CRAZY truth. . . back then a buddy of mine sold these like hotcakes before guys started ripping out their back seats and screwing woofers to plywood with piezo tweeters before Rockford fosgate became a thing. . . He painted an old stepvan blue, converted the back of it into a display counter with shelves and steps. . . he'd set his tables out, if you didn't see a tape deck, eq/amp or 6" x 9"s, you wanted the higher grade gear, it was in the stepvan hell. . . he'd even install on spot! Those were the good ol' days but to witness car audio's evolution since the beginning to where it is now has been an amazing ride to say the least. . . I'm proud to be apart of car audio history, especially parking next to somebody to see who was the loudest, yup. . . with a eq/amp and 6" x 9"s lol😭
Yep. Along with Kraco, Sparkomatic, Craig, Audio Vox. Ahh, the good ol days. Surprisingly the cheap junk took a beating usually and kept working. We as teens were always on back dirt roads windows down dust everywhere in the vehicle. The old cheapies kept ticking. My buddy had a Sony deck...it didn't like the beatings I guess. Lasted a month.lol.
Their PB600 wasn’t bad in the early 90s. On a pair of 12s they were on par with a Punch 75 but at a fraction of the cost. Pyramid phase 3 subs were as good any if you only had a little power …which was most of us. Don’t care about stated ratings or their inaccuracy, just cost and result 👍
As many of these that installed for friends that were used with barely any markings or tracing each speaker with a 9v battery and all that jazz, I can’t imagine spending 10 minutes installing one of these ever again. I am a sucker for the lights though. Love it! Miss the flea markets with the vans with woofers hanging off the doors and the big Pyramid Gold Series goose necks on the table…ah, good times.
I remember drooling over the JCWhitney mail order catalog with 100's of versions of those Pyramid devices, in dash radios with CB's built in, and tons of speaker options. As teenagers, we had no idea that is was all junk. I ended up buying the EQ you are featuring at a local flea market. While it sounded like crap, I rocked it all through High School until I knew better and bought better. Thanks for the memory lane! If you want to see a brief video of a dude showing off one of these catalogs and he stops at the car audio section, check this out: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE---WX1uFuG5E.html
A buddy had a version of this "booster" in the early 90s. He got it 2nd or 3rd hand. Never could get it to work right, but man did he try! All he saw was 200 watts and thought it would be awesome! Most likely he only obtained it because someone else had toasted it and given it away.
Back in the 90’s a stereo shop owner told me “less wires inside an amp the better” as he opened a brand new Earthquake amp. That rule doesn’t bode well for this Pyramid unit.
In those days in Europe subwoofers were too expensive and rare and even more expensive and harder to find serious amps but these were the very first step to elevate the stock sound system in your car. I had a small Fiat car and with Pioneer head unit this very same equaliser booster and a pair of Jensen 3 way 6X9" in reinforced back panel it actually sounded very good. It did not have much more power than head unit but that 30Hz and 16KHz sliders made all the difference. I even pushed the 1KHz slider down to get the warmest sound and then I would lose most of the power but it was worth it. Had to hide the booster in the dash so it doesn't attract the thieves but the Jensen was the best gem. The old series with the ugly unattractive plastic black grill and sounded amazing. That was the series when Jensen wasn't the cheap brand. While others had other 6X9 brands with a shiny silver grill with so many tweeters on them when tose owners would sit into my car they would drop their jaw hearing the sound coming from the ugly black grill of these Jensen speakers. They were really made in USA not China. Later I added one of those 4 channels amps and had a bit more power until I got my first sub and a 4+1 amp. When my Pyramid died I opened it to see if it is the fuse or something obvious and when I saw those spegaties inside I just through it into the bin. Got another one an Italian unknown brand knockoff much cheaper but the very same inside. Good old days
Before i got into car audio, it was one of these in my buddy’s 85 IROK, in highschool back in 94/95, that got me interested. I didn’t know anything about amps and such at the time but this thing really livened up the 6x9’s and it sounded pretty damn decent to boot.
Right on big D thanks for the vid!When I was a kid I remember seeing these in the JC Whitney catalogs. Along with the 3way 10’s and bandpass boxes. Even though it’s crap now, it’s still worth something for the nostalgia. My first system was a 2 earthquake 12’s with a pair of RadioShack, super tweeters, a Optimus amp with pyramid 5.25” speakers. With a Clarion tape deck. Anyone wants to share there first old school system?
