Amplifier Upgrade!

Just bought a DLS A7 5-Channel amplifier. I've been looking for something like this for awhile to simplify my audio component rack. The A7 has a built-in crossover so I was able to elminate my two amps, crossover, distro blocks, and lots and lots of wires.


This amp could potentially crank out 1000Watts RMS, but I'm running at about 760Watts RMS with the current speaker configuration, so the max current draw currently would be 55 amps. If you're thinking about running a large amp, have no fear. So far, I've had no problems with the power consumption on the Prius 12V system.

The old system drew a max of 29 amps running at 400W. I ran that for 6+ months with no issues. I'll have to see if doubling the power consumption will have any detrimental effect on the battery. I plan on adding an additional 12V gel cel to help with the load and to run the system when the car is off without running down the main battery.

The aesthetics aren't done yet, but it's taking shape slowly. There's still so much to do! Here are the before and after shots:

BEFORE:
[Broken External Image]:http://intdata.homeip.net/albums/dansprius/IMG_0094.sized.jpg

AFTER:
[Broken External Image]:http://intdata.homeip.net/albums/dansprius/IMG_2638.sized.jpg

 

Thanks for all the comments. I'll try to address all the questions:

I bought this amp off the local import site buy and sell for $650 CDN. It was a really good deal since I found this amp on another site for $1095 USD. From what I've been told, DLS is huge in Europe and they are making their way through North America now. There's only one reseller in Canada and I think a few in the US. I think the guy I bought it from got the amp in the US, but I'm not sure.

In terms of heat issues, I learned from my old setup that some sort of cooling would be required to prevent the amp from overheating. I still have the fan installed that was used for my old amps. It's kind of hard to see, but the yellow wire on the left side of the amp goes to the fan that's mounted on a hole I cut out. In the old setup, the fan was on as soon as the car was turned on, but this time, the fan is hooked up to the amp since it has fan output control. Now the fan only comes on when it needs to.

Here's an old pic of the fan. It's still installed in the same place now:



The installation for this amp didn't take too long. I think about 3 hours was put into prepping it and then installing it. All the wiring for the speakers were already run from my old setup. I wanted to make the setup easily removable in case I need to get at the spare tire. All the wires except the ground and power are about 2ft feet in length from the point of connection on the amp. I have bullet connectors on them so I can unplug them from the wires in the car.

Here's a pic of what it looks like under the amp:
[Broken External Image]:http://intdata.homeip.net/albums/dansprius/IMG_2642.sized.jpg


I have the JBL package so all the wires for the speakers are under the seat. I only have the front stage hooked up. The wiring in the front doors are still stock since I didn't have to run seperate cables for the woofer and tweeter. All the speaker wires run under down the passenger side and under passenger seat.

The remote signal comes from the 12V power in the center console. I was able to pull out the bottom drawer and splice into that cable with a bit of difficulty since I didn't have the right equipment to pull the center console completely apart. From the center console, the remote cable was then hooked up to the computer power supply which has a remote-out of it's own which is hooked up to the amps. If the computer isn't on, then neither is the amp.

The RCA cable is basically a RCA -> mini-jack cable from the amp which hooked up to the a mini-jack extension cable that I ran down the driver side of the car and under the driver seat to get audio from my computer.

Too much to do still. On Saturday, I'm gunna drive up to Hope, BC to pick up CAN-View from eflier. I think I've spent about 80 hours since I got the Prius with all these upgrades. 80 more to go? I hope that's all, but i doubt it!

 

I don't think you'll have any problems. I'm guessing that 1500W is the peak power and not the RMS (constant) power usage. I'd probably worry if it was 1500W RMS since I think i'm near the ceiling for the 760W RMS that I am running right now.

 

The RMS rating on the speaker is just the max constant power it can handle. There's not really any minimum in terms of getting power to the speakers. I ran my Infinity 605cs components with 25 Watts RMS on an old 2-channel Rockford Fosgate amp and it ran great. I believe those were rated at 120W RMS. They were still loud, but on higher volumes, it would distort a bit.