Arc Audio

[CivicLx]

Anyone heard anything good or bad about their products?

[Whitey001]

Depending on what u get they are good i here:bandit:

[PaulD]

it's a higher priced line that generally has very good build quality.

[GSteg]

arc audio is the roll royce of all cars.


also paulD, do you believe there are differences in different amps, sound quality wise? richard clark on carsound .com believes all headunit/amps sounds the same when all the crossover and processors are bypassed. what do you think?

[so-cali]

although im not PaulD, IMO amps do have an effect on the sound quality. Better amps do a better job of handling power and have less of a strain when the volume is turned up. As for headunits... they make a huge difference. After my brother got his $150 Prestige deck stolen... he replaced it with an Alpine CDA-7892 and it has made a world of difference.

[GSteg]

Originally posted by so-cali
although im not PaulD, IMO amps do have an effect on the sound quality. Better amps do a better job of handling power and have less of a strain when the volume is turned up. As for headunits... they make a huge difference. After my brother got his $150 Prestige deck stolen... he replaced it with an Alpine CDA-7892 and it has made a world of difference.

maybe its just the features that makes the headunit sound different. richard clarks believes that if you bypass all those stuff.they will all sound the same.

[PaulD]

Richard Clark makes this distinction ....... not all amps are the same (that is quite easily proved in the lab), but that no one he has met so far can tell the difference between them sonically if they are matched in volume and all their features are turned off/by-passed. Notice that his amp challenge is done in a nice, quiet (home) listening room. Even if someone comes along that passes it, it would be IMPOSSIBLE in a moving car. Also, it generally doesn't take into account when the amp goes into clipping - at carsound, they recommend a 3-1 voltage overlap at the amp during gain setting. That pretty much assures that the amp will clip at pretty much every peak, even at normal listenig volumes.

My main reason for buying more expensive products is that they are a lot more reliable. Many of the power specs for head units are of the ILS (if lightning strikes) variety - the only way it could put it out that kind of power is if lightning struck the power supply. The crossover points and EQ center freq's tend to be more accurate. Additionally, the better equipment tends to have better power supply isolation schemes, meaning fewer engine noise problems.

[sparq]

Arc Audio

BTW: They also make a line called "Monitor 1" or something like that (sorry brain fart been up all day) same quality, just lower priced, good stuff from what I got to tinker with. If my camera didnt just take a bath in the toilet (thank my nephew for that) I would have some pictures :o

[fuburyder14]

Heard nothing but great things about Arc Audio. You shouldnt be disappointed