Autotek SX-4160 -For the money, get something else....
Written: Jul 07 '02 (Updated Jul 07 '02)
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Pros: Cool Chrome Finish, accepts 4 gauge wire power connections.
Cons: Poor sound quality, inconsistent output, sound quality distortion, cheap "made in korea" feel
The Bottom Line: Save your money for something else, Kicker, Eclipse, JL Audio, Rockford Fosgate, this amp fell short of all it's claims.
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| shaman2005's Full Review: Autotek SX-4160 Car Amp |
I bought this amp brand new a year and 5 months ago. At the time it seemed like the right thing to do, I was young, naive, and full of ambition, I had $300 in my bank account, a brand new set of Pioneer Premiers 6.5 components and 6.5 coaxials (the best Premiers available at the time) and I was anxious to install them in my little 90' CRX, well needless to say I looked over the internet for a few weeks when all of the sudden I found a website car audio place that sold Autotek among other things, I remember hearing by word of mouth about 2 years ago that Autotek amplifiers were good and I'd decided I give them a try, I ordered it, it cost me $270 + $20 shipping and when it arrived I thought: "hey, nice chrome heatsink" now even though I have my fair share of experience installing because of time limitations and because I was feeling lazy at the time I decided to let a local shop handle the professional installation, besides, the shop owner was a friend of mine and he charged me little $$$ and slaved for four hours running the wiring, taking apart the car, installing the mids and highs and installing the amp, I tested it out that day and I thought to myself that the music lacked definition, the higher end of the spectrum sounded weak, the lower end the bass end also sounded weak, the middle spectrum of music sounded "ok". I thought it was funny that my amp had a sticker on it reading "made in korea" then I remember a recent conversation with someone telling me that autotek used to be good until they were bought out by pyramid, come to think of it this amp sounded frightenly like that worthless pyramid 1000 watt amp I once had, never mind, anyways back to the story, I came across two fifteen inch soundstream Rubicons that handle 150 watts RMS each, thinking to myself, "hey my autotek can push 150 RMS x 4 at 2 ohms no problem" yeah right, and then I woke up, the moment I tried to do that the amp started clipping and going into protection and the amp played for about 1 year and 3 months and acting a fool, I had to keep the gain down to 50-70% percent and the bass boost more than half way down. It would go into protection mode any other way and you would have to turn the amp off and back on, it would them play for a few seconds and then when a meager bass note came again BAM! back into the old protection mode, then 1 year and 3 months after buying it it stops working and decides it doesn't want to leave protection mode anymore, (hint hint it stayed frozen in protection mode PERMANENTLY), (another thing I mentioned I hate about the amp, sometimes it plays a very slight amount louder than others and sometimes it sounds weaker and with more distortion at the same volume) Autotek says their warranty only covers it for a year and so basically I am screwed and out of $270 unless I decide to spend more money to fix this sorry excuse for an amp that will never be a good amp, so in retrospect this amp was not quite what I anticipated when I decided I would take a chance on autotek products, and needless to say (as you can probably discern by this article) I will not be putting any more of their "products" in my car, it was made in korea, and it should stay in korea, don't bring that crap onto american shores, they should let these kind of products enter the country, my next system, I'm going all kicker or all eclipse, This was my experience and if you buy autotek amps it will also be yours and you will know how I feel and then maybe we can start a club or something.
(About the Reader)
Jobel Cabezas is a retired Army General who is now a part time writer for Time Magazine and an international specialist on eco-commerce electronics engineering and judging national and international modeling contests..
Gotcha! Just kidding, actually..
Jobel Cabezas is a 21 yr old student studying Microsoft and Cisco Engineering and computer networking who works as an at&t corporate customer representative out of Miami, Florida
I own a 1990 Honda CRX and have been into the car audio scene since before I had a car, I got involved in it when I was like 12 or 13, since then it's only gotten better....
Save your money for something else, Kicker, Eclipse, JL Audio, Rockford Fosgate, anything that focuses on sound quality, power and consistency, but the autotek SX-4160 is just not what it claims to be and it can't do what it claims to do, once again marketing and advertising and actual facts tell a different story...
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 270
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Epinions.com ID:
shaman2005
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Reviews written: 1
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