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Anyone who knows car audio, knows JL Audio. This brand has been around since the 70's and was the company put together by two high school buddies Lucio Prioni and Jim Birch. They became popular in the late 80's and early 90's "blew up" into on of the most well-known subwoofer manufacturers. Their subwoofers are legendary, from the original 8W2 to the massive 18W6 and the insanely impressive W7 series. 

JL offered some "re-badged" amplifiers (by PPI) in the early 90's, but decided to engineer and manufacture their own amps starting around 2000. One of the first models was the "Slash series" 500/1, which was to become the best selling car audio amplifier in the US market over it's production between 2000-2014. Let's take a look at this amp and see what it's all about...

History of JL Audio (website)
History of JL Audio (video)
Manville Smith's 1984 Celica
Tommy Clark's Rock It Science Van

Watch the video on YouTube in 1080/60p HD

or embedded below:

 

See my videos on YouTube http://www.willistonaudio.com  Many tests and demos of OLD and NEW SCHOOL car audio gear!


See cool pics on Instagram @oldschoolstereo

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I have quite a few JL products. But my slash amp is just way to big to be very useable these days, I can't fit it anywhere but in all honesty, there's nothing special about it over any other modern amp today. I think it's popularity was, Imo, that from 2000 to maybe 2008 or so, so many other mainstream manufacturers were making some junk. Even my RF 600.1bd, despite 750 watts sounded like it only put out 200 watts. The 4 channel slash amp, bridged for a sub output blew it out of the water using the exact same sub and in the same car. Something just wasn't quite right with RF and many other brands during those years. I think that's probably why JL did so well in the market initially and it's reputation just kept it continuing.

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Tech has improved but if you were in the game in the 90s you ran Rockford or you ran jl. There were a few other brands but those were the street bangers. 

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In my daily I'm thinking of running JL amps in it.

The cost of them has been dropping every year it seems and they still have great quality.

My fathers Jeep we just built has one in it and I don't think we can complain about it. It pushes the McClaren speakers very well and they sound really good

 

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16 hours ago, n8ball2013 said:

Tech has improved but if you were in the game in the 90s you ran Rockford or you ran jl. There were a few other brands but those were the street bangers. 

True, but many of today's amps are just clones. Very few are anything other than rebadged Zenon clones coming out of Korea (unless they are cheaper Chinese designs). It would be really interesting to know who still engineers their amps in the US as it's understandable to have them produced overseas. I know a Rockford and JL still engineer here...what about others?

See my videos on YouTube http://www.willistonaudio.com  Many tests and demos of OLD and NEW SCHOOL car audio gear!


See cool pics on Instagram @oldschoolstereo

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  • 4 weeks later...

Great video! Great amp! I am a long time JL audio fan.  Just for some reason have not gotten a chance to run any in a while. Good products. Thanks for posting!


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On 10/17/2017 at 10:33 PM, meade916 said:

Great video! Great amp! I am a long time JL audio fan.  Just for some reason have not gotten a chance to run any in a while. Good products. Thanks for posting!

Thanks for sharing :drinks:

See my videos on YouTube http://www.willistonaudio.com  Many tests and demos of OLD and NEW SCHOOL car audio gear!


See cool pics on Instagram @oldschoolstereo

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