New old school Pheonix Gold amp

[beretta]

Picked up this old 1990 MS250 pheonix gold amp for free, was told it would pop fuses after a while of use.

I run it at 2ohm load and it worked fine, i tryed it at 1 ohm and it blows fuses.

Spent about 4 hours polishing the board in it and cleaning everything else up, got some new thermal paste on it and re assembled and now it pops fuses all the time lol.. time to tare it down again and re check everything.

Pretty sweet amp, the board is 24 K gold plated retail in 1990 was around $375









Just wanted to share this amazing looking old school amp, some smudge marks from the inside view is from the plexi glass and my cell camera.

[DTMAce]

Honestly, you would probably get more out of it as salvage... lol

[scannerman]

more than likely one or more of the transistors are shorted.

[beretta]

well it was working good at a 2 ohm load. but i tore it apart to clean it and i think i must have shorted the transistors when i put the screws back through them not sure.. it turns on and powers up and kicks for few seconds before it pops the fuse. ill figure it out.

It rocked the heck out of my 2 12" rockford punch subs. i think its around 320 watt RMS in 2 ohm load. but crystal clear sound.

I also got another amp to ad to my collection.. a alpine digital series 550 watt RMS mono block got it for 5 bucks, already priced parts $17.. needs output transistors

[Lothurin]

I have one of those in my garage. Its a MS275 tho! No crossover built in.

[beretta]

the 275 is the same amp is it not ? they re named the 250 to a 275 because they under rated it so much.

Im hoping i can get it to function proper and im going to run it just because its old school and looks cool, i may even end up using it in my truck to power 1 10 inch rockford punch, or i may use the alpine mono block.

Im still trying to figure out how i can mount the pheonix gold so the back of the amp faces out and its not presses against the box to over heat

[Lothurin]

they look they same. i'm not even 100% sure what my is rated at for watts. I do know back in the day I ran 2 12" kicker comps off it, with a crossover of course. If i remember right that amp lasted me almost 8 years (subs too). Then finally one channel went out or something. Haven't had a stereo since

[berettaboi]

look up specs on it, maybe it's not 1 ohm stable? chances are it should be... most good quality amps are.

[beretta]

i looked up specs, it doesnt list 1 ohm, but it could have bad transistors. it worked fine for me at 2 ohm un bridged then when i tryed 1 ohm bridged it just pops fuses like mad. since ive put it back together after polishing it up,. it doesnt want to work now LOL.. so most likely its got shorted transistors, ill have to take it apart again sometime and test it. still powers up but has alot of background noise and pops fuse quick

[berettaboi]

lol, yeah that's what ya get for trying to make it look pretty! spray a good dose of electrical contact cleaner on the thing, might have created some new conductive paths by polishing it!

[Money pit Beretta]

In my old days these amps were thought of as junk low end stuff. Lanzar was good back then and now they are junk.
Hope you get it worked out man.

[beretta]

even if i cant get it working 100% but im pretty confident that i can.... it will make a nice display piece with the gold plating and the plexi backing

[Money pit Beretta]

That will work. I don't know why, but I like to see old stuff brought back to life(not just cars).

[smgreen20]

Sorry to wake the dead, but for free...... Great grab. This amp IS NOT stable at 1 ohm bridged, nor do they recommend 2 ohm bridged. It'll do it for a while, but not recommended. It's stable (rated) to 2 ohms stereo, 4 ohms mono.

THIS IS A MUST.............REPLACE all of the caps in that amp. They are very prone to leakage and will cause fire. That could be part of the problem you're having with it. The caps leaking could be shorting out blowing the fuses.

And PG being considered junk back in the 90's??????? NO, not by a long shot. I will agree LANZAR was one of the big names back then and they're what I collect.

[Money pit Beretta]

They had a very high power rating, but it was only able to put out that power for like a 1sec and then they would burn out.