Reserved for the most serious car audio builds, these are the world’s most powerful car amplifiers that provide almost limitless watts of power. 

Welcome to the world’s most powerful car amplifiers! Yes, who isn’t gripped by the idea of limitless watts of music power? And the car is still the only place you can get away with really loud tunes. Do it indoors and the neighbors will want to hurt you. I recall a case of a police detective prosecuted for an awful assault on a neighbor who drove him insane with loud music.

That said, there are laws about causing grief and fear in others by threats to do with your car. Be it an angry engine rev, an aggressive swerve or loud sound system, it may cost a sinner their ride. Three strikes and Police will crush your car! In the UK, at least, The Police Reform Act 2002, section 59. “Vehicles used in a manner causing alarm, distress or annoyance” can also mean bangs and pops in a car park.

So, wobbling plate glass shop windows, setting off car alarms in busy car parks and the one-point-per-hundred-yards game are over. The last was to see how far you could turn heads. The K&M Cerwin-Vega! demo van had six eighteens and could make you look up from a half mile away. Huge systems as daily drives are almost never heard any more. Booming cars driving around were once a thing but now stuff has changed. In the same way that track days are common as a day’s entertainment, big bass became a competition thing.

New Car Amplifiers, More Muscle

Things have changed during my time. When I started the online career after print shriveled, the sexiest amplifier was an Hifonics Colossus. Fully 2x600watts RMS of class AB amp. It was muscular and regarded as the ultimate. Then, Class D came along. Invented in 1955, they had to wait until the 1980s to make it work. It was about the MOSFET transistors finally being silicon-based. At first, Class D car amps were hissy and no HiFi person would ever have been impressed.

Infinity had a line of Class D car amps that were known for being like a bag of snakes. Years later and I was humping huge speakers into Abbey Road as an employee of AudioFX, who supply studio rentals. They were remastering a Motörhead double album and needed high quality monitoring. Ready for each big speaker, was a small Class D amplifier, fed with its single channel for that speaker. They were deemed mastering quality.

Class D came of age when 150dB SPL (Sound Pressure Level) was the maddest loud that cars could get. You needed dozens of ‘normal’ amps in stacks. And Class D amps got bigger, much bigger.

The musicólogo culture started in Brazil. HUGE sound systems with unfolding boxes they call chuceros, that broadcast outwards. In 1994, Wayne Harris’ dB Drag Racing competition scene started in the USA. In the UK and now elsewhere, they have a brutal contest format that I helped launch. Called ‘Propper Droppers’ it is about SPL numbers and how low they go. It is brutal, crazy and expensive.

It takes huge amplifiers. The massive Brazilian Taramps HV160.000 comes with diagrams of the twenty-four batteries and the wiring that you will need!

So here, for fun and pure audio insanity, we present the world’s most powerful car amplifiers.

SounDigital 35000.1 EVOX

RRP: $3,499 / £2,210. View here.

These raving maniacs make an automotive amplifier designed to work on, get this – a 70V DC system! That is one hell of a heap of batteries, all hooked up. With that, the Brazilian SounDigital 100K HV XLR is said to deliver 100,000 watts! That is bonkers and insanely specialized, so let’s look at one of their ‘normal’ big boys in this world’s most powerful car amplifiers piece. One that’s merely epic. That’d be their 35000.1EVOX. Delivering a ‘mere’ thirty-five kilowatts into a multi-speaker one ohm load. Let’s just allow that to sink in for a moment. Partly due to the low signal to noise ratio requirements for huge banks of woofers, and of course that Class D thing.

The subsonic filter is about saving the huge energy wasted on making absurd-deep tones. Usually set in the infrasonics from 20Hz, up or down a bit. The subsonic crossover on this can start at 3Hz! This is about a limitless speaker system not having its time wasted below its cutoff frequency. Even if you have a box that will do 10Hz for the sillier end of Propper Droppers contests. It will cope with abused batteries offering up a poor voltage but give it the real juice and EVOX can take your bones out.

The craziest thing is that for the power, SounDigital can actually describe this behemoth as ‘compact’.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output: 4ohms, 1 x 15,246W, 2ohms 1 x 23,100W, 1ohm, 1 x 35,000W
• Current Draw Max: 3,429A; 3,500A fuse recommended
• Signal To Noise Ratio: 76dB
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 3Hz to 30Hz; Crossover, 50Hz to 500Hz
• Operating Voltage: 8V to 18V DC
• Dimensions: 224mm x 863mm x 71mm & 12.9Kg

BANDA Viking 15.000

RRP: $1,299 / £1,253. View here.

