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1988 Orion 225 HCCA Amp - Stock vs Modded by Shawn K Amp Dyno Tests
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- čas přidán 3. 07. 2021
- #AmpDyno #Amplifier #HCCA
The Orion 225 HCCA is one of, if not the most popular "cheater" amp ever from the 80's and 90's. This amp hit the market around 1986 with the Moon & Stars version and that's what we are going to look at today. We have a completely stock first gen 225 as well as a highly modified 225 and are going to compare the two. Il also interview Shawn King to talk about the mods he performed on his 225 HCCA.
See previous video of Orion HCCA harnesses: • Old School Orion HCCA ...
Other tests of different Orion 225 HCCA Amps: • Orion 225 HCCA
Shop eBay for Orion HCCA Amps (eBay affiliate link): ebay.to/3hw05cB
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![Kickin' it Old School? 1996 Kicker X50s Cheater Amp Dyno Test and Review [4K]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/pAnp05mIx3Q/mqdefault.jpg)
![Kickin' it Old School? 1996 Kicker X50s Cheater Amp Dyno Test and Review [4K]](/img/tr.png)
![Orion HCCA 4500.1DSPLX is a SUBWOOFER Amplifier Powerhouse! [4K]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/AXes8Gncn1w/mqdefault.jpg)
![Car Audio Time Machine? 1994 KICKER 200si Amplifier Reviewed and Amp Dyno Test [4K]](/img/n.gif)
See previous video of Orion HCCA harnesses: czcams.com/video/6Wt0YeJ6jMw/video.html
Other tests of different Orion 225 HCCA Amps: czcams.com/play/PLu98-M_EowHOJ9I7wt9ejj44rcq8w6K5w.html
Shop eBay for Orion HCCA Amps: ebay.to/3hw05cB
SMD / D'Amore Engineering Amp Dyno: goo.gl/sJTcf7
XS Power D1400 Batteries - amzn.to/2BPFCKW
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Fluke 1000A AC/DC Clamp Meter: amzn.to/2Rw5WDA
Handheld Dyno: amzn.to/2u2EgKV
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DISCLAIMER: This video and description contains affiliate links, which means that if you purchase from one of the product links, I may receive a small commission. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases
Tried to Email you and i guess you got rid of it because of too many messages. Wanted to send you pics of my 425hcca. I don't have a 225 to scrutinize the difference. 😊👍
@@ehrenkrause9861 I didn't see the email. Try willistonaudio (at) gmail dot com
@@wal i rewrote it to update my email you should see it here quickly
It may just be the b-roll footage you used, but it looks like on the original test, you used the mixed output of the bridging module instead of the summed input. Summed probably inverts one of the channels vs just making both channels a dual mono signal. Might explain the poor power and inefficiency.
@@wal HEY Big D i was a former member of GOATES Team Gates.Alma Gates the legend her self, she was an absolutely great person and friend. When my uncle was killed hours into his first Day at new job from a freak accident,she helped pay for the funeral. Anyways i came across a dozen or So team gates Patches that went on our shirts or jackets. And i know your old school so i thought you might like to have 1 or 2 and maybe raffle off a couple let me know what you think.
In my teen years, the Orion catalog was just as important to me as an old Playboy magazine.
Ohh, sticky!!!!!
minus the sticky pages I'll bet :P
beauty comes in many packages!
The funny thing is now at 42 yrs old I still can't afford one of these.
I feel that
Right!!!!
Yup🥺🤩
I laughed too hard at this
Oof!
This is cool and everything, but everyone is wondering if Shawn can get that triple disc CD player up to 10 full watts. 😂
I didn't even notice the video length, thought it was epic, and being an old guy, I do appreciate some of the newer class D efficient designs (especially for bass) as they get better, and better, but there is still something about a class A-A/B amp for HQ that my ears can't deny. BIG D? Am I just OLD!! :)
Chris your not old, you just know what a amp should sound like for the upper frequencies. I'm 64 and like a class a/b amp for mid bass to tweeters. They can put all the filtering they want on a class D but it's cheep power, and their gutless wonders! And they sell them as "full range", not in my book!
what? class d is garbage. i mean i guess if you're going for one of those 15,000 watt comp systems, then it may make sense, but i'm in it for sound quality these days and class d just can't keep up. plus they may output x amount of watts but it's at 10%thd!! did you see the distortion ratings on those old school HCCA's? .005%thd and .03 MAX??? the newer ones had even better ratings than that. that's the only thing about these dyno runs. because when the cheaper/class d amps are using everything they got to send a distorted signal to the speaker that's not only bad for the woofer but it's gimping the output. and then if you get a really cheap one and get that alternator noise in the line, forget it. so basically watts aint 100% of the story. still a big part tho, and i guess they do the 1khz test because that's how all the cheap amps are rated. but who's riding around listening to a 1khz test tone? that always irks me when i see audio gear rated like that. because then it makes me wonder what else they're being shady about.
