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Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 1:14 am
by jamie6662
Ok so i have bought a zx450&zx500 which is en route from lisounds on here. I will use one of them bridged to some focal krx3 way components, and also bought a Xenon 1200.1 off andy4879 on ebay which iam a little worried about after seeing he is on buyer beware list after i bought it! it is supposed to be manufacture refurbished but after reading lots of bad stuff on net hopefully it works ok :? it is currently en route also, anyway..
Im planning on running a pioneer deh80prs headunit which gives 5v out is this enough to feed the zx and xenon amp? i ran a 500.4zxti with an alpine headunit 4v preout in the past and that sounded fine.Would i get any real sound quality difference with the line drivers,should i invest in some?
Also would it be good idea to have power caps for these amps? zx driving focals and xenon driving idmax12 1000wrms sub ,If so what size?
Cheers Jamie

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 1:56 am
by joerg
Forget caps use a second batterie!

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 2:27 am
by zeropoint0.5
my experience with the zx amps.....

please buy yourself a pld1 line driver. yes it will give you a much better result.....

you can put the gain of it even around 3 O'clock and let the amp gains as closed as possible......

put in about a 75ah deep cycle battery in the back.....if you already got a cap, you can use it also....

don't buy one if you don't got it yet. the 75ah battery will be fine yet......

good luck......

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 2:56 am
by Eric D
Nothing Andy sells is "manufacturer refurbished". Either he does something on it himself, or he sends it to someone he knows to work on it. I should know, I have worked on amps for him long ago, which then ended up on eBay as "manufacturer refurbished".

I do think he sells good stuff, my only complaint with him is he dishonest about what he sells, and the items he sells are not worth the inflated prices he charges for them (or at least lists them at). If he had items which were actually manufacturer refurbished, or new, then I can see him charging what he does.

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 4:00 am
by jamie6662
Ok thats actually music to my ears so to speak as i was actually looking at a deep cycle battery to put in there for camping purposes so that works out well.

Eric, to be honest despite the stories ive read about him ripping people off buying stuff he seems to have lots of happy customers feedback wise for buying from him,i had a feeling the manufacturer refurb part was suspicious and the price i paid was probably to high but if it works ok im happy. im having problems getting people to ship here so am a little more limited for buying.
So now i need a couple of line drivers wonder if anyone has any on here for sale

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 4:46 am
by dvnt88
joerg wrote:Forget caps use a second batterie!
^^^^ x2, caps are pretty much useless comapared to a good second battery.

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 4:47 am
by ttocs
I recently added a 1 farad cap to my system. But I didn't use it the traditional way, I hooked it up to work as a filtering cap for my deck which IMO will work better then it would on either of my elite amps. Between the two kinetic batteries and the 200Amp Ho phoenix gold alt I hope to have enough current for them not sure what a cap could help there.

As they said save the money and either buy a better/bigger battery or a 2nd one if you can afford it. But when buying a 2nd battery its generally recommended that you buy a 1rst battery at the same time. IF they are different ages they will charge/discharge differently and it can lead to issues keeping everything happy.

Re: Do i need line drivers and power caps?

Posted: Wed May 15, 2013 5:11 am
by Kirghiz
Aside from the fact that he asks way too much for gear, I wouldn't be too worried about buying from Andy. You paid too much probably, but it should work. Most of the issues I've read stem from selling to Andy.