Either way I look forward to reviews and personal experiences with these products from others before I will judge them myself.

[NewOldStock]

^^^^^^^^^^

Someone is PMS'ing

your absolutely right... AAMP should have been able to create earth shattering new gear in 3 months

How about just one decent product, that would have been nice. It's not like AAMP is short on money. Have you seen how many brands they own ?

This isnt a personal attack

Really, what do you call it in your mind ? That's like punching someone in the face and saying, " I didn't hit you "

can so quickly and easily give up hope after a 3-month product refresh

PPI, DEI.....enough said

I am not going to get into an online pissing match with you, I will just say this:

even product refreshes take hundreds and hundreds of hours of testing, even if you fill the room with people that have been doing this work their entire career, it still takes hundreds of hours to design new looks, find new sources for heat sinks, internals, design firms, implement changes at a factory (even longer if its a factory in another country) and get some sort of real world durability testing done.

Assuming they did nothing but change heat sinks, which already looks like more was done than that, you would have design, sourcing, build, defect resolution, rebuild, functional testing, user acceptance testing, load testing, durability testing, document creation (technical, not marketing), Marketing materials creation, marketing/image design, marketing document creation, photo shoots, etc... and none of that includes sourcing "the one" which is a total departure from anything they picked up and had "on hand" from Rodin... all of which had to be coordinated with a country thats 12 hours different from us, so lets not forget shipping time to get prototypes back and forth. Oh, I would bet that somewhere in there someone took a day off, maybe even took a weekend off... and all of that was done in a shitty economy at enormous risk - which means every monetary decision was made slower after a lot more consideration to the bottom line. It appears that AAMP owns a bunch of companies all related to car audio - how much money do you think AAMP has made in the last year? I wouldnt be so bold as to say they have enough money that spending a few million on PG is no big deal.

Now, if you have any facts that can argue with the amount of time it takes to do all of that versus the 3 months that AAMP has owned PG, I would love to hear it, I think we all would. But if your just upset that the amps dont LOOK IN PICTURES like you want them to, since none of us have heard them yet... then your just going to be upset and there isnt anything that can be done until you get your hands on the pieces in person or hear them in person.

[twisted]

I am pretty impressed with what AAMP has done in so little time. I also think some of the new products look promising to me. They don't all meet my needs, but if they did, the company would not be successful as they would not be going after the real market.

Either way I look forward to reviews and personal experiences with these products from others before I will judge them myself.

i agree with eric! i for 1 am looking at this with a great deal of optimism, PG has in my opinion hit rock bottom so there is only 1 way to go.....up.

i will give AAMP a chance to turn them around, and i am really thinking long and hard about a new Ti amp for my truck.

i think it would be a really good idea for them to do a solid 3 channel amp as well in this line, somthing with A/B on the front and D for a mono sub output, like Audison does. for guys like me that want a simple 1 amp install to run everything efficiently.

[dBincognito]

I thought the RSd amps and RSd speaker lines were all better than decent.

I guess that's the problem then, I thought RSD was a fucking joke. Maybe that's why Rodin doesn't own them anymore

They might make something next year I can buy, one can hope.

So how high is the "decent" bar these days?

Think

Helix
Audison
Brax

along those lines......that's the standard, especially with the price tags that PG likes to attach to things.

[NewOldStock]

i think it would be a really good idea for them to do a solid 3 channel amp as well in this line, somthing with A/B on the front and D for a mono sub output, like Audison does. for guys like me that want a simple 1 amp install to run everything efficiently.

a solid 3-channel would be SWEET! I will have to look at the Audison just to get an idea of what the size of a bi-amp 3-channel looks like, seems like it would be a big footprint but damn that would be awesome if it were reasonable in size.