Another Brazilian brand. There’s a huge population, a massive country and a car audio culture that has even been on TV. We saw national treasure Micheal Palin in Brazil on the beach, where folks park their sound trucks on the sand. These rip the air asunder by way of happy contest and they all love it!

The same 50Hz to 500Hz crossover frequency is used for the ‘low pass’ as the SounDigital folks use. This is the one that sets your bass. Between 80Hz or as high as 120Hz is normal. That frequency will be the one below which the signal can flow. It keeps mids and pointless tweet sounds out of your woofers.

This amplifier is fan-cooled and needs to be, despite the epic efficiency of Class D as a whole. It needs fuses to cope with peak draw of six hundred and thirty amperes of 12V. A slightly higher signal to noise ratio means it can cope with low grade signal levels or else up to 6V of signal input.

It’s big, it’s bad, it’s Brazilian and bodacious.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output: 2ohms 1 x 9,800W, 1ohm, 1 x 15,000W
• Current Draw Max: 630A; 6x125A + 1x65A recommended
• Signal To Noise Ratio: 82dB
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 13Hz to 120Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 50Hz to 500Hz
• Operating Voltage: 9V to 15V DC
• Dimensions: 265mm x 763mm x 65mm & 13.835Kg

Powerus PW15000 1Ohm

RRP: $1,599 / £1,430. View here.

You have to order this in either 2, 1 or ½ of an ohm capability from the ground up. That is insanely hardcore. Another brand from Brazil, their website is littered with the ‘Lorem ipsum’ not-yet-added content stuff from a web template. However, these are available from vendors in the UK and Powerus reckon they have good international sellers for other territories.

The signal to noise ratio is surprisingly high at 90dB and it can cope with low voltages. Rated down to a badly sagging 7V, this is hugely important. Bass takes stupefying power at daft high sound levels. This sucks even big battery banks empty very fast. And let’s face it, the person playing the system will be a bass head. Thus, systems always get spanked until their power sags. I have known the big amps from Orion – their HCCA ones, get badly hurt inside because of low voltage. They were asked to make big power with less volts than they wanted and brewed-up as we say.

The Powerus ratings show supply voltage differences. If you have a solid 14.4V of battery bank voltage, then it will give you 1,750W more than at 12.6V. Awesome.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output: 1ohm,@12.6V 1 x 15,400W, 1ohm @14.4V 1 x 17,150W
• Current Draw Music/Max: 700A/1,630A
• Signal To Noise Ratio: >90dB
• Subsonic (“highpass”) Filter frequency: 5Hz to 200Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 80Hz to 20kHz
• Operating Voltage: 7V to 16V DC
• Dimensions: 280mm x 580mm x 70mm & 10.6Kg

B2 Audio RIOT 30K The Kraken

RRP: £2,346. View here. Not available in the US.

B2 make some huge stuff and a good bit of it gets to the UK due the distributor being long-lasting. The Kraken is a mad surfboard of bass mayhem. This lovely extrusion of aluminum is nearly a meter long. It has a high signal to noise ratio, meaning the bass will be clean and crisp. It wants four feeds of fat 1/0 gauge cable to drive it and another four to earth it. The terminals are oversized, nearly 2/O gauge, apparently, so if you can find wire the right fatness, you will get better current delivery.

The Kraken comes from the other really hot spot for monster amplifiers, which is Korea. Or rather the board does. This is from B2 Audio Audiophile Products company, who are Danish. Thus, their products have a certain clean Euro look. I don’t think many Brazilian amps come in white powder coat. Their “It can never B2 loud” slogan is a perfect fit for this thing. The Kraken is a massive mythological squid beast that was said to take ships. B2 are clearly of the opinion that they want to cause mayhem. They call it ‘beyond frightening’ and ‘a big boy amp’ as well as explaining that current draw can reach 2,500Amperes.

It’s ridiculous and delicious and crazy. I love it, which is why I’ve placed it here in the world’s most powerful car amplifiers.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output @14.4V: 4ohms, 1 x 9,000W, 2ohms 1 x 16,000W, 1ohm, 1 x 30,000W
• Current Draw: 2,000A fuse recommended
• Signal To Noise Ratio: >90dB
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 15Hz to 50Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 40Hz to 180Hz
• Operating Voltage: 9.5V to 16V DC
• Dimensions: 235mm x 907mm x 60mm & 18Kg

DD Audio Z2B

RRP: $4,999 / £3,675. View here.