@@XX-121 well the funny thing is "audiophiles" running tube amps, or preamps cause those actually introduce much more distortion than any Class D design
@@BH4x0r depends on where you have the volume knob. those tube amps even at their rated power aren't adding as much distortion as class d and the distortion they do add is known to actually be "pleasing to the ear".
but i hear ya. i'm not running tubes personally. to expensive per watt.
@@XX-121 The thing with Class D is though, if it is well engineered and running in the 1+ MHz range (most cheap car amps probably run only at like 300kHz) it has no discernible distortion at all unless you run close to the amps' limit, but Class AB will also start distorting when ran close to it's limit and even clip if you're going way too far
you're acting like it's impossible to get less or equal to 1% THD at 3000+W with Class D amps, heck even the Brazilian amps can do that
anyways let's go back to a properly designed Class D amp @ 1+ MHz
filtering literally won't be an issue, and you'll have ~50 points of resolution with infinite "bit" bandwidth at just 1MHz when you're playing back a 20kHz tone
since most transducers can't even move fast enough to make that anywhere near noticeable or even measurable i don't see the issue with using it on mids and highs
best performance per watt and near immeasurable distortion
The ultimate sleeper!
It is dat fo sho
This was a really interesting video. I was an IASCA judge in the early 90's and got to see many of these "Old School" amps in use. Never thought about someone re-engineering / rebuilding one of these. Really cool!
West coast or East Coast? I wonder if you ever judged my truck. I was top of my class for a few years.
@@m4rvinmartian I was centered around Indiana, Kentucky, Illinois, Ohio.
I love the THD ratings back in da day!
Shame the dyno shows they were probably lying!
@@cncgeneral how's that? no where in the advertising or the manual did it say it would do 1ohm bridged. and no they weren't lying. before orion sold out to dei they had some of the best quality gear on the market. why do you think they have such a hardcore fanbase even to this day? it wasn't because they lied about their specs, more like they set the standard and were the benchmark that all other amps were compared to. me and one of my few old friends that are still around still say "orion watts". because after owning an orion HCCA 225, you knew what 400w was suppose to sound like. not only that, the original owners did actually design mil spec circuit boards for tanks and stuff before they got into the audio market. i had all orion system (except RF component sets) back in the day w/ HCCA 225 on bass duty. and it could be middle of summer, hottest day of the year, and i could get off work and get in the car and crank it full blast sitting in traffic and it never overheated or cut off. I can't say the same thing about other amps i've seen/owned over the years. and like i was saying in another comment, the lower the distortion, the cleaner and smoother the sign wave is that's being pushed to the speaker, which gives you louder and cleaner output because the motor of the speaker isn't fighting against it self trying to recreate the distortion that's not even part of the music! a lot of people don't realize that and how much difference it really makes. and those watts were tested at full bandwidth, not just a 1khz test tone, heck if you're using an amp for bass you're not even pushing 1khz to it begin with, so that rating is almost useless for a bass amp. actually ANY audio amp.
Modded so much that it ain't even the same amp. lol
I never leave comments here but I needed to say that this video kept a smile on my face the whole time after the interview!!! The personal story and work he put into this amp really made us root for the underdog!! Such a great video! Let’s get some more of these, if possible! 👊🏼👍🏼👏🏼🙏🏼
I have sent many an amp to Shawn to Upgrade or just put new caps into. He does great work!!!!!
What's the best way to contact him? I'm curious if he will recap my adcom. I don't want the caps suddenly deciding to leak when I install it.
@@2slofouru If you will give me a bit I will shoot you his info!! I have to go and find his business card!! He is worth every cent!!
I wish I had known of that 30yrs ago. Wow amazing. I bet Shawn K is going to be overwhelmed with request for this kind of mods for lots of their old school amps. Nicely done! Great Video Big D!
My flea market find D.R. HCCA was hands down my favorite amp I ever owned. It looked like it would never work with a missing cover and all,but after some Cap upgrades and wire swapping,it sounded super clean.
prob the one that got stolen out my car years back. because anyone with any respect wouldn't let it end up in that condition. nice find tho!
Nice job Shawn, most amp techs are over worked and under appreciated. Nice clean work.
That was a lot of fun to watch. Video was NOT too long.
