Dayton AudioSA1000 Subwoofer Amplifier Rack Mountable

Sound is so subjective. If we all heard the same then there would only be a handful of speakers for sale. I am somewhere between and every day person and an audiophile, probably more like and audio enthusiast. I enjoy crystal clarity of sound and imaging. I am a 2 speaker stereo person, surround sound is fine, but I would rather have 2 great speakers instead of 6 or 8 ‘average’ surround sound speakers.I had a plate amp on the back of a subwoofer I built. It was an NHT1259 in a sealed box. I was powered by a 250 watt plate amp built in to the sub enclosure. I had it for years and liked it. After a night of running this plate amp at very high volume it got too hot and burned some components. One of the things I never liked about the plate amp was that the controls were on the back of the sub. It was a pain to adjust while listening and had to go by memory of which knob did what function.I got this SA1000 amp to replace it and am very happy. The amp is a very heavy unit, as it has a nice heavy transformer (always a big plus). I enjoy the front mounted controls as I can see what knob I am adjusting (as opposed to a plate amp on the back of a subwoofer). I ran the amp all night and it did not get hot to the touch. It did get slightly warm. I has more punch than my older 250 watt plate amp and it is more clean sounding.My only complaints: The soft clip circuitry is useless as when it clips it is just as bad as any clipping amp and the blue power button, it is too bright. The amp does not have any audible hum when in use.

This amplifier is awesome , great power great price ! Using it for outdoor subwoofers , (2)10” and maxes out both of the 500 watt speakers .

The Good:Adjustable crossover and the parametric EQ functionsThe Bad:NOT 1000W RMSI have two 12" Kicker L7 subs with dual 2ohm voice coils in a custom 4.2 cubic foot enclosure (2.1 per sub) for home use. I was running the subs at 4ohms per channel on an old Pioneer 2X50RMS amp for a total of 100W. Sounded fine, but I had to take it easy on the amp as it ran hot due to being wired at 4ohms instead of the rated 8ohms. I figured it was time for an upgrade, so I purchased the Dayton Audio SA1000. 1000 watts should be a big upgrade right? Wrong!!!When I first hooked it up I wired all four coils in series for a total of 8 ohms. In this configuration the SA1000 should put out about 500W RMS. I turned it on, turned it up... and it was pathetic. Sounded like maybe 50 watts. I thought maybe I had flipped the polarity of a coil or something... nope. Everything was connected correctly. Turn everything to the right and watch the clip indicator stay lit most of the time... no power, no ommph, no boom. The 12's connected to the surround sound receiver were louder than the dedicated subs. So I rewired the subs using only one coil per sub in series for a total of 4 ohms. The amp should produce 1000 wats RMS in this configuration, more power than the two coils combined would be (275 watts RMS per coil). That would be a lot of power, and in theory it should be twice as loud as the old pioneer. But this amp doesn't make 1000 watts.I spent a few hours switching back and forth between the two amps. Playing the same tracks, test tones, and frequency sweeps. The clipping indicator on the SA1000 starts flashing at about the same listening volume as the Pioneer would start to audibly clip. The SA1000 starts audibly clipping at just a tad over where the Pioneer would play before clipping. So, maybe 300 watts RMS??? Disappointing.I have not hooked up the oscilloscope or clamped the amp to see what kind of power it is really making. But there is no way it is making 1000Watts. I should have gone with some low line pro audio equipment rated in the 1500-2000W range. Would have got more power per dollar.I do like the adjustable crossover and the parametric EQ functions. Allows me to put more of the available power on lower frequencies. The amp runs cool, even with the clipping indicator blinking with the beat the amp never gets hot. But the rated power is just not there.

I purchased to power two buttkicker lfes but soon discovered this was not possible. The problem is despite this amp having two speaker terminals, internally they are wired as parallel so if you run each terminal to a 4ohm buttkicker you end up with 2 ohms of resistance which isn’t enough. And if you run them in series you get 8 ohms which reduces the total power output of the amp to 450 watts or 225 per buttkicker and you need at least 400 -1500. Good news is the amp has enough adjustments that it makes tuning the one kicker possible and I underestimated how much 1000 watts to a single kicker would suffice. I wish the documentation had been clearer so I had realized it couldn’t handle two 4ohm subs @ 1000 watts but for the price I’ll probably just end up buying a second one too. Also as other reviewers have stated the blue light is obnoxious but for me it’s a non issue with it being setup in the back of my theater and not near the screen.

This is what my system needed. With my two home made sub enclosures. Now they get all the power to drive them. The sound is very clean and blends in great with my 200w mono blocks. Set at 80hz to 100hz with a little over half gain was it and done. It's good they give so ways to control the output. Well, for those who really need it. Otherwise keeping it simple works the best for most. This amp is not complicated unless your trying to do to much with it. The "less is more" formula works just fine. Look I'm listening to it right now and it sounds great with very little set up. The only thing to complain about is the LED light could of had a dimmer installed. But a easy fix was with a small drop of nail polish from wife. Now it's not so bright anymore. Overall I am real happy and believe it to be a very good amp.

The edges are so sharp, it put a 12" hole in a HD yoga ball. Who thinks this is ok? Dangerous. This is going to cost me $600 now. WTH people!?