Hifonics ZUES series

billz428

Where do the ZUES series from Hifonics rate in the amp world? Alpine ,Xtant, or Power Acoustic , they seem like a good amp for the money. I,m looking for a 5 ch amp to drive a 10in polk momo,6x9 momo 5.25 momo Pioneer deh 470p HU,pioneer deq-7600 eq, Thanx

spwuinmk67

Theyre amps are very good. I, as well as some others on here, have them or have used them. They're clean and built well. Definatly better then power acoustik, but I'm personally not too familiar with a lot of amps, so someone else would have to tell you how they would rate among others. If you search around the forum, you'll find some amp comparisons and listings.

swerve

i own a xxzeus.

it's pertty mean ya know.
BIA BIA

-adam

exalted512

above anything alpine, on par with PPIs new stuff if not a tad better/worse

-Cody

swerve

Cody -

One thing I do realize with my zeus is that on the remote bass I turn it up... a little more and when the bass hits the protect light flickers... I don't know if this is just a hoax because so much juice is bein delivered. but I do know if I tone it down just a bit it doesn't do it.

either way i have it set how I would like... but i don't want to tear up an amp if i have to get dirrty or sumthin.

Jstas

The protect light is flickering because the gain is being set too high. The Hifonics amps don't have built in fuses so they will draw as much power as they can to put our what they need to to meet the demands you are putting on it. If the light is flickering then that is the amp telling you that you are getting to the point where the amp's power supplies are physically incapable of supporting your demands on the system. So if the protection light is coming on then you are going to have a problem and possibly break an amp or blow some speakers.

Turn the gain down. If it isn't loud enough then you either need more power from a bigger amp or you are going deaf.

neomagus00

if what he says is correct about the power supply, you don't want any flickering at all, yep... turn it down till you get a better charging system

swerve

Originally posted by neomagus00
if what he says is correct about the power supply, you don't want any flickering at all, yep... turn it down till you get a better charging system

yea i fixed it.

alternator and battery took care of alot of crap.

now it can just keep going up, up, and up...

-adam

MacLeod

I think they are very good amps.

Im a little leary of the in their build quaity though. Ive heard of more than a few of them just giving up the ghost on other forums and from other people. Even on a test Road Gear did on one, it died on the test bench and had to be replaced.

But these have been a while ago so they may have got those glitches fixed by now. Nobody on here has ever had any problems with them.

Id say theyre much better than Power Acoustic but not as good as Alpine V12 or Xtant.

billz428

I went with the Zues series 5 channel amp, build quality,power,sound,are excellent,but it does get very warm . I,m still playing with the final settings but all in all I,m really impressed.My Alpine V12 series 5 channel is cleaner sounding.For the MONEY a Zues series is hard to beat.:D

AustinKP

Originally posted by billz428
it does get very warm .

That's what they're *supposed* to do. You're touching the heat sink. It's sole job, besides protecting the internals, is to remove heat from the components and dissipate it into the air. If it's hot, that means it's doing its job.
-Austin

audiobliss

If it's hot...that means it's not dissipated...but lingering on the heat sink....

and he could be talking about 'it gets 150 degrees' - hot....that's too hot, no?


Oh, and I'm just feeling confrontational right now.....:p

MacLeod

Not necessarily. Some amps get really hot. You can cook on big MTX amps and Ive heard the same of a lot of Hifonics. As long as you dont smell anything burning, you see no smoke and give it plenty of ventilation it will be ok.

billz428

This amp is just on the high side of warm,just doing its job I did not get a reading on it because it was not enough to alarm me .NO SMOKE,Fumes, just loud pounding bass, great midrange,clear highs, all in all I,m very pleased. When I finish my install I,ll post some pics.:D

exalted512

my fosgates get pretty damn hot. if you left your hand on the heat shrink itd burn your hand...
-Cody

neomagus00

jeez... yeah, better that the heatsink be hot than the important bits inside...

Jstas

I have the Z800 5 channel Zeus amp and it does get hot but I have yet to have a problem with it. They have big, beefy, unregulated power supplies that will get very hot, especially if you are driving amp hard in lower impedance modes.

And the heat isn't "lingering on the heatsink". I can have a fan blowing on the amp all day long and the only difference will be that the air around the amp will be cool but the heat sink will still be too warm to touch.

For an amp that pushes 50 watts per channel and 200 for the sub all at 4 ohms, it is certainly a stout amplifier. Probably underrated by a good deal 'cause it performs better than my old Kenwood amp with 70 watts per channel.

I've used Hifonics amp extensively in several installs, not just my own. A Jeep has 1190 watts of Hifonics power, my wife's car has 1000 watts of Hifonics power, I put 2200 watts of Hifonics power into an F-150 and 800 watts of Hifonics power into a Nissan Sentra. A friend is looking at doing a stereo in his Jeep Comanche and he wants to get Hifonics-XX series amps and probably total about 800 watts of power. Build quality is of the highest degree and I have yet to see or hear of anyone who isn't satisfied that actually owns the amps and hasn't read a magazine or website that says they suck. They are clean, cleaner than most other amps on the market. They aren't cheap in any respect either. Looking inside, one finds parts of a high enough degree that they have Mil. Spec numbers assigned to them showing they meet those standards. For a car amp, that is important. If the Army says it will stand up to abuse, you will never beable to do what the Army would do to it in your car. Fit and finish is about as good as a Lexus and mchining and tooling is top notch too. Just because many places sell them for the cost of a Coustic pile of crap or Sony Xplod series stuff doesn't mean they are junk. Find a local dealer and look at what they are asking for them on the shelves. I picked up my Z800 for about $425 and retail was about $870. The Nemesis amps I put in teh Jeep ran us about $170-225 from the discounters but retail prices were around $300-425 and the Nemesis series is thier entry level.

