I'm sitting at my test bench one day pondering the inner workings of some device I was testing, and in walks the technical editor for CA&E, Casey Thorson, carrying a REALLY big box. And by the way he had it propped up on his hip, I knew it was pretty heavy. He tells me it's the new 20th anniversary edition Hifonics Goliath amp and asks if I'd like to test it out in the lab.
I've been around car audio for a while (let's just say I installed my first car system before cassette tapes were invented and leave it at that), so I know the history and legacy behind all the major players. As much as I enjoy being a part of bringing new brands to life, I still really enjoy seeing the legacy brands flourish and innovate. The Hifonics brand, now in its 20th year, is certainly one of the legacy brands, so I told Casey I'd love to put the Goliath through its paces. I was really looking forward to testing and listening to this powerhouse, with a claimed output of 5,000 watts into 1 ohm!
A few days later, I got it unpacked and on the bench - it's a beast. The Goliath moniker does it full justice, as this giant of an amp is 28" long and over 11" wide. It weighs in at about 30lbs., so you know there's some serious parts inside.
The exterior of the amp is finished in a satin-look brushed aluminum, and the Hifonics and Goliath names light up bright blue when you power it up, leaving no question as to the source of the boom you're about to hear. It comes with cast aluminum end-caps to hide all the connections and controls - each with a nice little 20th anniversary edition badge recessed into the cap and a rubber gasket to prevent any rattles where they meet the amp chassis. Fit and finish were good, with no obvious issues or finish blemishes.
The power connections were a bit unusual in that there are two sets of them. That's right, to properly power this giant, Hifonics recommends using two 2-gauge B+ cables and two 2-gauge ground cables. You just know this baby is going to draw some current and make a ton of power. There are no chassis-mounted fuses in the Goliath, and, although it's not included, Hifonics recommends a 500-amp fuse.
The speaker connections are more conventional, with dual positive and negative terminals, but easily large enough to accept 8-gauge speaker cable - another indication that this amp means business.
On the opposite end of the amp are the signal inputs and controls. The Goliath is a full-featured mono amp. It has controls and connections for gain, a subsonic filter, bass EQ, adjustable crossover, a phase control, line outputs to drive a high-frequency amp and a dedicated set of RCAs to connect another Goliath in master/slave mode to this one - just in case you need 10,000 watts to your woofers.
Circuit DesignThe Goliath is a Class D amplifier, in the traditional sense. That is to say, it is bandwidth limited and designed to be used only for subwoofer applications. A look inside confirms my earlier suspicions about the weight. This amp is built for some serious current flow. In addition to the two pairs of power connectors, the amp uses large heavy-duty buss bars to distribute the current to the board. The type of PCB is very good quality, double sided, plated through and glass epoxy, which resists heat and vibration extremely well. This is a good thing because a powerhouse like this can generate plenty of both. On the main PCB, all of the parts are the through-hole variety, but all are high quality, low tolerance 5% or better. There are surface mount parts on the two daughter boards, used for power supply control and the Class D controllers.