Anyone with experience on SEN amps?

Binder man

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Anyone have any experience with SEN amps? Had a buddy give me on awhile back SEN 21100. Suppose to be 1100 Watt. Are they worth a darn?
 

ghohouston

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honestly, probably not, it will probably put out some DIRTY ass clipped power. if you do already know about audio, dont take what i say next to offense. a list of good amps/ car audio would be sundown( extremely good products), jl (way overpriced), crossfire, audioque/digital designs( made in same warehouse/same product) rockford fosgate(amps), kicker(amps), im sure i left some out. also, you want to rate an amp off of its rms power, not its peak power, say you have a sub that handles 1000 watts rms, you want to buy an amp that it rated at the same rms, or a little over if you know what youre doing, because the more you crank that gain up, the more likely you are to send clipped signal to your sub, which is what blows them, also, do not use bass boost at all. keep it at 0, bass boost is like a smoke switch is in diesel in relation to car audio, if your amp cannot make your sub loud without it, either you have the amp tuned wrong, a improperly designed enclosure, or you just flat out need a bigger amp
 

jdc753

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honestly, probably not, it will probably put out some DIRTY ass clipped power. if you do already know about audio, dont take what i say next to offense. a list of good amps/ car audio would be sundown( extremely good products), jl (way overpriced), crossfire, audioque/digital designs( made in same warehouse/same product) rockford fosgate(amps), kicker(amps), im sure i left some out. also, you want to rate an amp off of its rms power, not its peak power, say you have a sub that handles 1000 watts rms, you want to buy an amp that it rated at the same rms, or a little over if you know what youre doing, because the more you crank that gain up, the more likely you are to send clipped signal to your sub, which is what blows them, also, do not use bass boost at all. keep it at 0, bass boost is like a smoke switch is in diesel in relation to car audio, if your amp cannot make your sub loud without it, either you have the amp tuned wrong, a improperly designed enclosure, or you just flat out need a bigger amp

:clapping::clapping::toast:






I have never heard of this SEN company before, a little searching did bring up a couple of threads from caraudio.com, but doesn't look like much knowledge there either. If you get it for dirt cheap and only expect it to put out half it's rated power then you will probably be satisfied, otherwise I would skip out on it. Like Ghohouston said clipped power is the #1 killer of speakers/subs and 90% of the time that comes from people's improper use of the gain knob as a volume knob, push the limits of the amp and it will kill your speakers, and NOT because it is overpowering them, but because a clipped square wave signal is sent.


With most everything in car audio you get what you pay for.


If you already have the amp, can you find a spot like this on the box or manual for it? This will tell us all the specs and details of the amp.

200677d1252415829-2-15s-box-4800watt-amp-sale-300-info.jpg
 

Binder man

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I'll look for a sticker. Let me begin by saying I'm not 100% new to this but I am new enough. The crew cab I'm putting together as a driver/tow pig right now I am skipping out on power mods and instead going to ride quality and comfort, and in that is a good system so I'm sure I'll post up some newb questions before long on that.

I didn't figure it was a true 1100w amps. But I figured it would probably be good enough to push a couple 6.5's or 6.75 door speakers at the least.
 

jdc753

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Good deal!!

Power is power by all means, it just comes down to expectations and not pushing too hard, basically the cheaper amps will be much more prone to clipping with much looser tolerances as a higher quality amp. So by all means if you already own it and the price was right then make it work, but if you were looking to buy and the price was more than say $50-75 then I would be looking else where. Even a used old school Jensen, JVC, Hifonics ect could be purchased for cheap.
 

Binder man

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He needed money I think I got it for $30 or so. Do you think it would be fine for some 6.5" component speakers in the doors?
 

jdc753

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$30 sounds like a reasonable price for a working amplifier you have a space for.

Sadly I know nothing of its specs to help you if it is good for the door speakers.

I can venture to guess based off the model number and the other model I found. I am thinking it is a 2 channel amp claiming 1100w Peak, so right away for a solid amp cut the peak number in half so 550w RMS by 2 channels at say 2ohm stable (1 ohm is rare on anything but a mono block) so now at 4 ohm it might be 225w per channel. Now after seeing the above spec picture and knowing they like to advertise peak power instead of RMS power, I would cut that optimistic 225per channel down to 150w RMA per channel.

But that is all educated guess based on the limited evidence. If you could take some pics of the amp, or count how many channels it has that would help greatly as a 150w x 2 is a rather large amplifier. For most door speakers you are looking in the 75-100w per side.
 

jdc753

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That does help out a little to make some more educated guesses.


The main clue with those pictures is the pair of 30amp fuses, this makes 60amp fuse rating in total which indicates a relatively low overall power of the amplifier, the +12v and GND terminals also are indicative of a lower power amplifier. Nothing wrong with that, but just trying to get you an idea of what to expect for power out of this amplifier.


By looking at similar amps, I am thinking this amp will be in the 125-150w per channel RMS at 4ohm range, which for door speakers is actually on the high end, which is a good thing, means the amp works easier (less chance of clipping) to control the speakers and also gives you a bit better sound with the more control that higher power yeilds.

So with that, looking at 125-150w x 2 RMS at 4ohm, and if 2 ohm stable that would be close to 250w x 2 RMS at 2ohm and if you were to bridge the whole setup to a subwoofer you could probably squeeze 500w RMS x 1 at 4ohm


Depending on what you pick up for door speakers you are probably looking at a power handling of 75-100w RMS per side, so this amp will be a little strong but what you can do is keep the gain slightly conservative and make sure to be ready with the volume knob when you push the speakers just incase they don't like the added power.
 

Binder man

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I'm looking at some memphis M class components for door speakers 50w RMS 100 peak I believe. You lost me at 2 ohm stable and bridge!
 

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