The Rockford Fosgate brand of car audio is arguably the most famous high power American brand and thus the most well known amongst the cognoscenti worldwide. For some folks in the UK finding the brand being distributed by the ProPlus Sound people was startling as their kit although able to be 150dB potent, is not high end. However, it is clearly an inspired choice by Rockford USA with new UK dealers coming on in all directions and old fans at last able to find a supplier who is directly business connected to the Rockford Corp.
Part of what made ProPlus a force to be able to simply take this epic brand on board in their stride is their brilliant sales force. A force to be reckoned with, it is they who arranged this marriage of a very sexy posh mono amp with a slightly rougher spoken subwoofer.

Rockford Fosgate Punch P325.1

A mono amplifier from the Punch range. It has all the connections for power, signal and speakers one end and hides all these under a neat brushed anodised black cover. There are indicator lamps on the panel to show normal operation or fault condition. The amplifier will accept a wide range of inputs from a very low 150mV to a relatively high 4.0V of signal and has a set of pass through RCAs as well as inputs.
The amplifier is individually serial numbered and is complete with an actual performance verification certificate showing its performance is way higher than specified.

Condor Powerhouse-1

A 12 inch dual 4 Ohm voice coil subwoofer with dual sets of bright-plated screw-down terminals that will accept large diameter speaker wires as well as banana plugs. It has an enlarged upper roll suspension surround and is designed for high linear excursion. There is a big plastic injection moulded trim ring with silver paint on it for use over the chassis once installed. The magnet is massively constructed, housed within a chromed casing held on with twelve Allen headed bolts. The back plate has an aperture for the magnet vent, which is mesh protected.

It seems slightly mad at first inspection, Then you do the sums. The sub is £86 give or take a few pence. The amp sells for £250. Yet together you can buy both for £200. At that price, even if you really do feel that the woofer is not for your world, you can buy the amp and sell the 300 watt, dual 4 ohm voice coil, chromed trim, cast steel chassis, woven-in tinsel lead, banana plug terminated woofer on e-Bay. It really is a big thing with all the aforementioned engineering on board! What we really wanted to know is how this Street Level dude of a woofer’s marriage to an Uptown Girl of an amplifier worked out. We plugged it all in and dropped some tunes.

Conclusion

An incredible Value For Money deal from one of the companies well known for offering more for less than just about anybody. The Rockford P325.1 monoblock amplifier is a paragon of excellence in build and performance. Anything individually serial numbered is nice, but tested and certified to a recognised standard (The Consumer Electronics Association of America or CEA 2003 rating) is just delicious. The Powerhouse-1 subwoofer is a bonkers bit of kit for the money and I seriously expect it to perform with more authority as that very stiff set of suspension top roll surround and thick linen spider have had a chance to soften up. It is clear that the woofer really can use all the power that the amplifier can deliver and the price of both together make the sale of both at once an obvious choice but for me, I’d like to have heard this amp on a much pricier woofer.
That said, it does give access to a world of power bass that would otherwise be a good three figure sum away and if I was spending my own money and wanting to find that delicate balance between spending some now and saving a bit and getting the whole point of the exercise achieved – that of getting huge lows – I would think this was bloody brilliant as the amp is the best thing to get right first. It draws DC power and suddenly upgrading later may mean new problems. Plus, a really posh woofer could be damaged by a poor bass amp while you are saving for higher quality watts.
An undeniable deal that’ll make you wistful for a posher woofer.