Why are the "pros" even thinking about 12V when at those power levels, high voltage more than makes sense?
And while there's certainly not many "proper" applications for such a powerful amp in a car, there are still a few. Like a mobile PA system.
Because rules in every car audio competition league/organization dictate no more than 16V systems in most cases, some restrict, or at least used to, down to 14.4V. If they didn't it would be a lot easier to get more power.
Reminds me of my younger days in competition car audio. My favorite amps were Orion "red" HCCA amps (not sure how well they are made these days - I haven't been involved in competition audio since the mid 90's), we would wire a number of 15" or 18" sub drivers in parallel - not uncommon to put < 1 ohm loads on them. The hardest thing was supplying enough current quickly enough to avoid clipping. It was normal practice to install special alternators along with a bank of deep-cycle marine batteries for the power system, along with a bank of supercaps very near to the amplifier hardware.
At least once in their life everyone should get to experience 150+ dB of raw bass while sitting in the cab of one of those SPL show cars. It is a unique sensation - there is nothing else like it in the world. (and don't be an idiot and ignore the deafness warnings - wear the proper ear protection)
Yep, that was also back when I got into Car Audio, right around 1992. The HCCAs were the hot ticket. I wanted one of the 2100 HHCAs so badly, a "200 watt" amplifier that was around 24" long, 10" wide and 6" tall.
I was also fond of the 2250SX I think it was, in the same heatsink, only black, and wasn't a "high current" amplifier.
Then there was the MS series from Phoenix Gold, I still haven't found anything comparable, and I have some Phoenix Gold Xenon stuff in my crawl space. :/
Peak value measured during 10ms, 1ms, or 0.1ms, or some stupid non-real world value..
I refer to those as "ILS Ratings" - If Lightning Strikes.
Phoenix Gold used to be known for putting REAL output ratings on their products, but they were bought out and have been caught up in the same ILS ratings that most other companies put on their products to sell them. The good manufacturers will still publish the real ratings, usually at low THD and sometimes with a full range or proper range for that component frequency range.
Even though I am very much into efficiency, both in space and power used by anything, I still can't help to like the look of surf board amplifiers, must be that guy thing...
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