My first Orion amp was a first gen 225 HCCA and bridging block. Sure wished I held on to it. I had the 225 pushing two KICKER Comp 12"s in a 1989 GT Escort. The good ole days of car audio.
Back in the day I had 2 of these amps, both modded for the 100watt class. Two optima red tops, 2, 1 farad capacitors, with a mbr70. It used to slam with 2 dvc NT 12’s in a sealed box. This was 1996. Later, in 1998, I moved to the Orion beast amp, and two DVC ground zero nuclear ported. By far the best amps ever. Although I blew up plenty of Orion subs. The ground zero subs were pretty tough.
Wow...his mods gained an extra 900 watts at 1 ohm. That is just absolutely awesome! The transformation is just crazy!
Yes it is!
Shawn killed it!
He did fo sho!
He is now an audio legend!!
I had a 250 hcca back in the day. That was one of my favorites. Definitely a “cheater” amp
Really like the in depth technical aspect of this video. I remember winding extra turns on the secondary of previous old style car amps and fitting higher value rail and input caps to eke a few more watts out of them 😎🤩
I know his love is amp repair and this was for fun, but there's a bounty of possibilities here. Gotta hand it to Shawn for reverse engineering practically everything! I have a couple half burnt Cobalt 2100 which would make great donors for larger sinks, transformers and they already use TO-247 outputs. Not sure of the PS, but just a thought. I can never get my hands on an HCCA deal. BTW I actually have an AudioControl 24XS, with the plexi cover, in the box if anyone is interested. FS/FT
I couldn't only dream about one of these amps back when I was younger! All I could remember is the picture of the warped amp in almost every ad showing that it still passed every factory test!
I miss my old PG and Orion and Sound Stream amps of the early 90s... if I could get them back. Man! Just got a 91 full size blazer, looking for old school build!
Back in the day while my buddy and I where in high school around 2000 we took a challenge which involved a amp board which was cracked and we snapped it in half and spent the next few days to dremel and solder the 3 layered board and got it working and as of 2 years ago I found out it is still working. The amp was an old school Puramid competition series if I recall correctly. Good times.
Never had a first gen but had the digital reference and the high current comp/crossover amps, definitely my favorite old school amps
thats the one i had! they were better anyway because of the crossover, plus it could drop to 1 ohm bridged 1/2 ohm stereo.
@@XX-121 I ran mine at 0.5ohms all day everyday and never had any problems
@@EvanField6380 yeah that's what i'm saying, the one in the video was only good to 2ohm bridge 1ohm stereo. every model year after that would do the 1/0.5. so yeah. i had mine at 1 ohm bridge with 2 12 XTR3 dvc's. and a XTREME 250 pushing 4 Rockford Fosgate 5 1/4 component sets. my favorite system i had. until it got stolen. but man i could ride around all day in the middle of summer with it running full blast, and it NEVER overheated. sounded superb! but you already know! shoot, i've got a couple orion amps sitting over across the room i pulled out of my last car before i sold it but they don't sound as good as that old school stuff. plus i was thinking i could get away with one 12 because i was "suppose" to be pushing the same watts, but i think having the extra 12 makes a big difference. still don't think these amps have the umph the old ones did. (and the one i got now is suppose to be pushing 500w vs the 400w of the old HCCA) guess i'll find out if i ever have a wad of money to blow on car stereo. just too much other stuff going on now and don't spend as much time in my car now as i use to.. so idk, life? it's weird how well i was living back then making less than half what i make now. not weird, ridiculous really.
@@XX-121 my first system was a 225 hcca and two xtr 12dvc and a old soundstream reference 500 when they were still awesome on all 1995 mb quart mids and highs with a crossover and it sounded so good. People always thought I had way more than I did
Shawn K restored and upgraded my Orion XTR 200s! aka NTs. They are perfect!
i honestly couldn't resist clicking after reading the title
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Happy 4th man. I always enjoy your content. It's always cool to see someone follow their passions. Your content brings back good memories. Only cool old school stuff I have are some Eton 7" separates, 3-Jl8w6's and a US Amps HC amp. Old roommate walked off withe USA 150.
Anyway, man
Take care
Clint
Big D that video was one on the greatest ones you've ever made!!!! Thank you so much!!
Loved every second of it. I'm a long time subscriber and couldn't get enough of this Vid.
Love seeing the modifications! I would love to see more of these videos
Moded amps are insane! That's awesome! Loved the test D.
