I absolutely love this amps. When we sold them, we would offer to remove the inside area of the cover and replace it with a thin piece of acrylic for $75. It honestly made it look a lot more expensive. The earlier models had a left and right gain control that was really nice for dialing in the center image before time delay was offered in processors. The smallest version, the 2.3, had no "X" in it's model number meaning it had no internal crossover. The model number were to signify the amount of channels "2" and then the decimal and then "9" meaning 90 watts.....and the X for the crossover. I have at least four of each of the the models (2.3, 2.6x, 2.9x) except for the 5 channel version which I finally found a decent version about 2 years ago....the 5.3x.
as a little bit of a purist id prefer amps with less sound adjustments really , do love some older Rockford stuff, also like the fact they had individual levels for left and right as changing the balance on the head unit would mess with my ocd but out of sight out of mind lol ;)
@@chloeleedow7250 and that's exactly why we liked the left and right adjustments on the amp because the customer couldn't get to them....well usually lol. Remember most of the time they thought they were volume knobs!
The memories! I still have my Punch 100, 100 Z2, Pioneer Premier deck with the dolphins on it, Epicenter (one knob), JL WO 12 in the power wedge box. Had all of it in a 95 Ford Escort with some MB quarts components. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
Love to see one of those as well, buddy of mine had one pushing 2 JL 15's in a crx and it did so pretty well. I was running a The Hott Setup T-500 which was also a budget Orion at the time that I would like to see dyno'd as well, although I have a feeling it would be a little underwhelming.
Every time I think I knew all about the old-school stuff, your channel pulls out an xcard to slap me across the face with. I had never heard of that before today. Strange considering I used to buy ALL the car audio magazines back then. I would have thought I had at least heard of it! Thanks for the video
Nice Re-review of that classic amp - good job 👍 This „ budget „ amp is by far better what was available here for the same amount of money back in 1997 👍
@ I started in 1993. back then most amps for around 300DM were imported stuff from Asia, not saying that it all was junk but lots of bad quality amps were around and some cheated with high power ratings . Not comparable to that nice and honest rated made in US RF „ budget“ amp which features almost the same things like the punch series. I see a nice mainboard with the same quality components and XCard. A punch 40ix was around 550 marks. I am going to dyno the smaller 2.3X in one of my next videos. I like this series, it’s great for small systems.
When I saw you said budget amp I've had to chime in. The amp was also the most affordable Rockford Fosgate in my country at that time. The RF series was the budget my older brother can afford to buy vs the Punch. Still remember going along with him to car stereo stores (and shows) to see and hear the icons of the day (PG M series, Orions, Rockford Fosgates and even the Macintosh).
I have a bunch of experience with those from back in the day, the 2.3x, 4.6x etc.. They sounded and worked just like the B&G ones but they just looked cheap, because they were. Even 20+ years later I love how the B&G amps look. I still collect them any time I see one pop up on marketplace for a civilized price.
I had the 4.6x and one channel had hiss issues that couldn't be solved. It was sent back to twice and the noise was still there. The installer ended up putting that channel on the rear speakers.
Used one of these as mid amp at one point in a build, not quite sure what happened to it but It was a good overall amp. It did feel cheap compared to the tanks that were other Fosgate amps of the era, but they did what they were supposed to do! I wouldn't mind having another in my collection.
I remember bidding on these amps 15-18 years ago on ebay when fixing amps / reselling, but never won any of them, always went above my budget of what made sense for a non-working amp. The overall board design look like typical Rockford of the era, just put in a cheaper heatsink / case. And nothing wrong with doing videos on amps you already did years ago, especially if you are adding a little more info.
I liked this product line when they came out, although the shop I worked at didn't push these very hard. They opted for similar lines with more profit margin at the cost of quality. They seemed to be a continuation of the outgoing PUNCH line and had good warranties.
Back in the day I use the series 1 Rockford fosgate 2.6 amplifier the little brother this one with a series 1 Rockford fosgate 18 in my THX home audio surround sound system. Work quite well it was tune to 25 HZ. The good old days THX VHS.😂
BigD, did you not notice at 6:55 the board is circuits facing us, but at 7:21 you put it in the other way with board facing us, should it not be just flipped not flipped like you did??
I remember seeing these amps for sale a few places but never found them visually appealing. The colors were kinda g with the a to the y. More of a mid 80's vibe which I don't think attracted a lot of people.
