Boss AR1500M

Not a bad 100 watt amp to start your system with some caveats.

For the price, this is a sweet amplifier. it has a small foot print. And actually, I like the screw down terminals. The name plate on the top is a little cheesy. If I can, I would just take the plastic name plate off the top of the amp. (I think it's plastic?) But the look and finish of the amp is really first rate. It seems to be built very well. I can't complain about its aesthetics. I have 2 of these amps and they are great for Music. They really do have great specs on them and make a great cheap monoblock amp that does great at full range since it is a class A/B amp.

Now here are some need to know info.

Boss rates this amp at 700RMS Well it does to that IF..

1. You have a 15.5V electrical system according to the Boss tech I spoke with. BTW, REALLY GREAT TECH SUPPORT PEOPLE who are honest.

2. You actually have a linear 2 ohm load that does not happen in the real world. Going lower then 1.7 the amps starts to heat up quick. It will drive a 1.3 ohm load for a very short period of time. But the output transistors don't seem to like to work that hard and heat up quick. One side gets REALLY hot. (right upper side of amp on the input side where the Bass control switch is hooked up. (3, 4 ohm sub-woofers in parallel.

3. During 2 ohm loads, this amp is fine in the horizontal position. It never gets hot to the touch in my set up playing dub step. Bass CD's that have nothing but very low content will make this amp warm to the touch, but nothing to bad in 50' weather. On hot days, You are going to need a fan or some air movement to keep it cold in the trunk of your car with 2 ohm loads. Mine is mounted on the seat back in a minivan. So no problems with heat so far.

To get the most out of this amp Get the Boss P126DVC and throw that in a very good ported box and you will be very happy with the amount of sound that you can get at such a low price. The specs say 96db on this woofer, take that as a ball park figure. Figure about 90 in the real world. I am sure Boss got this figure at its peak output efficiency. (Numbers sell after all)


You must give this AMP MIN 14.4 voltage. Don't even think about cheaping out on your installation of power. This is not an amp that does well if the power is not there. there is no real reserve capacity for this amps power supply. Take my advice, if you want to go cheap on amps, then you have to spend the money elsewhere.

I am able to get 14.4 stable on my amp with a 140 amp stock alternator by doing the big 3, and using large 1 gauge full copper wire for both ground and Positive leads and just a stock new battery in the car. Going to do a clamp test on the amps today, ( I have 2 of these in the back of the car. And I can tell you that these amps really like 2 ohms loads and sound best at that load under my system.

It does not have the "effortless Reserve" that better amps like the RF. or the Aura Amp that I have for testing. It just seems like it is missing the "Grunt" that better amps seem to have. However, with the 2 Quantum sub-woofers that I am using in a sealed box, they seem to put out plenty of volume on a 2 ohm load.

The report that these need the bass boost switch on is kind of true, but it makes it sound very stressed. It's best use is if you like to listen to music that just does not have much bass in the song that you are listening to.(Classical music) Otherwise, leave it off.

about 2 o'clock seems to be the best gain setting on the kn0ob for me. that way I can turn the remote switch to ten without audible distortion..

High level inputs worked great from the stock infinity sound system in my mini van when I installed it at first. I think it sounded more musical this way.

Bass control knob uses 6PC connectors. I was able to get a telephone splitter so I could just use one wire and knob for both amps in the back. You have to get one that has all 6 wires in them. Most only have 4.

This amp feels more like a real 100 watt amp. And guess what. It is.

After my clamp test, with settings on max and at the 2 o clock position for the gain with the bass control knob on max, I got the following readings on a sealed 1.25 cube sealed box with quantum sub-woofers rated at 250 RMS and at 4 ohms. I tested with voltage readings at the amps being about 14 volts under normal music, and under test tones and bass heavy music, I was seeing 13.8 and 13.5 with just one amp hooked up to a sub-woofer with the other amp being at idle with no load, and RCA input being disconnected.

Both the amps had time to warm up and were cool to the touch. and only moderately warm with ambient temps with the rear tailgate open were about 45' F. while taking the readings.

I used a cheap Harbor Freight Multimeter and Clap tester in the 20A range and measured both the positive and negative leads by the amp and next to the speaker. Wire gauge to the speaker was 12 gauge.

Clamp test results while car was idling.

The best I got was 4 amps with avg being about 3.58 Amps sustained, and 30 Volts AC with avg being about 27 at 13.8 avg System voltage. at 4 Ohms.

2 ohms under the same conditions were 7.59 Amps, and around 28 VAC being about my best sustainable numbers.

So if I did the math OK, This is a 108W amp at 4 ohms. And at 2 ohms the AT1500 does 211W running bother Sub-woofers in paralleled configuration.

This is far short of even the 300W prediction someone mentioned.

