Phoenix Gold Vs Kenwood

[leeroy]

My mate has recently told me he thinks my Tantrum amps are shite, he reckons PG in general are unreliable crap and he only rates the MS range. This came about after my T1200.1 started playing up and he lent me a 2 Channel Kenwood amp to run in its place until its repaired which he reckons sounds far better than the PG.
I know the Tantrum range aren't the best line produced by PG but surely they're head and shoulders above any recent Kenwood effort?
Thoughts on this would be appreciated people, feel free to be as brutally honest as you like

[mudder]

I think your friend is verry wrong.
Kenwood made some great amplifiers but PG's are far better amps.
And PG amps are a little bit more expensive to.

Philip.

[dwnrodeo]

Kenwood amps are only superior to PG when paired with at least 4 of these bad boys... vvv Otherwise PG is better.

[NewOldStock]

Its obvious your friend has never really heard any PG amps.

I also find it strange that your friend has a REPAIRED Kenwood amp but thinks that PG amps are unreliable... wtf?

There is a reason that 20 years after they were made, the PG amps (M, MS, Ti, and the ZX series amps) are held in such high esteem and sought after. Do Kenwood amps even last 20 years? I know my 2x75 fosgate amp I bought for $15.00 and it was minty where the same 2x75 PG amp minty is in the 150.00 - 200.00 range.

Tell your friend to quit talking out his ass and take a listen to some PG amps... shortly after listening, he'll be here trying to buy.

[fuzzysnuggleduck]

What Kenwood amp did he lend you?

[Eric D]

Kenwood amps are junk.

I am a huge fan of Kenwood decks but a lot of people think they are also junk, and they may be right.

You could not give me a Kenwood amp. It is not worth taking up space in my basement which could be better put to use storing something actually nice, like a PG Tantrum amp.

[leeroy]

Its my amp that needs repairing, not the kenwood.
Its a KAC 7204 he's lent me.

[leeroy]

My mates system consists of 2x 18" Ground Zero Plutonium powered by 2x Hifonics XXV Collosus II, 6 pairs of Diamond Audio 6.5" components powered by 3x Kenwood KAC 7204. It recently hit 158db and is one of the loudest cars in the uk. A few people have tried telling him to replace the Kenwoods with DLS or Genesis or something of similar standard but he wont switch from the Kenwoods as they're "reliable" and have never let him down, whereas i've had 2 Tantrum amps fail in the space of 2 months

[Bfowler]

tough to say without guts pics, but previous generations of kenwoods featured things like 1 sided boards, i seriously doubt the kenwood has anything on the tantrum (which has 10 years on the kenwood)

[Bfowler]

other then the 1200.1's, i have never heard of someone breaking a tantrum. you have bad luck!

[twisted]

i think your friend needs to clean his ears and take another listen!

PG amps are far superior to kenwood amps any day!

im thinkin your friend has to be compairing a PG octaine amp to kenwoods finest.

you know this reminds me of some retard that once told me brand doesnt matter its all in the install.........now the is some truth to an extent of that statment but if you have sonicly superior amps up againts a pyramid pro, the install isnt gonna make up the difference

[Bfowler]

all joking aside, i imagine the octane is pretty similar to kenwoods finest.

[joerg]

all joking aside, i imagine the octane is pretty similar to kenwoods finest.

I can´t wait until ttocs reads that!

[bogart]

I quite reading when I saw he was running newer hifonics turds....

They are big...they are cheap...they are noisy and the thd levels at peak one ohm is god awful.....they will beat the shit out of some subs....but not cleanly and I owned a 2600 for bout three days....couldn't cope with turn on noise


turn the car on...pop....turn it off....pop....

I don't mind the excelon x1...ran one on my bench and in my car when I first got my excelon hu. Of course I swapped it out for a dls A7 mono in short order and put it back on the bench....

I do like that all I had to do was run power and then a single cable back and my hu will control the digital amps function from up front....x over and gain...db gain...pretty cool...but there is no ever loving way I would take it over a tantrum1200.1

I wouldnt waste my time trying to repair a kenwood amp...and neither would kenwood...they would swap the 27 dollar board and charge you out the ass for the repair...

haters...pg haters.....os pg was designed from the ground up with the audiophile in mind....kenwoods dc stuff has always been oriented toward the mid ground....or less in some cases....and the common market...

And I would say that more pg amps have died due to ignorant abuse and a lack of understanding toward what they bought and a lack of knowledge of how to run an amp then just plain bad amps....

