Audiobahn A4002V - Amped

Got $280 burning a hole in your pocket? Then Audiobahn has an amp you need to meet. It's a member of their "Intake" series. Get ready for a speed date with the A4002V.

The A4002V is rated at 100 watts x 2 into 4 ohms, 200 watts x 2 into 2 ohms, and 400 watts bridged into a single 4-ohm load. It uses an unregulated Class AB design with highpass/lowpass/fullrange crossover, bass boost, subsonic filter and high-level inputs. An optional digital voltmeter and a remote bass control can also be purchased from a local Audiobahn dealer.

With the main extrusion anodized black and a chrome-plated top cover and endcaps, this is a good-looking unit. The aluminum extrusion is used as the primary heatsink and located at the bottom of the amplifier with vertical rises at its edges that hold the top panel. The chrome top panel, stamped from steel, has an "intake scoop" reminiscent of a hood scoop on a car and a round digital voltmeter with blue-lit digits.

When the amp is turned on, it glows blue from two embedded acrylic strips that separate the heatsink from the top panel. Also, a couple of bright blue LEDs are suspended inside the amp, casting an ambient glow through air vents and the clear acrylic terminal insulators.

All of the connectors (except the DVM and bass remote jacks) and the fuse are on one end, making installation a little easier. The gain, crossover, bass boost and subsonic filter controls live on the opposite-end panel, as well as two LEDs that indicate "Power On" and "Protection."

Installation
Audiobahn includes the two hex wrenches for the speaker and power/ground connections. A set of four screws to secure the amp and a high-level harness in case your deck doesn't have RCA outputs are also included. With the compact size and all of the connections on one end, this amplifier could easily be mounted under a seat.

The owner's manual is very impressive - a 40-page full-color book with great diagrams and instructions for installing and setting up your amp. Actually, that's just the first 26 pages. The rest of the book is devoted to subwoofer wiring configurations, capacitor wiring and safety, an Ohm's Law chart and calculating subwoofer size. It's a complete installation course with every amplifier. It also explains that Audiobahn warranties all of their products for one year, provided it's purchased from an authorized dealer.

Performance
On the bench, the A4002V made a good showing for its signal characteristics. The crossovers have nice, straight 12dB/octave slopes that line up near the specified crossover points. The bass boost provides a whopping +17dB at 46Hz, and the frequency response is an impressive 3Hz to 44kHz. The power measurements just made the specs at 4-ohm stereo, but at 1 percent THD it fell far short of the advertised 2-ohm numbers (The advertised numbers have no distortion figure associated with them). At -83dB, the signal-to-noise ratio also fell short of the stated -100dB figure.

Conclusion
While the amplifier didn't make the stated power at lower impedance, its crossovers, subsonic filter and bass boost make it quite flexible, and the cost/watt ratio ($279.99 divided by 341 watts) comes in at $0.82 retail. That's about average for amps in the 350-watt range. If the power and S/N Ratio measurements were better, I'd give the A4002V a thumbs up. But, as it stands, it gets a solid "average" rating.