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Soundstream RN4.1400D Rubicon Nano Review (Car Amp)

Rate this amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 35 37.6%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 41 44.1%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 15 16.1%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 2 2.2%

  • Total voters
    93

iMickey503

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You Are correct. With that said?
What's your favorite 60hz sine wave album Hans? :)
amplifiers have a duty cycle just like a welder does. They just don't publish it.

(Edited due to me spelling like Tori.)
spelling-it-like-it-is-9781451628616_hr.jpg
 

changster

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I miss the car audio of the 90's. To me, it was the golden age of car audio and a lot of fun.

Phoenix Gold, PPI, Orion, Zapco, JL, Soundstream, A/D/S, Xtant, US Amps, Rockford Fosgate etc. Owned and loved them all.

Would have been nice to have had a ASR Amir review of those back then.

I was part of that era. But car audio now is leaps better than where it was. Everything is better.
 

iMickey503

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I miss the car audio of the 90's. To me, it was the golden age of car audio and a lot of fun.

Phoenix Gold, PPI, Orion, Zapco, JL, Soundstream, A/D/S, Xtant, US Amps, Rockford Fosgate etc. Owned and loved them all.

Would have been nice to have had a ASR Amir review of those back then.

There were people like that out there. They just were never in the media that people consumed at the time or heard off. It took me till 2001 to buy the Vance's Cookbook as I never knew about it. Actual knowledge was in short supply in the car audio world for the masses unless it was an advert in a magazine sadly. Speaking for myself anyways and my group of peers and adults I was around.

If it was not for my middle school Music teacher? I would have never even understood basic audio fundamentals as speakers mixing boards Electronics cabling Etc.
 

jjmanda

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I was part of that era. But car audio now is leaps better than where it was. Everything is better.
To me it was more then just that. It was the atmosphere of it all.

I was fortunate to have lived in KC back then and could attend the USACi finals each year it was hosted there.
It was just plain fun to be around. The workamanship and creativity of all the installs.
 

tomtoo

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You Are correct. With that said?
What's your favorite 60hz sine wave album Hans? :)
amplifiers have a duty cycle just like a welder does. They just don't publish it.

(Edited due to me spelling like Tori.)
spelling-it-like-it-is-9781451628616_hr.jpg

Its all well defined, if your amp has more rms outputpower than inputpower its a

Perpetuum mobile.


That would be great. Its just that some physicist dont like them.
 

Orion76

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Nice review! I had a Soundstream amp back in the mid 90s. 4 channels plus 1 for the sub.

If I remember right, some of their more expensive amps were Class A!
 

jjmanda

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Nice review! I had a Soundstream amp back in the mid 90s. 4 channels plus 1 for the sub.

If I remember right, some of their more expensive amps were Class A!
Yes, Soundstream made both class A and class A/B.

There could be, but I don't remember any other amps back then that were class A.

Maybe Genesis in late 90's early 2000's? Don't remember.

I walked into a car audio shop near downtown KC the day after it was robbed the night before...circa 1998-99? They took almost everything but left behind the Soundstream Taranutla...lol.
 

pseudoid

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"Top 100 Most Influential Car Audio Products of All Time"
This article maybe of relevance for those who are nostalgic of the ol'skool ways of attempting to stuff as much audio hardware as possible in cars.
The article may also provide some retrospect for those interested in getting a historical timeline of those earlier decades.:)
I don't agree with most that are on the list and many others which should deserve also-mention!
Some of the hardware on the list that I've shoehorned into a variety of vehicles include the List numbers 98, 69, 58, 54, 46, 43, 42, 36. 32, 14, 13, 12, 9, 8, 7, 6, 1
My geekiest installation was a Sony MobileES XDP-4000X PreAmp/EQ which required a serial PC (RS-232) interface to set-up. It had a copper chassis and fiber-optics to connect to a CDX-910 head-end unit.
202206_SonyES-XDP4000X-PreEQ.jpg

Equalization could only be done in-vehicle but similar setup to this:
202206_SonyES-XDP4000XconnectRS232PC.jpg

Yeah, Ol'skool was kool bak then, cirka 1998!:cool:
 

P_M

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....
Power was provided by 300 amp/hr Lithium battery cell so that was not the source of noise. But the analyzer is mains powered so caused mains leakage which I could reduce by tiny amount but no more. Whether this is a design issue with it picking up noise or an artifact of my test setup, I can't say. Going along with it, here is the SNR (which most likely is impacted by above noise):
....
@amirm
does your analyzer work off battery or have an external 12V supply jack to which you can connect a battery ?
Or do you have a high power 12V supply that you can connect to the amp from the same outlet as the analyzer is plugged in to ?
Then you can try either one of these options and rule out possibility of a ground loop.
One other thing to try would be to run a wire from the -ve/gnd terminal of the amp to the analyzer chassis see if that makes any difference.
 

pseudoid

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amirm said:
....
Power was provided by 300 amp/hr Lithium battery cell so that was not the source of noise. But the analyzer is mains powered so caused mains leakage which I could reduce by tiny amount but no more. Whether this is a design issue with it picking up noise or an artifact of my test setup, I can't say. Going along with it, here is the SNR (which most likely is impacted by above noise):
....
Now that would be an interesting test to run. I understand most "Lithium Cells" have their own built-in regulation and protection circuits while providing the output "DC" requirements. I wonder to what degree these power sources really are 'noise-free'.
 

Doodski

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Now that would be an interesting test to run. I understand most "Lithium Cells" have their own built-in regulation and protection circuits while providing the output "DC" requirements. I wonder to what degree these power sources really are 'noise-free'.
I've handled some Sony camcorder battery chargers with lithium batteries and they can be pretty complex. The circuitry did not apparently regulate output voltage but it did regulate the charging parameters. Maybe things have changed but to introduce more circuitry for more voltage drop across the battery/including the peripheral circuitry seems counter productive.
 

GWolfman

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Traditionally because of available voltage.
Of course it is possible to use D9CDC converters, which all > 20W/4ohm car stereo systems have) with 12V (actually more like 14V) and bridged operation one can make 9Vrms.
This will give 2x9W in 4ohm or 4x9W in 4ohm (front + rear) and up to 4x18W in 2ohm.
When allowing say 10% distortion one can even quote 20W or 22W in 2 ohm/channel.
In 8 ohm it would only be 4x4.5W.

So the main reason is you can provide more power in 2ohm than 8ohm from the same power supply rail voltage.
In those + 100W amps internal rail voltages are increased and voltage rail limits aren't an issue.
Current does become an issue though. 400W in 12V requires about 40A which requires very thick wires at 12V.
Ah, I finally get it. Thanks for the explanation!
 

Doodski

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So sad what became of Soundstream, they used to make great stuff
They made great stuff and not so great stuff. I was the Canada wide authorized Soundstream service depot in Canada for some years. I was sent all the stuff other techs did not want to repair or could not. Stuff like the MC245 where junk. Beautiful amp to look at, great quality components but they sandwiched the output transistors between the main PCB and the heatsink with small screws. The screws would come loose or strip out and then the amp would fry and that combined with enthusiasts running them at 2 ohms caused many many failures.
 

Xyrium

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Total nostalgia for me. I always wanted a Soundstream amp, but for some reason always went with Kicker, or Alpine products. Still dig that blue color.
 
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