Shawn K is a magician than was absolutely awesome even though he said its basically a burp amp its still incredible work by a true master of his craft Thanks for the great video Big D another top notch production 👍🏽👊🏽✌🏽💯
Yeah boiii, this is one of my favorite "cheater" amps I ran 4 - JL 8w6s in a bandpass 6 total 6.5 kicker & 7 total 1" tweeter kicker 3.5"/1" center channel. This app ran it all with an epie center and an 4xs from audio control all in my old Honda accord 4 door with gold D's 😁 o yeah my headliner rattled lose and fell on my head while driving no one or car was hurt lol. Digging all your videos keep up the good work!
I loved my HCCA 225 amps. Won many competition with them.
In 1990, i had the 1st gen hcca 225 pushing four 12” Oion woofers. I had an 89 escort hatchback and took out the back seats. The box went behind driver seat to the back.
The amp was .5 ohm bridged.
I bet the reason for your "pink" heat sink was either A.) UV fading from being installed in a rear window or sunlight exposed location or B.) Being cleaned with ammonia based cleaners (like Windex). Lots of folks would wipe down amps and installs while they were cleaning the inside glass. These ammonia based cleaners (and sometimes cheap anodizing) would cause black amps to turn purple or brown. Really awesome to see someone "hot rod" these old amps.
Love your video. Brings back memories when I worked at a shop that was an Orion dealer. Good times. Shawn is a miracle worker.
this is one of my favorite videos you have done !!!
Nothing wrong with a long video.
I enjoy all your video's sir.
Thank you 😊
Thanks my brother from another mother
Mind blown 🤯🤯 about the modification.
Holy crap that's one helluva transformation!! 😳 With Shawn having all this knowledge of circuit designs, it'd be awesome if he can have a build house make a class AB amp based on this design and call it SK Audio. Great video BigD!! 👌👊
... Miss the days of the Phoenix, PP, Soundstream, Orion 'Sound-Offs', but this video brought back fun memories. Thanks guys.
Shawn obviously does great work, but this amp was over the top! I have a HiFonics Olympus VIII that he did completely refurbed, & it’s a beast. Not to mention that it sounds MUCH BETTER than my new model with just caps replaced. Calm down Hifonics folks, in stock form it’s a nice sounding amp. This amp is in a league of its own, Thank You SK!!!
Ah that lovely class-B efficiency. I remember those and running low impedance loads and the headlights would just about go out on heavy bass hits lol! Big difference compared to modern ones that are deafeningly loud but barely load the electrical system at all.
Great job Shawn on the modifications. Looks nice and clean. Very cool. Made the ultimate sleeper!
Omg just found this channel as I’m been looking at modern stuff as my daughter about to get her first car and I’m wanna hook her up a little.. this is constantly taking down memory lane with stuff like this
The setup I miss the most that I had was a JL 500.1 with 2 HCCA duel Voice coil 12s. I've always been a fan of the solid non ported boxes as the right powered setup would hit to my liking practically skipping your heartbeat with that setup in my 92 civic hatchback. Of course now having a soon to be teenager daughter my project car is a 04' Passat 1.8T 5speed Wagon which will get the upgrades under the hood and under the car before custom installing tvs in the back of the head rests, DVD player, 4 channel terraamp to power the 2 component sets and a terramp monoblock 2 go with a single 12. I want the movies to sound like we are there. Hehe
This brought back some memories. My family had an electronics store from ‘75 to ‘93. I installed many, many, many Orion amps in the late 80’s. I think we dropped the brand at some point and focused more on Alpine and Rockford products.
Awesome 👏
Big fan of Orion takes me back to my high school days 😊
Loving the amps here
This dude does fantastic work with what he had to work with
225 hcca. Was one of the best sounding subwoofer amplifiers of the time. I wonder what the modified hcca sounds like.
Most of the lower powered amps sounded much better than their higher powered brothers ( liner power and Phoenix gold being the only two exceptions).
The Rockford Fosgate punch 45 was the only Rockford amp I could enjoy in their whole line.
Very cool. I Always wonder why people don't attempt to replace components and do amplifier modifications and upgrades. Turns out, it takes a Lot of specialized knowledge and modification that most people just couldn't do.
1st generation 225 hcca were rumored to run down to 1/4 ohm each channel. Reasons why they're high current designed. Also the pc board and printed circuit were thicker than standard pc boards of the day and the amplifier were a little heavier than any amp of their size. So, at a quarter ohm, it will do 400+ watts.
Do it bump doe??? Yes, please slap some subs on that beast!!!
This video wasnt 2 long. In fact 30 to 40 min vids is where its at
I LOVED hearing what the "Sean King" did with this amp. AMAZING!
