Just seeing if anybody here has any experience with the U.S. Amps Merlin series. I had a Merlin Series 1, and cracked it during tuning. The shop gave me a Merlin series 2 in place of it, but I fried that in 2 months and I did everything I could not to overheat it. I have warranty so all these amps are being free of charge, but damn it's the first time I had this company's amps and it's killing me. Any comments?

 

I would buy Pyle of USAmps... at least they are imports

 

once again dalton shows his knowledge of car audio.lol

 

I know nothing about today's US Amps, but if they really have gotten that bad, its a real shame. I met the original inventor of US Amps when he was operating out of a shop in Gainesville, about 1989. He was a super smart guy (some of his work went into the MRI machines) and built a serious little amp...the KA50. This thing woud work with any ohm load (saw him weld with one, for quite some time, once), and any input level (watched him plug the inputs into a wall socket, and play 60 hz sine waves with it). Back in the day there were several single KA50 setups, running multiple subs and severl sets of mids and highs...and they sounded awesome. I was young and dumb then, so unfortunately, I have no idea how these things worked.

One of the coolest things back then was that no 2 amps looked alike. He bought whatever surplus heatsinks he could find, and then made the boards to fit.

Toby

 

scrappin pops up once again to show his ignorance!

 

us amps make terrific amplifiers. try out the merlin md2. they can take low ohm loads

 

I don't know anything about their most recent stuff, but I built a couple systems using them several years back and they atleast use to be a solid amp for the money. Not that they were the best or anywhere near it, but considering their dirt cheap prices, they put up decent numbers.

I don't see why an amp would just "fry"...usually it's directly related to how it's wired or how it's being used.

 

the new amps are pretty pricey. try out the planet audio amps. great amps for even a greater price.

 

USAmps was aquired by some oriental outfit last year... many rumors of their drop in quality have been floating around on other forums. Consequently, after the aquisition, the HQ was going to be moved to CA from FL... dunno if it ever did.

I can't say if the quality has dropped or not, but I can say that my old xterminator series rocked & never died after numerous times going into protection due to long playing times in hotter than the devils drawers summer days...

 

I Was Offered A Job In R&d Dept - Building Show Vechiles And Abusing Their Stuff, Owner Was A Great Guy And They Built A Solid Amp Like Toby Said, Like Many Companies (ppi, Orion) Of The Past They Have Just Fallen Off The Map To This New Bling-bling Crap...