Maybe your perception, some could say valve era was golden era, some could say the present time in terms of dollar per watt...I do get that if the era your referring to was when you got into it,then it would've been golden to you
Having a crossover is a good thing, not a con. Most amps of that era had no crossover and adjustable crossovers didn't come until a few years later, around 2000.
That's not true. I have a couple of early 90's amps that have x overs. Sure my 150hd or my 600.2 and 1200.2 art series didn't, but my keenwood 921, Alpine mrv 1505 came with x overs. Most of your American amp didn't incorporate x overs, but Chinese amps did in the early 90's
@tomb9566 Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant to say adjustable crossovers on Rockford amps. Of the Rockford amps I own, the 99 models (225.2) used the X card and the 2000 models (500a2) used the knob. When it comes to other brands, I can only generalize. Most amps of the 90's didn't have adjustable, knob style crossovers. It became more popular in the 2000's.
Installed a lot of back in the day they were pretty good amplifiers but they were really acceptable to engine noise and that was the downside. But for the price it wasn't bad.
So why didn't you just ground an rca from the amp, and that eliminate that. My father had a shop his whole life until he retired, and most engine noise alternator whine was usually from a bad ground soldier
@tomb9566 ground in the RCA's only worked 1 out of nine times. When Rockford fosgate finally perfected their TOPAZ that pretty much eliminated the engine noise but that came after these after these amplifiers are already off the market. RCA noise filters helped but not completely but the side effect of the RCA noise filters that it kind of acted like a mild low pass filter taken away a lot of the mid and trouble diminishing sound quality. The main problem with engine noise was poor quality construction of alternators using cheap diodes that's why when they came out with fuel injection they have a lot of shielded wiring under the hood for the cam and crank sensor pickup.
That looks like thermally conductive tape, not polyimide (looks much thicker than polyimide). If so, it's an acrylic tape filled with ground up ceramic; 3M 8805, 8810, 8815, 8820 (last 2 digits are thickness in thousandths of an inch).
Sometimes I wish they bring back USA, Designed and manufactured Car Audio. This cookie cutter, race to the bottom oversees tech got me uninterested. Even tho, US made is expensive, that's part of the charm, your getting quality, kinda like affording your 1st Hyper Sports car.
You are funny. USA never actually made anything. This I promise you is a rip off of a Japanese design. Unless go way way back in history and everything was Motorola, no by this time nothing was actually American. So ok pal....
It's early Rockford and entry level. The DSM amps got all the attention. I think i only saw one in person and didn't realize it was a Rockford until later. The Series 1 was also pretty strange looking.
I like it when there is a text showing the rated while the amp dyno is running.
I absolutely love this amps. When we sold them, we would offer to remove the inside area of the cover and replace it with a thin piece of acrylic for $75. It honestly made it look a lot more expensive. The earlier models had a left and right gain control that was really nice for dialing in the center image before time delay was offered in processors. The smallest version, the 2.3, had no "X" in it's model number meaning it had no internal crossover.
The model number were to signify the amount of channels "2" and then the decimal and then "9" meaning 90 watts.....and the X for the crossover.
I have at least four of each of the the models (2.3, 2.6x, 2.9x) except for the 5 channel version which I finally found a decent version about 2 years ago....the 5.3x.
as a little bit of a purist id prefer amps with less sound adjustments really , do love some older Rockford stuff, also like the fact they had individual levels for left and right as changing the balance on the head unit would mess with my ocd but out of sight out of mind lol ;)
@@chloeleedow7250 and that's exactly why we liked the left and right adjustments on the amp because the customer couldn't get to them....well usually lol.
Remember most of the time they thought they were volume knobs!
The memories! I still have my Punch 100, 100 Z2, Pioneer Premier deck with the dolphins on it, Epicenter
(one knob), JL WO 12 in the power wedge box. Had all of it in a 95 Ford Escort with some MB quarts components. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
It would be interesting to see older Orion Cobalt metallic blue and PG Sapphire on the dyno . From around the same year 97
Love to see one of those as well, buddy of mine had one pushing 2 JL 15's in a crx and it did so pretty well. I was running a The Hott Setup T-500 which was also a budget Orion at the time that I would like to see dyno'd as well, although I have a feeling it would be a little underwhelming.
Rockford has put a lot of technology in their amps back in the day. Very awesome amp dyno there Big D.
You leave that little piece of bare wire on that left positive lead just to trigger the OCD crew lol
I had a 4 channel in this style. Ran 2 4" coaxials, 2 6x9 coaxials and 2 midbass 8s. Had a great front stage with it.