Made just a few hundred yards away from Rockford Fosgate and MTX and from where I lived. (I worked for MTX for a while) Tempe, AZ was Car Audio Mecca for quite a while.
I used to have it all the Orion amplifier back in the mid-90s. That amplifier was incredible. I believe mine was a subwoofer amp
Had the second generation back in mid 90s and loved it.
1 of the best videos on the net, thanks big d and shawn k
Thank you! Glad you liked it 🙂
In my experience with electrolytic capacitors, stuff from the mid 70’s and up holds up pretty good. Especially lower voltage caps, like the ones used in these amps. Unless they were the cheapest piles of crap Orion could find, they should be ok.
Orion completely overbuilt those amps to last a lifetime.
A hearty thumbs up! Great job Shawn!
I love my 2 "moon & stars" 225's, this was an awesome video! Man, those mods are crazy, but very effective!
Now I see why people didn't or couldn't modify their cheater amps. Awesome video Derek.
Yeah boi. Upgrading caps won’t make the amp more powerful at least by a noticeable difference
Big D love seeing this I have a moons&stars 250 hcca with the 400bdg and 200crx and 300crx crossovers. Old skool goodness!!
Lovely old amp! Wicked modded one to! Do well big D xx
Calling an amplifier “Moon and Stars” is like calling my subwoofer “Peanut butter and Jelly”. *You big dummy”*
Beautiful amp, and I like how it was modded. Are you using 1kz to protect the amp. I wonder what the modded amp would do at 40hz?? 😲
Long video? Honestly felt like an episode of a good show.
I have the Moon and stars in my collection ! I need him to modify it !!! Sweet
lol watch as I ask the question whether he will do this again or not at the end 😬
Orion and Precision Power did the phantom power setups, because that made it impossible to have ground loops or added distortion since the eqs and crossovers basically shared the power supply rails of the amp.
The mods make the amp look less anemic over the stock amp. Huge difference over stock capacitors. I like it. 😊👍.
Cool video bigD. That amp is like NASCAR the outside kinda looks like something you see on the road but underneath there really isn't anything in common with the original
I had a 425 HCCA back in the day. What a beast!
1st gen was 1/2 ohm stable and made its bigger power at 1/2 ohm i ran this amp with module on 4 dvc cadence ultradrive 15's in the late 90's for comp in the 50 watt class and it was a blast
Great job! I've always thought about transplanting newer tech into Old School amplifiers
I like this format. He did 5 mods. I'd like a five separate amps each with a single mod and then combine best two then the best two again. Cheers
The last guy you wanna see in the lanes.....should of had him , Sam and Anthony do a mod shoot out and see what those three could do. Geat work on the video sir.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
The first 1 ohm stable amps I remember seeing 🎉 around
Mine was stolen in the 90's, I sure miss that little beast!
One of your all time best!!!!
Still probably my favorite amps of all time. I've had 6 or 7 of them over the years.
Holy Crap! That was a great mod.
I used to have a 250 hcca with the bridging module
Awesome work Shaun!!!
👌😬👍
Very cool video big D. Haven’t seen this until now for some reason. Way cool dude.
I miss my 2 old HCCA duel voice coil 12s. Ran those with my original 500.1 and had those puppies slamming.
It’s crazy how expensive amps where back in the day and how little power they made. Now you can get an amp for $150 bucks and it will make 1000 watts.
Brilliant vid Big D God bless and keep up the great work 🙏🙏🙏👏👏👏👏
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Awesome vid man !
Super nice Frankenstein experiment!!😁 Porque No??? Loved it!!! Let's mod more old school amps. 🥋🤛🤛🤛 Cobra Kai!!!
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Those were monsters!!! I was only able to afford a RF punch 45hd at 275.00!!! Back in 89-90!!!!
I’d love to see the dyno’ s on the new series of Rockville amps
*Master of Mods*
Happy 4th of July y'all!
Hey Big D what ever happened to that amp you sent over the pond to barevids to mod any updates coming on that amp?
Barevids said in a recent stream that he had just ordered the parts. The amp turned out to be far more difficult to mod than he originally thought.
@@blakebrockhaus347 What model? I'm looking to mod my XTR2500DZ.
@@BobBasshead it was an audiopipe 3k that was a clone of a taramps bass 3k.
@@BobBasshead I have three of the 2500dz's. The heatsink is already struggling to displace the heat they generate. Modding for more power would need more heatsink than what is there.
Awesome indeed. Just as interesting to me would be the question of how long it would hang in there under load.
The difference of 35 years is a lot, especially in electronics. I wonder what the sound quality difference is. Any chance of a test like you normally do with your speakers to listen to sound quality?