My earliest awareness of Digital Designs was all about their insanely high power handling subwoofers. Speakers made to cope with power so totally bonkers that scary stuff happens in their guts. The ‘tinsel’ wires taking the watts to the voice coil inside the magnet are directly soldered to big eight gauge wires from the factory. They don’t want to risk power losses due to the huge power going through a ‘normal’ connector. The sheer power that DD could make a subwoofer handle without blowing up became the stuff of legend. How about 10,000W peak or 6,000W RMS? One woofer, that is… And their amps, with Z2B as their top animal, are just the sort of power houses these woofers need.

Z2B has a slew of clever cooling features. Like a bigger bottom heatsink and end plate ventilation with a cooling fan. Three 1/0 Gauge wires each for power in and earth out feed the eight massive toroids inside. These doughnuts of wire are the mark of big power in car amps. They are why there are whole websites that are just pictures of amplifiers’ insides, called ‘amp guts’. Years or research and development went into the making of the amp and it is another that is all but a meter long.

A true daddy amongst the world’s most powerful car amplifiers.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output: 1 ohm: 1 x 6,850W @12v, 10,000W @14.4V, 12,000W @16V & 15,000W @18V
• Current Draw Max: 2,000A
• Signal To Noise Ratio: >85dB
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 10Hz to 50Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 350Hz to 250Hz
• Operating Voltage: 12V to 18V DC
• Dimensions: 268mm x 940mm x 79mm & 27.2Kg

Sundown Audio SALT-12

RRP: $4,449 / £4,449. View here.

Sundown are based in North Carolina, USA and have been legendary in the mad SPL scene for ever. Like the cunning folks at B2 Audio in Denmark, these Americans have used a Korean-designed board. Designed to cope with those aforementioned deadly lower voltages, it is made to work better under real-world conditions. Made to look different to their other products to show off how fancy it is, with a Titanium finish. The SALT-12 has a thicker heatsink than any Sundown Audio ever used before. It is a lot more cunning than most here in that it comes with a remote status display. This shows the amp temperature and operating voltage of your power system. It also shows if your amplifier is clipping. Totally brilliant and all about spanking the living daylights out of the amp to dump twelve kilowatts into willing woofers. And they will need to be willing.

The really hard to grasp thing about this size is that there are 1ohm woofers that can use 12,000W amplifiers. Or at least enjoy one all to itself for the headroom. That means a huge bass note can suddenly become a brain-meltingly loud throb, louder than that. Whatever ‘that’ was… Backed up with thermal, short-circuit, voltage and DC offset protection circuits, Z2B is made for extreme use.

Most sophisticated of all here, the amp has a sweepable 180 degree variable phase shift control. That means you can tweak it until it makes your insides wobble. This is rare and yet a massively important thing in absurd-end mega bass installs. It has been my thing for years. Hard to explain easily, you just twiddle until it feels the best.

A technical power house and the most sophisticated of all the world’s most powerful car amplifiers.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output: 4ohms, 1 x 3,000W, 2ohms 1 x 6,000W, 1ohm, 1 x 12,000W
• Current Draw: 2,000A fuse recommended
• Signal To Noise Ratio: >90dB
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 10Hz to 50Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 35Hz to 250Hz
• Operating Voltage: 9V to 15V DC
• Dimensions: 260mm x 960mm x 75mm & 22.7Kg

Vibe BlackDeath Bass2 The REAPER

RRP: £3,250. View here. Not available in the US.

Rather than regulating the heck out this huge yard-long amplifier, VIBE chose to allow it to eat a wide voltage range up to a serious 18V. That means the power output goes from 4 ohms at 14.4V, giving you just over two and half kilowatts and goes up to it being fed 18V but only seeing a one ohm load. Then, you get 11,600W. Vibe like to quote a dynamic wattage as well, for Reaper, it’s 29,000W. It weighs in at a huge 29Kg, making it the heaviest amp around, as well. Closely followed by the Sundown SALT-12, mind…

Rated to a half ohm. Vibe are bullish about that non-regulated power supply. They showed The Reaper off stood next to an employee with its amp guts revealed. I know the bloke in the picture. Even though he is not tall, it is one heck of an amplifier just to look at. And of course the BLACK DEATH branding has been cool, ever since Vibe first came up with it.

Here’s a mad thing. You can strap two of these together to provide a true 29,000W RMS. That is insane. Even crazier is that this huge watt house has full pukka CE certification. (European safety regulations for electrical items – proper strict and sometimes lied about by factories in China on USB power supplies.)

