ARC Audio Amps
 

I inquirying about your experience with ARC Audio amps - model KS 300.4 (a 4 channel amp). How reliable are they and how easy is it to set-up/tune? How much power does it use?

no experience here, but you really cant go wrong with arc audio. most of their stuff is good if you do some research. all amps are essentially tuned the same as well.

Arc audio is ok, they have went down hill a bit in the past few years and the only thing I would buy from them is amps as their speakers are just not as good as what else is out there.

Arc Audio Amps
 

Any experience whith their amps?

Of course not. Their SE line is still reveared in the sq community for their clean output however they are pricey. The Kar series are solid dependable everyday amps for the price. Robert Zeff designed them but like 95 percent of amps today were built overseas.

Also one thing to note is the class H design is pretty efficient since that seems to be a concern.

Actually twice, and Mike you have given me a few strange noises when I mentioned arc audio and the foose edition stuff before.

Two installs I have done one on a friends civic and one on a mazda 6 arc audio was used. Might of just been me but they just had a flat sound to them even using a set of polk mm series that I have used a lot prior to that install.

ARC Audio amps are very reasonably priced, specialy the Mini series. It will all depend on what your goal is with the system. If you are building a sound quality system it may not be for you, it is not priced to be at that level either. However if you are not willing to give up any room in the car these amps will fit just about anywhere and they will play for a long period even after having your system at excessive power levels. They also have a matching Mini sub amp and a 4 channel.

ARC audio is kind of a good brand, but honesly I'd look into ELF Audio to save you some money if you are really set on an ARC Audio amplifier. Its the same stuff as Arc just a lot cheaper. If you compare the internals side-by-side they are the same amp in similar packages but with much different costs.

Really, most of the good-ol-brands are now using some variation of a chinese/contracted knock-off. The Arc/Elf Mini is used a -lot- with Harley Davidson installations due to it's size, Class AB, and power output. Not too bad..

Now, if you want something really small, I have an old school ZED Audio built / Autotek 7050 (Similar to an Autotek 44, but older) thats even smaller than the ARC/Elf mini and is a really show winner.

Here is the ARC Audio Mini:
Arc Audio

Here is the ELF Aucio Mini:
elfAudio

Same amps folks. If you call ARC Audio they will deny deny deny. They really just both use the same contractor for the amp design.

Class H design?
 

Does this amp overhead causing it to go into shut off mode or reduce the volume until the temp returns to normal?

What the difference in a Class H vs Class D vs Class A/B?

Been out of the car audio loop for a while, but my guess is class H is a variant of class D, but better suited for full range applications (Class D was traditionally for low frequencies only).

Class A/B are inefficient and generate more heat, but they potentially have slightly better sound quality. Class D (and i guess H) generate less heat and draw less current as well.

I have had some experience with the ARC mini amps and they were pretty decent in a 2010 Camaro I did last year. It won a few car audio competitions and did quite well with the Hybrid 3-way component set up front and two ID10's in custom f/g pods in the trunk. We used a 4-channel for the mids/tweets and a 4-channel for the midbass and center channel (bridged). Full active, no passive crossovers. Decent power out of the mini amps.