Rockford Fosgate P1000X5D

AMAZING!!! Buy without hesitation!

I have this unit installed in my boat fed by a Kenwood KDC-BT952HD. It is driving 8 (yes 8, 4 pairs) MTX 8" two way marine speakers AND 2 Image Dynamics ID10 D2 subs. MTX Coaxials are wired in parallel to achieve 2ohm per channel. Image Dynamic subs are wired in series/parallel again to achieve 2 ohms.

I've always assumed class D amps would only be for sub woofers but with the current wave of manufacturers releasing class D full range amps I was intrigued. I found a white paper online detailing the latest class D chips and how they have been improved (heavy read but worth it if you can grasp even half of it) to increase accuracy and efficiency. That paper combined with the ease of installation (1 amp for 10 speakers vs a typical 3 amp setup) and the potential weight savings (again, 3 amps vs 1) and I figured why not try it.

In my application, the sound quality is simply amazing. Someone running more accurate silk dome tweeters may disagree but EVERYONE that has heard my boat has said exactly the same thing: Painfully loud, crystal clear, full and rich sounding (compared to typical tower/can "systems").

The real magic is in the unit itself. On top of being fairly light weight and small considering the power output / number of channels this thing runs COLD. With 4 ohm loads the amp barely gets above ambient. Even with max load (aka minimum ohms) on all channels, moderate listening levels barely get the unit warm to the touch. That is not to say you can bury it under carpet however... After 4 hours of max effort blasting, it will get HOT. However I have never bumped into thermal protection. This thing is a TANK. With quality 4v discrete inputs I found the limits of my drivers LONG before I any perceivable amp clipping or distortion.

I power my system with one standard size Optima blue top deep cycle... Even driving the amp as hard as I do, 4hrs of run time is no problem for this combo. Proof positive class D is efficient.

The ONLY gripes I have are with the speaker terminals.

I assume the screws are knurled to give them 'bite' on the wire but that 'bite' tends to break the wire. The only way to combat this is to solder the tips (which is a good practice anyway).

The terminals themselves do not accept as large of a gauge wire as I would have expected with level of power output. Not a huge deal but if you are trying to run fat wire, it doesn't leave you much clearance for solder tipping the ends.

I recommend this series of amp to ANYONE who owns a boat or wants big power in a small package. Simply amazing.

Tank Tough

I thought this was a great amp to use to run your whole system with only one amp. Build solid and tough! Rockford still has great products. I installed one in both my sons cars and wow they rock. We are using Kicker subs. One son is using Alpine speakers and my other son went with the Rockford pro series speaker.

Wouldn't buy again

Being a little older (40) i remember when Rockford was one of the best u could get, I still have Punch 150s I bought new, what a great product. That was not the case here. The item arrived well packed. After that it was all bad. I opened the box to find made in china all over the amp. I spent the day installing the amp. It worked great for the first 5 minutes. The protect light came on and it never worked again. I wouldn't recommend buying something like this online if it can be avoided. I know I won't. There are plenty of company's out there that still make amps right here in the USA. That's what I'll buy from now on.