Every time I think I knew all about the old-school stuff, your channel pulls out an xcard to slap me across the face with. I had never heard of that before today. Strange considering I used to buy ALL the car audio magazines back then. I would have thought I had at least heard of it! Thanks for the video
They used them for quite a while, however most are accessible through a rubber plug on the bottom of the amps.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Nice Re-review of that classic amp - good job 👍 This „ budget „ amp is by far better what was available here for the same amount of money back in 1997 👍
Where are you at? Was it Germany?
@ yes, correct 👍
@@audiokeller1975When did you see car audio catch on over there? Was it 90's or later?
@ I started in 1993. back then most amps for around 300DM were imported stuff from Asia, not saying that it all was junk but lots of bad quality amps were around and some cheated with high power ratings . Not comparable to that nice and honest rated made in US RF „ budget“ amp which features almost the same things like the punch series. I see a nice mainboard with the same quality components and XCard. A punch 40ix was around 550 marks. I am going to dyno the smaller 2.3X in one of my next videos. I like this series, it’s great for small systems.
When I saw you said budget amp I've had to chime in. The amp was also the most affordable Rockford Fosgate in my country at that time. The RF series was the budget my older brother can afford to buy vs the Punch. Still remember going along with him to car stereo stores (and shows) to see and hear the icons of the day (PG M series, Orions, Rockford Fosgates and even the Macintosh).
I have a bunch of experience with those from back in the day, the 2.3x, 4.6x etc.. They sounded and worked just like the B&G ones but they just looked cheap, because they were. Even 20+ years later I love how the B&G amps look. I still collect them any time I see one pop up on marketplace for a civilized price.
I had the 4.6x and one channel had hiss issues that couldn't be solved. It was sent back to twice and the noise was still there. The installer ended up putting that channel on the rear speakers.
I had one of these running a Jensen 10" or 12" I don't remember as one of my "first" stereo systems in the late 90's. Great little amp for what it is.
I put one of these in my wife's car. Great little amp. Made for a great sound system.
Used one of these as mid amp at one point in a build, not quite sure what happened to it but It was a good overall amp. It did feel cheap compared to the tanks that were other Fosgate amps of the era, but they did what they were supposed to do! I wouldn't mind having another in my collection.
My friend had this amp in a 78 Chevy truck. 10 gauge home power wire. Rf power 12 vibrating those big, nasty seats. 🙃 oh... the good old days
I love me some Fosgate.. i've got 4 BD2500's right now. well over 10 years old and still kicking strong. awesome dampening factor
I remember bidding on these amps 15-18 years ago on ebay when fixing amps / reselling, but never won any of them, always went above my budget of what made sense for a non-working amp. The overall board design look like typical Rockford of the era, just put in a cheaper heatsink / case. And nothing wrong with doing videos on amps you already did years ago, especially if you are adding a little more info.
I liked this product line when they came out, although the shop I worked at didn't push these very hard. They opted for similar lines with more profit margin at the cost of quality. They seemed to be a continuation of the outgoing PUNCH line and had good warranties.
Big D, it all started from hafler. And this is what tuned into lighting audio because this was their budget amp
Was a big fan of the first generation punch150 had 4 of them at 1 point
I still have a first-generation 150hd on my wall
Also a great oldschool amp🤘🤘🤘
Awesome. Thanks brother 👍
Rockford made great amps back then...with the exception of the "Series one" line.
Back in the day I use the series 1 Rockford fosgate 2.6 amplifier the little brother this one with a series 1 Rockford fosgate 18 in my THX home audio surround sound system. Work quite well it was tune to 25 HZ. The good old days THX VHS.😂
Fosgate's direct build to compete with the Zapco AG amps. Loved both. Have owned both.
Fosgate wanted to compete with all zed audio products.
I had 2 one per a 12" w0 back when these were released in the late 90s early 2000s
Question 🤔 is does it boom boom!?
I’ve always wondered about this particular model
8:16 I love it. This is what I would have got if I knew about it and had the money for it.
Nice old school amp
Come on Big D , retest the MTX 2300. You know you want to. And we certainly wanna see it :)
I couldn't get any power out of the 2.6 x unless I was running it at like 15.5 volts
BigD, did you not notice at 6:55 the board is circuits facing us, but at 7:21 you put it in the other way with board facing us, should it not be just flipped not flipped like you did??
