the loudest car in T&T at a time...anyone remember him??

[SR]

as far as i am aware zed audio only made amplifiers and amplifer designs

most of those single dvd units are made by one or 2 companies out of china and people just "stamp" thier name on them to add to thier product line variety

[~snYper~]

they still do

lots of new amps
have a close look at the main board and you will see zed audio


rodek use to eb a nice amplifier
dunno what really happen to the company nah

This should answer your question....
The 'Zed Audio' logo stamped on the cct boards are prolly just a Q/A badge.. used for marketing hype?!

Rodek Electronics was originally started by a Mr. Richard Loewen in the US in 1990. As far as I remember the factory/offices were located in Bellingham, WA. Back in 1990 Mr. Loewen was close to retirement age.

The designer of the Rodek car audio amplifiers at that time was a Mr. Steven Mantz who runs his own company, ZED Audio which is apparently an OE contract manufacturer for other large companies such as JL Audio, Hifonics, Lanzar, etc. ZED AUDIO is alive and well, in California.

Steven Mantz also did amplifier development and design in the early 90's for Hifonics, Crunch, Autotek (current mean machine series I believe) and Rodek car audio amplifiers. Back in those days he was very popular and somewhat famous in Europe, especially Germany. There were a few car audio/hifi magazines at the time who Steven apparently developed test criteria for testing various car audio equipment.

Hifonics "X" Series was designed by him, the circuit boards bear his "ZED AUDIO" name. After that he designed amplifiers for ESX which were only available in the USA in 1998. ESX are now marketed by www.audiodesign.de (a Hifonics company). These amps are now made by Calcell in Korea but still have the "ZED AUDIO" marking on the circuit boards.

Mr. Mantz also did design work for Planet Audio as well as the last Lanzar Optidrive Series (not the Opti SL). He also did some design work for Hollywood Sound amplifiers.

ACR Products in Switzerland imported Rodek products for sale in Switzerland and Germany through a Mr. Eli Gusavac who now apparently works for Soundstorm in the US.

Their last known US address was:

Rodek
125 Old Moroe Rd.
Bogart, GA 30622
Phone: (706) 369-9519

They were also seen at:

12300 Edison Way, Garden Grove, CA 92841

In apprx. 1995 Rodek USA went bankrupt because of bad business decisions and bad business politics.

The tradename RODEK was bought by the company Bostwick who produced a few of their products. But for many years now there has been no activity under the Rodek brand in N. America. Bostwick at the moment only sells products under it's own tradename.

ACR Products in Switzerland bought the tradename Rodek for the European market (not N. America) from a Belgium company named Rodec in 1997. The Rodec company had bought the Rodek tradename previous to that. The Rodec company sells audio mixing boards and other such unrelated products.

Rodek Europe has nothing in common anymore with what Rodek USA used to be. Now it's just the Rodek image and logo.

ACR Rodek has a new line of amplifiers coming out April 2002 and the designer of those models is Andre Grossenbacher who has kindly helped me with the history search of the Rodek brand history. They will be shown at www.rodek.com in April.

Also thank you to A. Kinnen from Germany who filled in some of the details on Stephen Mantz's design history.

I've had some email correspondence with Steven and found more information about his history in car audio. You can view his car audio story here. If you have a problem with an older Rodek amplifier you're best to probably contact Steven directly. He may still have schematics to repair them.

[16 cycles]

d hi fonics yellow van what he was runnin?

this van went through alot of builds. The owners were very passionate about their music. First days was 4 blaupunkt 12" and 4 6by9 gti jbl's. All powered by hi fonics.

A year or less than a year later upgraded to 6 JBL 15" Dj speakers. RCF's to numerous to mention and alot of high end bullets again all pwered by zeus an colossuss. Alternator swaped to industrial type and a couple 26 plate truck baterries. Caps like wow !!!.

It is and was the ablsolut loudest and cleanest system ever. That;s my opinion. Never heard anything close. That van was the ultimate and still is. I might be wrong on some of the specs.

Hi FOnics yellow toyota van is the ultimate.

[nigel1977]

when saying so, i have a rodek amp someplace... hmmm

[cold fusion]

so wham to HiFonics YELLOW van
and Pong raj wagon with de mickey mouse on de back
dem fellas did rule tings

[Amit]

remember electromania Honda odessy the first version before the music was stolen from the shop.

and the Red RX7 with the 8''

Orion All the way

install done By SR and Terabyte

and up to now they are the best

[fuzz_174]

yea that oddessey use to real shake boy...

