Zapco Z100S1VX Old School cheater amp review and innards reveal

[MustangShane]

Long story short, I needed a new amp to push a 6.5 Tang Band sub. Since the mid 90's I've had a mad crush on this little Class A/B amp. It doesn't look potent, nor does the 100W RMS figure seem impressive. However, this is what is known as a cheater amp. I fell in love with this amp in the mid 90's when I discovered it. There was a guy up the road from me that used to shake our house when he'd drive by. One day I flagged him down and asked to see his setup. Reluctantly, he showed me. He had a walled back seat with four 10 inch 8ohm Super Pro Super Blue's (back when they were US made). With this little puppy and those four subs, he achieved 149db. Granted, a lot had to do with the fact he was an artist in box design. I've yet to see anyone else build a more robust enclosure.

Anyway, I've seen these amps dyno at 200W RMS, so as you can see it is pretty underrated. It is a one channel amp. It can handle a 2 ohm load. I picked this one up on Ebay for 75 dollars. It is very clean inside and out. Almost looks unused to me. It does have plenty of punch for what it is. If you run across one, it's a decent purchase for a legendary US made amp (to me anyway). Please feel free to ask questions or comment.

Here's the pics.

 

[RangerATX]

Great review, over the years I totally forgot about this brand. I remember having one of their eqs in my car back in high school and that thing out lasted my cars throughout college.

 

[MustangShane]

Thank you. I would really like to find one of their EQ's. The guy I am talking about also had one of their EQ's. I would like to find an owners manual on this as well. I'm not 100% certain on how to set up the input selector, or the multislope x-over. My deck has a crossover built in though.... so that might be a moot point.

 

[phil.mibole.z33]

just found one of these and cant wait to get it