Kicker ZX200.4

A small-footprint four channel amplifier, nominally rated at thirty five watts per channel. It uses reasonably heavy duty if slightly Old School screw down fork-crimp compatible connectors for all power and speaker connections with all parts gold plated. Unusually in this group, the high level input is not provided for by way of included Molex connectors and a set of corresponding sockets but rather by way of a panel-mounted switch to select between high or low level input. If you choose high level or speaker input, you are supposed to solder RCA plugs onto your speaker wires to connect them. The design is handsome, with a mesh-grille vented top plate that bears a logo raised with a bit that lights up dully in red when powered up. Always looks good nestling in a dim boot but hard to see on a daylight test. There are clever turn-on options that obviate the need to run the blue wire, although the typically excellent Kicker manual recommends the regular method. The amplifier can discern the surge from the speaker outputs when a unit is powered up via high level connection (called DC offset) and it can signal sense from a regular RCA input. These two methods also result in the remote terminal going 12V live for use to send a power up wire to say a bass amp that may not have the clever power-up options. A neat and subtle feature that can really help in OEM integration style installs and easily overlooked.
– Class AB
– 4 x 35w RMS @ 4 Ohms
– 4 x 50w RMS @ 2 Ohms
– 2 x 100w RMS @ 4 Ohms bridged
– Extruded Aluminium heatsink with Black Anodised finish and grey Steel top plate
– 8Ga. Power Terminals with Gold Plated screw-down plate connection
– Gold Plated 4Ch RCA input
– 12dB per Octave high/low pass crossovers fixed @ 80Hz
– 0 to 12dB Bass Boost @ 40Hz
– Input sensitivity: Low level 125mV to 5.0V and high level 250mV to 10V
– Vented top plate with red illuminated logo piece
– Stereo & bridged operation
– Frequency response 20Hz to 20kHz
– Signal to Noise Ratio >95dB
– Channel separation not quoted
– Fuse Rating 30A x1
– HxWxD(mm) 54 x 244 x 260mm
Review by Adam Rayner
Cute and compact but a bit gothic and yet with easily enough power to compete with the big brutal items on the market. The Kicker ZX200.4 is all about an approach. This section of the car audio amplifier market is awash with competition and to get on in life each product must have some reason why you would spend your £200 on this rather than that amplifier. In fact of the six in this group, five were priced the same to the penny. Never in a career have I had such a savagely tight set of competing products and it’s been gripping. What it comes down to is your taste and urge. Pick the brand you enjoy by way of demo car is my advice. If you sit in the Kicker Hummer you risk being de-boned by the bass and the sound you get is largely coming from this sort of amplifier range, albeit gone Class D style once you get to drive the Hengist Pod woofers they make. (Incredibly obscure UK movie reference to square wheels – name the movie, win an Abbey Road live tee shirt!)
The output of all the amplifiers on test was wired to a set of Morel scary-price components on the front set of channels and a ‘known-excellent’ set of 6×9 ovals in boxes on the rear set. These are so uncool to admit to, I just won’t reveal their brand but they work well and make silly bass, so I was able to fade to and fro and really give each amplifier’s crossovers a good pull through. I tried all settings and checked out the filters for smoothness and effectiveness. All of which helped sum up into a score out of ten for features. Steep slopes and smooth sounding filters were what I was seeking.
The Kicker was serious about top end frequencies and seemed a bit toppy and tough at first. The cymbals really splashed and the edges of the WHAP!! snare hits on my fave track from the Focal Spirit Of Sound #6 disc could take your face off. It sounds like the amp has a wicked slew rate (ability to make a watt really, really fast when needed and measured in little bits of Volts per second) and despite the lowish power specification does have a good power-to-cash-asked relationship. I reckon that spec. quote is under-quoted and that we should invest in a dummy load the size of Texas so we can check these things. (Just checked with a site associate and they have a capacitor the size of a party seven beer can we can thieve.)
The fader button’s function is not described deeply in the manual other than to explain that if you find you have no front to rear fade it might be set in the wrong position. This looks to be a single-RCA feed feature to drive the whole amp from one head unit line out. Do not ever touch this when running music as it was horribly noisy and sent an evil crackle through the system. Power down before touching that control – or the high level-low level button for all that.
I connected the AudioControl SA-3055 RTA (donated kindly by Tom Walker himself to Talk Audio) and used it to check out the maximum SPL without audible distortion that each amplifier was able to muster as well as doing critical listening with some headroom left in the box. The ZX managed to raise a hefty 123dB at the back of my test room – on the window sill – it was where the microphone was safest to keep it in the same place for repeatability through all the 18 tests.
Great for dance music, SPL heads and loud persons then, this is not a terribly refined sound but it has great crossovers despite their cheapie fixed-frequency nature and is a hooligan product with a blunt bass booster control. Great fun and obviously the perfecto adjunct for Kicker speakers. You’d be a Nard not to stay brand loyal to their amps if you like their speakers.
Overall 7.4
Sound Quality 6
Power Output 7
Features 8
Build Quality 8
Value For Money 8