I love the old-school Pyramid stuff! My first system was all top of the line components and powered by a Pyramid PB600! Lol. Now I wonder how much power I was really running, lol
That was my first "big" amp too - back in 1990/'91. I drove 2 12' MTX Terminators with it and they sounded pretty darn good. I rivaled the guy in town with an all Alpine system and I sure he paid 1000's and 1000's of dollars for. Alpine was the sh*t back then.
I have fond memories of these bringing my tunes to life as a 17 year old. Sounded great up to a point and the 4 way 6x9 speakers with the super tweeters were the bomb back then.
I had o e of these back in the day before I knew anything about audio. Wired about 12 speakers all in parallel to it!! It ran hot and popped the fuse pretty quick, so being a little dummy, I just put a 20 amp fuse in its place!!!
I bought the Mustang version of this eq at the flea market back in highschool. It could make a factory radio a little bit louder but connected to decent aftermarket stereo it was just a tone controller that wasn’t any louder but made the sound actually worse. I never used it and actually gave it away because I didn’t have the heart to either throw it in the trash or charge anything for it.
Got my first one from a junkyard and used my dads battery charger to hook it up in my room. They didnt sound great but def helped to be able to hear over bad exhaust lol
pretty cool looking. Looks like what I would see in the J.C. Whitney catalogs. For the younger crowd in here.... Back 30-40 years ago speakers had a much higher sensitivity. You would typically see a lot of subs in the upper 90's for 1w/1m. Today most are in the middle 80's. You didn't need as many watts to get loud. Not as loud as today but it didn't need 5000 watts to rattle your ear wax out just a few hundred watts.
I had that same EQ sounded like 💩 especially when you started the Engine. In 1985 it was 29 dollars at Pier 19 and I still have the noise filter 👍a blast from past 💯👍
Not really a 4ch, but 4 speaker outputs. Hence the fader. I did not have this pyramid model but did have a few back in the day. At one point in high school, about 85/86, I had 2 Majestic 75w/ch eq/amps lol. 1 ran a pr of Realistic 12s and the other 2 pr of Pioneer 6x9s! In a late 70s Suburban
I remember I bought something even cheaper in the early 90s from JC Whitney that 100 percent did NOTHING but distort the sound at basically the same volume as the Sanyo deck I had in my Jeep CJ5. Soooo being 15 I just hooked up my little 8" Pyramid subs straight to channels 3/4 and listened to them make sound! Not much else, but sound they did make!
Remember back around 1981 I had 4 9f those with 4 pairs of speakers and of course the alternator whine filters for each one. Even with all 4 I still didn't have an honest 100 watts RMS. But it did fill the truck cab with sound. 73 and thanks. K5EWM.
Big D, please test one of the old school Bose 1401 amp & speaker combos. The system consisted of an amp and 4 speakers. Very interesting and unique amp circuitry, the speakers had 1/2 ohm impedence. That's not a typo. One of the most interesting setups in the early 80s.
Oh boy here we go with pyramid again. My buddy bought one of these when they first came out and they were worse than the sparkomatic 20 w power booster. All they did was add louder noise.
These seemed to be in every jeep or camaro i hauled to the junkyard. And there were always stacks of these on the stereo shelf at every junkyard back when.. i still have a couple.
My first car audio amplifier was a Pyramid 200w eq/booster similar to this one, circa 1987. Run in what might be called a "stunt wall" today, in sleeper of a 1986 White semi powered by cig lighter outlet. Ahh the good old days 😂
No joke I just bought a mecca 200 watt 7 band eq booster for 4 bucks. Hooked it up to a pioneer Deh-33hd unit with a set of infinity 9623i 6x9s and im actually impressed. Really cleaned up the sound of the unit and most definitely louder. So they aren't all junk after all...
These gizmos got me hooked on car audio when I was a freshman in 91. That and when I lived in Okinawa in the 80s,my parents had a nasty reel to reel bose system and they'd have toga parties cranking the B52s the gogos and I'll always remember watching Duran Duran and pink Floyd the wall in laser disc
I have one that still works. In 1989 i took it out of my pickup and installed it in a velorex sidecar hooked up to a concord radio in a harley radio caddie. The sidecar is on my 1971 bsa thunderbolt.