[twisted]

i think it would be a really good idea for them to do a solid 3 channel amp as well in this line, somthing with A/B on the front and D for a mono sub output, like Audison does. for guys like me that want a simple 1 amp install to run everything efficiently.

a solid 3-channel would be SWEET! I will have to look at the Audison just to get an idea of what the size of a bi-amp 3-channel looks like, seems like it would be a big footprint but damn that would be awesome if it were reasonable in size.

the Audison is actuall a pretty small footprint @BxLxH (mm/inches): 198 x 488 x 56 / 7”13/16x 19”1/4x 2”1/4

here is a link to the LRX 3.1
http://www.audison.eu/index_main.php?Section=LRX31k

spec sheet
http://www.audison.eu/xml/products/pdf/ ... ech_EN.pdf

[fuzzysnuggleduck]

I guess that's the problem then, I thought RSD was a fucking joke.

I didn't, but that's fine that we don't agree.

Helix
Audison
Brax

So "decent" means top of the line, the very best available? I disagree but, again that's fine.

[Bfowler]

I guess that's the problem then, I thought RSD was a fucking joke.
.

what didnt you like about them? they were easily the 3rd, and arguably the 2nd best speakers pg ever made.

and the amps, while ugly to some...where stout as fuck.

[dBincognito]

So "decent" means top of the line, the very best available

This used to be the standard, until profiteering came along. Or am I to be convinced that these new amps somehow outperform the older amps ? Things are supposed to evolve over time, not regress. If AAMP/PG were to rebuild the ZX line right now, it would be there top of the line model for this year......isn't that sad.

3rd, and arguably the 2nd best speakers pg ever made.

Well PG has yet to make speakers or subs I would consider running.....so again that would be lowering my standards.

What was the point of building " The One "......are you supposed to buy 100 new PG subs to run with it ?

Why build a huge SPL amp and offer nothing to run with it ?

I disagree but, again that's fine.

It's all good, I'm just not excited about these products.

[NewOldStock]

So "decent" means top of the line, the very best available

This used to be the standard, until profiteering came along. Or am I to be convinced that these new amps somehow outperform the older amps ? Things are supposed to evolve over time, not regress. If AAMP/PG were to rebuild the ZX line right now, it would be there top of the line model for this year......isn't that sad.

3rd, and arguably the 2nd best speakers pg ever made.

Well PG has yet to make speakers or subs I would consider running.....so again that would be lowering my standards.

What was the point of building " The One "......are you supposed to buy 100 new PG subs to run with it ?

Why build a huge SPL amp and offer nothing to run with it ?

I disagree but, again that's fine.

It's all good, I'm just not excited about these products.

Isnt there a difference between decent and flagship? Decent to me is usually the mid-line of whatever is produced. So in this case, the R series would be "decent" and the Ti would be flagship... but again, considering that its only been 3 months, I would expect NEXT years flagship products to be the real deal, where as this year is a product refresh in a very short amount of time.

In my professional career, I have seen simple single-product refreshes take 18-24 months and average between 12-18 months. a 3-month turn on 30 products tells me they threw every resource available at getting ready for CES.

As for The One - I obviously dont work for PG, so I can only speculate - it seems more of a marketing move to get a new generation of kids that have never considered PG for anything (No dude, my Dual amps and subs kick ass) interested in the brand... it appeals to a new/different set of buyers. The folks that are interested in "the one" probably wouldnt be interested in the M/MS type of amps - non-audiophile type of bass-heads... but they are definitely the kind of people willing to spend money on the mid and low line amps. Which also explains why "the one" has a heatsink more like the R series than the Ti series.

Just my thoughts.

[fuzzysnuggleduck]

It's all good, I'm just not excited about these products.

Fair enough. I'm very happy with my RSd comps and I can imagine that it's possible other people wouldn't be. I'm not going to get my knickers in a knot over it and sounds like you aren't either.

[stipud]

I, for one, welcome our new AAMP overlords

Totally agree with you NOS. That's exactly the point I was trying to make before, but you elaborated on it much more eloquently.