Also, this amp has a parametric bass boost. More sophisticated than a simple fixed-frequency one, it can pick between 30Hz to 90Hz and then you set the boost with another control.

An absolute treat of British power-crazed awesomeness.

Tech Spec:

• Power Output:, 4ohms/14.4V, 1 x 2,650W, 2ohms 1 x 5,200W, 1ohm, 1 x 9,000W. @18V 3,200W, 6,000W & 11,600W @ 4, 2 & 1 ohms.
• Current Draw: Not Quoted
• Signal To Noise Ratio: Not Quoted
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 10Hz to 70Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 35Hz to 250Hz
• Operating Voltage: 12V to 18V DC
• Dimensions: 415mm x 1165mm x 190mm & 29.14Kg

Taramps HV 160.000

RRP: $644.15, buy here / £685.47, buy here.

Here is where it all gets a bit other-worldly in our world’s best car amplifier. That’s a mouthful… A battery bank that you could connect a whole cow to and cook it like one of those electricity-searing things for hot dogs. They electrocute the hot dog. This much DC could make a drive shaft glow if used as shorting bar! This deeply specialized competition item wants to see 300V DC. You need batteries in series, twenty-four of them. The manual has diagrams of how to hook them up and how to charge them. It involves massive circuit breakers and enough battery knowledge and skill to join an electric car motor racing team. It also involves a regular 12V system for the controls and preamps, it’s unique and completely their own thing. Very hard to understand for regular folk, and despite my years of experience, I struggled, too.

Taramps state that you will need to draw 560A at 300V for competition use .I think that means ‘burps’ rather than music. You will get a stated 160,000W. That is more than most really big outdoor festival sound rigs. I can tell you that I made a friend of Metallica’s sound engineer many, many years ago. He came with a PA system at a Fast Car show as operator. I sat him in a 160dB car and he LOVED it! He got into big car audio as well. Mick is on record marveling at the lunacy of the speakers and amps that big bass car audio has created.

The Taramps people have a video showing their sound truck that these things are created for. And get this, the manual clearly states that it is forbidden to have the vehicle moving while using this amp. Just let that sink in…

Tech Spec:

• Power Output: @300V DC 0.25ohms, 160,000W
• Current Draw Music/Max: 280A/560A @0.25ohm
• Signal To Noise Ratio: >95dB
• Subsonic Filter frequency: 3Hz to 30Hz; Lowpass Crossover, 50Hz to 500Hz
• Operating Voltage: 9V to 16V DC
• Dimensions: 239mm x 561mm x 73mm & 7.4Kg

STEG NIKO 1.40000

RRP: €5,000/£4,286. Not available in the US.

STEG are an Italian company. This is a HiFi item, despite their not quoting their signal to noise ratio anywhere easily findable. This NIKO 1.40000 is STEG’s declared top of the range. It uses a proprietary system they call GR.IPS. It’s about ground loop reduction at high power, and stands for Ground Improved Path System. They tell us that is especially a risk in multiple amplifier systems.

For cooling it has six fans in side-tunnels and they are ‘Intellispeed’ controlled. That means the transistors and diodes are being monitored for their thermal and electrical parameters by sensors. The fins are all internal and the cooling system makes sure it stays below 40C.

Ten toroid power supplies, juicing forty MOSFET transistors are thus all looked after very well. Designed for use by true audio-heads, it has sophisticated protection circuits of STEG’s own design. It looks out for the voltage being too low or high, as well as short or weird stuff happening in the output stage. They are so bullish about their processor controlling this power supply switching that they state amplifier breakdowns just won’t happen. “Zero, even in extreme use conditions” was how they put it.

Not cheap but made to component-selecting standards and will hold its value if you do indulge in the world’s most powerful car amplifiers.

• Power Output: @14.4V, 4ohms, 1 x 15,000W, 2ohms 1 x 25,000W, 1ohm, 1 x 40,000W
• Current Draw Max: 2,500A, 2 x800A fuse recommended
• Signal To Noise Ratio: Not Quoted
• Subsonic Filter frequency: NONE; Lowpass Crossover, NONE
• Operating Voltage: 10V to 16V DC
• Dimensions: 230mm x 832mm x 62mm &10Kg

Now that you’ve had your mind blown by the most powerful car amps on the planet, prepare to raise your eyebrows even further as I walk you through the most expensive car amps in the world, next!