I’m sure those segments were edited out of order
Never could afford Rockford and that's why I hate on 'em to this day! The same goes for Orion. lol
Ey wicked amps these. I have two of the 4.6x, I think they're called xx
I had the 4 channel amp. So I had stop by again
Why didnt you measure it at 14.4 2 ohm bridge? Im confused. Please show its ability
I remember seeing these amps for sale a few places but never found them visually appealing. The colors were kinda g with the a to the y. More of a mid 80's vibe which I don't think attracted a lot of people.
👍👍
97-00 was the golden years for amps.
That's really narrow. Why golden years?
Maybe your perception, some could say valve era was golden era, some could say the present time in terms of dollar per watt...I do get that if the era your referring to was when you got into it,then it would've been golden to you
@@richbrown5852car amps. Not guitar amps.
Nah
Early 90’s my boi. So many made in USA amps. Orion, MTX, and Fosgate literally made on the same block in Phoenix. Miss those days
Having a crossover is a good thing, not a con. Most amps of that era had no crossover and adjustable crossovers didn't come until a few years later, around 2000.
That's not true. I have a couple of early 90's amps that have x overs. Sure my 150hd or my 600.2 and 1200.2 art series didn't, but my keenwood 921, Alpine mrv 1505 came with x overs. Most of your American amp didn't incorporate x overs, but Chinese amps did in the early 90's
@tomb9566 Perhaps I wasn't clear. I meant to say adjustable crossovers on Rockford amps. Of the Rockford amps I own, the 99 models (225.2) used the X card and the 2000 models (500a2) used the knob.
When it comes to other brands, I can only generalize. Most amps of the 90's didn't have adjustable, knob style crossovers. It became more popular in the 2000's.
@@ElectronicMusicUndergroundI explain in more detail in the 3rd comment. Sorry for any confusion.
Installed a lot of back in the day they were pretty good amplifiers but they were really acceptable to engine noise and that was the downside. But for the price it wasn't bad.
So why didn't you just ground an rca from the amp, and that eliminate that. My father had a shop his whole life until he retired, and most engine noise alternator whine was usually from a bad ground soldier
@tomb9566 ground in the RCA's only worked 1 out of nine times. When Rockford fosgate finally perfected their TOPAZ that pretty much eliminated the engine noise but that came after these after these amplifiers are already off the market. RCA noise filters helped but not completely but the side effect of the RCA noise filters that it kind of acted like a mild low pass filter taken away a lot of the mid and trouble diminishing sound quality. The main problem with engine noise was poor quality construction of alternators using cheap diodes that's why when they came out with fuel injection they have a lot of shielded wiring under the hood for the cam and crank sensor pickup.
That looks like thermally conductive tape, not polyimide (looks much thicker than polyimide). If so, it's an acrylic tape filled with ground up ceramic; 3M 8805, 8810, 8815, 8820 (last 2 digits are thickness in thousandths of an inch).
Sometimes I wish they bring back USA, Designed and manufactured Car Audio. This cookie cutter, race to the bottom oversees tech got me uninterested. Even tho, US made is expensive, that's part of the charm, your getting quality, kinda like affording your 1st Hyper Sports car.
You are funny. USA never actually made anything. This I promise you is a rip off of a Japanese design. Unless go way way back in history and everything was Motorola, no by this time nothing was actually American. So ok pal....
@@shawnsatterlee6035 If you say so.
Even the budget amp was a good deal
Friend bought one of these new.. I thought it was the cheapest feeling/ looking amp I ever seen.
Ha first 😂
I had a chance to buy I think it was called the 2.6 for like 40 bucks I passed
Never been a fan of Fosgate. MTX , Hertz is the way to go
Similar to the old school series 1 amps.....
Bro, I miss the real amps and bumps....
Huh.. Now I know who Pyramid copied with their Reno series!
Just went and looked at my Pyramid, although the exterior looks similar, the internal PBC design is completely different.
Reno and Super Blue came out before this amp and were more a copy of the Phoenix Gold M series amps.
@@2dcell Oh, good to know, thanks for the correction.
I do not remember this amp at all
It's early Rockford and entry level. The DSM amps got all the attention. I think i only saw one in person and didn't realize it was a Rockford until later. The Series 1 was also pretty strange looking.
Has to be one of the ugliest RF amps made. But still does power.
These amps blow Joe Biden……so did the series 1
Big D buddy I had a punch 75 bridged down to half an ohm, 4-12 inch Pyle drivers back in 91 and the amp ran flawlessly. Take that amp down to.8 ohms