The past is the past and every company has made some mistakes they would like to forget about. The good ones learn from thier mistakes and stick around. The bad ones don't and usually leave.

swerve

i get flickering still... with punchy bass... not long drawn out bass. i'm very pissed about this.... my gain is 15% if I go over 20% it flickers.

I have no boost on my HU going or anything....

-adam

neomagus00

actually, it makes more sense for punchy bass to flicker rather than long drawn-out bass... but does the long stuff affect the light, too?

swerve

Originally posted by neomagus00
actually, it makes more sense for punchy bass to flicker rather than long drawn-out bass... but does the long stuff affect the light, too?

no,
i'll play late night tip and nothing will happen,.... nothing long and drawn out does it.

Jstas

Dude, you gains are probably still set a tad too high. What voltage are your pre-amp outs?

swerve

the gain isn't even 1/4th of the way up. alpine claims 4... but they are really like 1v for the sub preout.

neomagus00

since the long stuff doesn't do it but the short burst do, i'm going to venture a diagnosis of an insufficient charging system. you've made changes to it, right? what are they?

Jstas

The Hifonics will only support up to a 5.0V pre-amp input I believe so your gains are going to be set low for a 4-4.5V pre-amp output. Also, Alpine is like Kenwood and what they say it puts out, it puts out. There isn't an RMS value for the pre-amp out puts like some of the cheaper head units. If the Alpine says 4V pre-amp outputs then it's 4V for all of them, not just full-range channels.

Jstas

Originally posted by neomagus00
since the long stuff doesn't do it but the short burst do, i'm going to venture a diagnosis of an insufficient charging system. you've made changes to it, right? what are they?

I'm going to venture a guess with the limited info we have here and say that neomagnus seems to be on the dot. I would get out the manuals and check the gains for proper settings but, you may need to be getting yourself a new/higher output battery and upgrade your charging system.

Probably the best thing to do at this point is to wire a voltage meter into the power input on the amp and play music. Watch the meter and if the voltage drops below 10 or gets close to it then that is why your amp is hitting the protection circuits. Lowering the gains will help keep it off of the voltage floor and save the amp but if you are getting voltage drops from 14 volts (what most charging systems actually run at) down to 10 volts, that is a very significant drop. Almost 30%. That means that the charging system cannot support the amperage draw on the charging system and you need to beef it up right quick or you are gonna break the amps, speakers or even the charging system and all can be expensive to fix.

swerve

Originally posted by Jstas
I'm going to venture a guess with the limited info we have here and say that neomagnus seems to be on the dot. I would get out the manuals and check the gains for proper settings but, you may need to be getting yourself a new/higher output battery and upgrade your charging system.

Probably the best thing to do at this point is to wire a voltage meter into the power input on the amp and play music. Watch the meter and if the voltage drops below 10 or gets close to it then that is why your amp is hitting the protection circuits. Lowering the gains will help keep it off of the voltage floor and save the amp but if you are getting voltage drops from 14 volts (what most charging systems actually run at) down to 10 volts, that is a very significant drop. Almost 30%. That means that the charging system cannot support the amperage draw on the charging system and you need to beef it up right quick or you are gonna break the amps, speakers or even the charging system and all can be expensive to fix.

i just dropped an alternator and a red top in there. the alt is 140 amp. that's the highest i'm doing... i'm not spending 400+ on an alt and i'm not going with IRAGGI.

i dunno. i'll back off of it a bit and see if that makes a difference.

swerve

Originally posted by Jstas
The Hifonics will only support up to a 5.0V pre-amp input I believe so your gains are going to be set low for a 4-4.5V pre-amp output. Also, Alpine is like Kenwood and what they say it puts out, it puts out. There isn't an RMS value for the pre-amp out puts like some of the cheaper head units. If the Alpine says 4V pre-amp outputs then it's 4V for all of them, not just full-range channels.

well there is a input voltage option on my amp by my rca's... when it get's around 1-2v it begins to make noise.

Jstas

OK then. Need much more info.

What kind of car is it?
How big is the stock alternator?
How big is the one you just put in there?
What is the CCA rating on the battery you installed?
How many power options does the car have? (i.e.: power windows, locks, seats, etc...)

Jstas

Originally posted by swerve
well there is a input voltage option on my amp by my rca's... when it get's around 1-2v it begins to make noise.

1-2V for what? the power input or the signal input?

1-2V for a power input is extremely low and your car would not even be running if it was that low.

swerve

96' Bonneville SSEi
The stock alt. was a 120 I think.
I put in 140.
Dunno i'd have to look (it's a red top)

Power options
-9-way power seats
-Power Windows
-Power Locks
-Sunroof.
-Basically it's loaded... has a ton of power options that's why I went with the AC Delco alt because if it eats it... i can get another one free without having to dish out mad cash.

bonnevilles already eat alternators.

swerve

Originally posted by Jstas
1-2V for what? the power input or the signal input?

1-2V for a power input is extremely low and your car would not even be running if it was that low.

nono i have to toggle this option to make it match my HU's RCA's output.