[oldschoolfan]

Kenwood makes a fine amplifier, if you own a boat and are in need of a new anchor.

[NewOldStock]

actually ... he answered the question in his reply.

My mates system consists of 2x 18" Ground Zero Plutonium powered by 2x Hifonics XXV Collosus II, 6 pairs of Diamond Audio 6.5" components powered by 3x Kenwood KAC 7204. It recently hit 158db and is one of the loudest cars in the uk. A few people have tried telling him to replace the Kenwoods with DLS or Genesis or something of similar standard but he wont switch from the Kenwoods as they're "reliable" and have never let him down, whereas i've had 2 Tantrum amps fail in the space of 2 months

His buddy isnt remotely interested in sound quality... he is interested in SPL... thats a whole different game.

PG amps are SQ amps. your buddy is comparing apples to oranges. If your talking about going for 158db, he is right... PG amps are not the answer.

How is he not going for SQ?

6 pairs of Diamond Audio 6.5" components

sound quantity is not the same as sound quality.

If your buddy wants to actually compare his Kenwood to PG its going to have to be in a SQ setting - not a SPL setting.

[oldskoolmseriesfan]

Kenwood vs PG are you fucking kidding me????
how old is this little girl....I mean friend
when you get yours back, let him hear both, hook one up, give it a listen, and then the other, I gaurantee you he will feel like a TOOL.!

[marko]

the only decent kenwood amps made were the KAC-1021 and 1023, i had a 1021 and the sq was top shelf audiophile, incredible imaging and staging!!

rest is just junk.

[KHPower]

Kenwood makes some nice head units that are affordable , I will give them that.

Now your buddy is hitting some high SPL numbers and if he is using Kenwoods to hit those numbers and doesnt think Phoenix Gold can do that hes on crack. i know alot folks here dont think PG amps can do SPL but I compete with (2) rsd 1200.1s and hit nice numbers as well

I dont have 6 diamond audio speakers just my rsdc6.5s and my 15's

[Tiger]

You sure he didn't mean CALIFORNIA GOLD? :p

I wouldn't trust Kenwood head units as fair as I can throw them. Amps aren't too bad. The old PSRs got me out of a jam YEARS ago. But I wouldn't put them in the same league as PG, THAT'S for sure. Speakers... nah ah (having said that, their XXV-04S got high marks in a splits shoot out in 2006) and subs (I own a set of old school HQ 10s... they're the only ones I'd touch.)

To compare Kenwood to PG... you couldn't. 2 completely different brands all together, if you ask me. If your friend thinks the MS were the only tough amps, he obviously does NOT know about the ZX range.. the Zero Point range.. the Titanium range... Hmmm... these amps would make Flex Wheeler's toes curl!

If PG is shite... then, wow... BOSS ROCKS then I think NOT.

(My 5 cents worth)

[smgreen20]

I too would fall in the category of Kenwood HU's suck, it's my personal preference not a direct reflection of how good/bad the HUs are. They look cheap/cheesy to me.

Any Kenwood amp by my opinion, SUCKS! Every review I've read on them, not 1 has done rated power, some close to it, but none have.

[oldskoolmseriesfan]

I ran 2 kicker xpl 12's off of an M50,(and the rest of my system aswell) back in 1994 or so in SPL comps and did just fine, 137.7 dbs off of PG's so called 50x2. I have a Kenwood deck right now and its the worst HU ive owned, its brely 3 yrs old and it has alsorts of problems, my first was a Clarion, SQ wasnt the greatest but it was a tank,went through 3 cars and 8yrs of use, then I went to Alpine, a 7939 I believe and same deal except the SQ was AWESOME, Im thinking of going back to oldskool Alpine like a 7909, Ive got nothing good to say about Kenwood, I gave them a shot and they shit the bed.

[KUB3]

As Marko said, Kenwood did make the odd highly regarded item back in the day. But kids today won't remember that far back.

As with most companies today they went down the route of cheap and cheerful instead. So I'm not convinced Kenwood is any worse than many other brands today. They all seem to be mass produced in china, assembled by robots and turned out in their millions for bottom dollar / yen / yuan

[kg1961]

Kenwood vs PG are you fucking kidding me????
how old is this little girl....I mean friend
when you get yours back, let him hear both, hook one up, give it a listen, and then the other, I gaurantee you he will feel like a TOOL.!

is this post real?????????????????????????????????????

[twisted]

i used to like kenwoods HU's too but like all the rest they have gottn cheesey looking.
my next HU is gonna be a nakamichi cd400. plain jane lookin with 24bit d/a converters.
and under 300 bux