I collect all audio stuff. I have a few of these boosters. I lost / have them stollen a bunch also. I remember one that was smaller than that and also had a built in car alarm in it also? Lol!
The echo effect was pretty COOL! The extra "zero" was just a typo. Try 10/20. LoL. Ya, I had one too. Still funny though that so many people were fooled by the fake power rating. Ya, 200 watts through a 20 AWG power wire? Hmm.
I had one of these. Say what you will, when you have a factory tape deck that barely moves your new pioneer 3-way 6x9s, these boosters were awesome. Loud loud loud, that’s all we were after and these delivered!
The first experience I had with the Pyramid brand 1990's was their 4 X 10 3 way or 4 way speakers for in the car rear deck. They looked great but had pretty much no bass unless you had a powerful amp. Cone and spider support of the woofer was to tight. I tried in vain to have them play well and then took them back, and got 4 X 10 Pioneer's they were so loose I had to build a box under the rear deck to keep them from bottoming out. later I bought a small sub woofer tube and put it in the front under the glove compartment. 1978 Chevy Monza coupe. I still have their high amp 12 volt bench power supply. This booster here is partly the best they could do for the times, because the 12 volt power from the cars did not have the higher voltage to push the required transistor output they needed to get the high wattage, so we were stuck with integrated power amp chips designed for 12 volts. Step up transformers were very power hungry on the battery but they did soon make some that way. Then the MosFet transistor came out and changed a lot of this.
Mindblowing memories....🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 Back in time, i had one like this.....🫣🫣my first mistake in car audio🤣🤣 next try was the Sony XM3040........ anyway Thanks 4 this🙋♂️
Lol, good old Pyramid junk. I had the push button eq one back in the day. Nothing but lies for power. Too bad they looked nice. Mine was dependable, but I don't think it made enough power to hurt itself. Thanks for the flashback.
Wow, back in the day (late 80's - the 90's Pyramid car audio was everywhere. I recently got back into car audio. Did a full system install w/ a 200 watt receiver, 3 way 6.5" door speakers, a 1000 watt XXX Amp & 2 10" XXX subs with a nice amp wiring kit, not the junk wiring they shipped with 😋 . It sounds good. it's clean bumps nice but it doesn't hit as hard or get as loud as my 650ish watt systems did in the early 90's 🤓 ...
Ohh yeah... Pyramid, Majestic, Tancredi, etc. Serious early 80s car audio nostalgia from back then! $50 tape decks, $50 "lifetime warranty" 3-Way 6x9s and then you had these $50 boosters! LOL I can smell the burning electronics and voice coils all over again....
I had/still have a similar unit. No idea why I kept it... but I think its 50W a channel stereo, with the full EQ, sub out for an external amp, etc. Those things were great before all the touch screens took over the double din space. Get a cheap single DIN head unit, pop this in under it and you had a nice fancy system! I loved old stuff like this. Now it's all software controlled.
Certainly in UK every kid had to have one of these under the dash and if you were really flash you would have a separate spectrum graphic display. Cooool
Merry Christmas bro. I really do appreciate the work you do for us. Especially with the jokes and the fact you’re still professional , I don’t see steady mistakes like so many others.
In the early 90's I had the then current version of this in a 1972 Chrysler New Yorker. I used it with a 3.5 to RCA adapter and a portable CD player for tunes as changing the headunit was virtually impossible. It didn't sound bad with Pioneer surface mount 3ways on the back dash.
Oh, now that's just a trip down Memory Lane. I installed car audio in the early 80's and customers would bring these nasty little EQ's into the shop to get installed. Like other posters have mentioned, these had no line filtering and were subject to alternator whine. This was fine by the installers because we got to sell them a line filter which would pretty much solve their problem. They could have spent a few bucks more for a Clarion 100EQB which did work, had legit power, and decent filtering.
In the 80's Clarion was really very good. I dont know what happened to them - last time i was looking for a car deck they were all shinny with alot of flash.
Nice. I've got the same unit without the box. I remember back in the this thing sounded pretty good. I think my old Blaupunkt head unit was louder without this hooked up. I still have a couple others as well. I still have my radio stack units as well. Don't know where you find this stuff
I had one of these with an alarm feature. It had a door pin wire and would make a loud noise out of your speakers when the door was open. It would stop when the door was shut
