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Audio Art 100MS Car Amplifier

I take a break from my home audio for awhile and look what I got here.

The Audio Art 100MS car amplifier.

This is a sound quality car amplifier that very famous in early 90's along with others brand such as Monolithic amplifier, Linear Audio, Soundstream, A/D/S and many more. Perhaps you never heard this name yet, but we are that growth in the era of 80's and 90's are praised with this amplifier above all the major brand like Sony, Alpine or Pioneer.

So let's take a look in detail.


This Audio Art 100MS is a small and compact car amplifier. It is a 2 channel car amplifier with the power output around 50 watt per channel. This is similar to my previous post about the Soundstream A50 car amplifier here.

The unit I got here is considerably in the mint condition, which is quite rare for this white color vintage car amplifier not to get abused by the beginner car audio installer.

This Audio Art 100MS still become one of the best sound car amplifier today and many still collect them for treasure.





The car amplifier that built in that era was almost have the same style, the case is all aluminum heatsink with then the same design among them.

Especially for this car amplifier is quite unique which is including the bass and treble gain with low frequency adjustment. This low frequency adjustment is just like a parametric equalizer but in this amplifier, the function is to adjust the low frequency only.


The other features of the car amplifier at that era is the individual left and right channel signal gain adjustment on the top of the heatsink. This clever volume adjustment is positioned in line with the RCA terminals input. The reason is to minimized the length of the signal transfer to the amplifier circuit inside.

Next things I will open up the cover to look what are the components inside.



The PCB quality get my attention.

Look the copper traces, they are thick which almost impossible to get this kind PCB quality today.

The internal components layout are well arranged with the Mosfet transistors are bolt directly to the heatsink under the PCB.

I open all the sides panels to get more detail on the components inside.





Specifically for the components they are using in this amplifier, the electrolytic capacitors are all Bennic brand. This Taiwanese capacitors are standard industrial quality capacitor that found on many consumer product. I wish they use more reputable Japanese capacitors brands such as Nichicon, Elna, or Nippon-Chemicon instead.


This amplifier using many op-amps. At the input stages is using the Analog Device AD712 and because there is a tone control feature that I mentioned before, the others op-amps are there for this function.





I bought this Audio Art 100MS car amplifier not only one but instead two unit.

They are both identical with the same mint condition.






My plan with them is put one for my collection and the other will be upgrade using the better quality components. But for now, I am more than happy to get those vintage Audio Art 100MS.

Disclaimer: Any statement and photos in this article are not allowed to copy or publish without written permission from the writer. Any injury or loss from following tips in this article is not under writer responsibility.

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Comments

  1. JDNovember 25, 2025 at 12:13 PM

    Nice amp you got there. I still got a smaller one, 70.2. Similar guts inside, without any tone control/xovers. Used to feed a Morel Supreme 110. I was rather unsatisfied with the sound, a bit grainy, noticeable on vocals. Probably somewhat difference in circuitry than 100MS. Recapped all electrolytics with Elna Silmic/Cerafine I had lying around & ceramic caps with silver micas. Also op-amps with LM4562. Very slight noticeable difference, still not satisfied. I cannot recall any pots to tweak the bias. Finally, replaced it with audison VR404.

    Recently played around with it. Bridged, to break in a 10 inch (wired 4 ohms) subs (ported , tuned to 38Hz).
    Tried full swing (just before clipping), can't remember 120 or 140 watts @ 50Hz. Kind of nice though, for a small sub (casual measurement, more than 110db@1 meter distance from an el cheapo c-weighted spl meters) :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. OrronocoDecember 22, 2025 at 8:16 PM

      Nice sharing. I recall the sound quality similar like what you describe above.

      Delete

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