According to Boss tech I spoke with, the output of each amp is a little different. However, under my testing, both amps were only of by maybe 3 watts with both being carefully set the same as possible.

Also one of the amps seem to play music even without the Amp plugged in to the line in. I think it is defective as the other amp does not do this. After a power cycle, I think it went away for a bit. But all my wires are running up the same line so this may be why the cross talk goes in to the power and ground leads. To stress this, the other amp is dead silent. . I have a 120000 MFD cap on there to serve as a filter to clean up the DC, but somehow, the amp is playing music from the power, and grounds going to it. But still plays and tests great, so back to the store it goes for one that does not do this. This amp has been working for about 3 months now, and the other one is 2 days old. So time will tell if the other amp does the same thing after a while as well.

The Description here says to use 4 gauge wire. You could use 14 gauge power and ground wires (Extension cord type) and still not over stress the wire This amp pulls about ballpark 25 Amps at MAX load.

According to my math, a 15 amp fuse should do the job.

Problems I have faced so far has been the one amp getting a audio signal via the power wires, and playing it through to the speakers. Other then that, both amps seem to be working ok. The other amp does not do this.

If you really want my opinion about this amp and its best use. I would use it as a mono-block full range amp for each channel. 100 real watts to your front speaker set is more then enough headroom.

Also, I know it would invalidate the warranty, but I would remove that plastic boss logo from the top of the amp. The Titanium/ Gun Metal Gray finish is just beautiful to look at. The Large boss logo just ruins it.

As a bonus, it would aid in cooling to a very small degree.

As a side note, if you run multiple amps, you can control the gain from just one knob using a 6pc telephone adapter. My set up works just fine and is very musical at the 4 ohm load during normal balanced listening.

If you have your subs in a well insulated trunk, this amp just does not have the power to really provide you with what you need. Sonic has a great Stillwater Designs amp that puts out a real 500W RMS for around a Hundy. I would really recommend getting something something that puts out 500 RMS for sub-woofer use. Not that you want to shake the car, it just needs to have that headroom in a loud car environment and especially if you have your sub-woofers in the trunk. That way hot days won't be a problem.

Running a amplifier at it's limit is never a good idea in places with little in way of ventilation.

If you want to stay with the great 5 year warranty (on this amp anyways) get the biggest Boss amp in the series they sell, and remember, all these amps only put out 1/4 of what they say in an average installation and are very sensitive to voltage drop. A cap will not help that 8 gauge wire issue. On cheap amps like this, you need every single volt of power you can get to this amp otherwise, you are just wasting your money. If you are going to bother running wire, do it right and use a min of REAL AWG 4 gauge real copper for the run.

Great buy

Great sound and ease of installation ....best value for low cost...could never duplicate it locally.

reasonable price

It is unbelievable how low price everything is. I am 100percent satisfied

Thee almighty Boss Amp

200 watt amp. Not 1500...Good starter amp..

boss ar 1500

this is a good amp for the money, not the best sub amp ive had but a good value

Great Product!!

Its really awesome!! Powers the speakers really well, small size, easy to move around, great amplifier!! Cheers!!

good deal

Fast shipping and just like my other amp, easy hookup

Abused & Misused!!

I am straight abusing this amp! The ground is suppose to be no longer than 18 inches long...mines is 26 inches and it's a pretty horrible ground too. Every where I look, this amp is listed at not stable for 1ohm use, do not lower to 1ohm...PPSSSHHHH please! I have 2 4ohm 12s pulling at 600rms a piece, wired in parallel. Which pulls 1ohm from the amp and this amp sub combo is killing some bigger and pricer systems. Had it since July of 2012 with only one shut off due to overheating but came back on in 3 minutes...guess it was extremely hot that day in Texas.

Cheap, but misleading...

At the time, I purchased this amplifier on a tight budget. Getting this amount of watts out of such a cheap amp, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try. The amplifier itself looks nice, however the knobs and switches are a little cheap. However, it is overrated. I hooked it up to my 12" VVME subwoofer to it and I feel like this amp is only pushing about 300 watts, if that. It works great and doesn't get too hot - just don't purchase this amplifier expecting it to run at 700 watts RMS. That simply will not happen. I recommend this product to a beginner who is looking to power a couple hundred watts, nothing more. Also, when tuning your subwoofer while using the power knob, make sure to turn the knob all the way to max volume before setting your gain. This knob is not to control gain, but rather to limit the amount of power you are providing for your sub.

good buy

This product is definitely not a competition product but a good value. This amp is good if you just wanted to ad some depth to your sound stage with a single sub. But yet again it goes with the price if you want a serious system you need a serious amp. This is a good product for a starter system and the bass knob didn't work when I got it but it was cheap enough I didn't care to much about that. The amp tuned out well enough it didnt matter anyway.