[OffshoreMarketing]

d hi fonics yellow van what he was runnin?

this van went through alot of builds. The owners were very passionate about their music. First days was 4 blaupunkt 12" and 4 6by9 gti jbl's. All powered by hi fonics.

A year or less than a year later upgraded to 6 JBL 15" Dj speakers. RCF's to numerous to mention and alot of high end bullets again all pwered by zeus an colossuss. Alternator swaped to industrial type and a couple 26 plate truck baterries. Caps like wow !!!.

It is and was the ablsolut loudest and cleanest system ever. That;s my opinion. Never heard anything close. That van was the ultimate and still is. I might be wrong on some of the specs.

Hi FOnics yellow toyota van is the ultimate.

8 12's...

[X_Factor]

the only cars i could remember that eh mention yet is 12volts benz wit the 8-12 ID's and the white lancer wit the 8 strokers......

[Langdon]

so wham to HiFonics YELLOW van
and Pong raj wagon with de mickey mouse on de back
dem fellas did rule tings

I saw this yellow van at a car show at mid centre mall once but if i aint mistaken the white lancer (snow white) smoke it out then. Correct me if i am wrong. It had a red peugeot hatchback that use to compete in spl whatever become of that?

[evo-STI-k]

15 years ago- the ROCKy was one of the Biggest and loudest vehicles onthe roads!
Not really sound off but in general. Bunny owned.

White charmant- Mr. R aleong! that frigging car was loud but clear.

Yup remember matress- the year that he pulled into the stadium yard and crank out everybody arse!

there was also a LODAED rx7 green i believe

[nigel1977]

It had a red peugeot hatchback that use to compete in spl whatever become of that?

The only red pug hatch I remember of, competed in SQ.

There was a gold pug hatch that was done by barely legal with 4 kicker 12's, but that was only for a few events.

[roger]

^^

[MonsterPower]

was it a red corolla ... spawn ?

[Langdon]

It definitely was a peugeot, it came up for a car show in Tobago. It had a monster baseline, not much else so i am thinking spl not sq.However i am no expert.

[BlueGalant HD]

I remember the white MX6; it was from maloney and the guy use to work on ship!
1st. man to play CDs to me; back in 1990

I also rememeber PONG RAJ with his Cressida Wagon

And Barry with he Land Cruiser (Disco Traxx Land Cruiser)

Now those vehicles were loud!

[nigel1977]

dont think it was red tho. lol. thats barely legal awhile ago for the tobago easter chow, it was like back in 1997 or 96. the pug was there as well as a green lancer with 4 15".
that was a good show.

[nigel1977]

pong raj had a crown wagon.

[SR]

nah nha there was a red pug as well

it had mtx and boston acoustics

car show in spectrum...................ah wonder if allyuh know bout that place

[Sully]

^^ Is that place still around?

[SR]

yup
thats where all the roll on roll off cars are being stored now just before movie towne

[Langdon]

dont think it was red tho. lol. thats barely legal awhile ago for the tobago easter chow, it was like back in 1997 or 96. the pug was there as well as a green lancer with 4 15".
that was a good show.

yeah actually it was the first one and it was held down at store bay car park, nowadays its held in the Dwight Yorke stadium car park. But i am telling you that peugeot was red for sure, and pong raj was there with his crown, and i am thinking cefiros was the crazy car to customise then i think one or both guys from legends had one or two there.

[nigel1977]

then we talking abou the same soundoff, there was a blue crown wagon that won sq for the 0-300w category....

i remember the cefs, about 3-4 came from trinindad. there was a big rally from on the claude noel to the show.

was a good show.

[Langdon]

Yes it was a good show, the reason i remeber the peugeot hatch is cause we challenged it after the show to an unofficial crowd pleaser with my brother's blue b12, which in my opinion we won easily cause they did not have mids to match us but their baseline was crazy. I actually won for sq 300-600 with a first generation rx 7, gone are those days now i am totally into speed. I want to get back into music though maybe i'll let one of you guys hook me up when i am ready.

[nigel1977]

for mids they had 2 6" and 2 6x9's lol off a soundstream 10.0 class a amp

[Ronnie203]

I remembered them car/sound-off shows in them days......"THAT WAS CAR SHOW"
WHEN MATRESS Vs Triple R with d yellow lo-lux with d 10 Zuss amps.

[nigel1977]

^^zeus

[OffshoreMarketing]

d good ole days

[JUS4SHO]

matress was the winner in the first car show (i cah remember dat good ah right?) in trinidad with the jeep at the national stadium ...wayie allyuh cud remember that far back... d man rock up the stadium

[von]

i remember that red pug allyuh talkin about......dat ting had a serious bass line i also remember my cousin used to enter soundoff with his bluebird PAP 12