In 2011 Zapco produced the new Z-Series Competition amps, and the response was incredible. Testers thought it was our best work ever and the new amps were snapped up by sound-off competitors around the country. With the new Z-Series SP, there are now four Zapco Competition series products based on the same amplifier. The Z-AP, the Z-SP, the Z-II, and the ZX amplifiers. The specifications of the Competition series amps don’t change but each is tweaked to a specific purpose.

A purpose-built competition series amplifier is the Z-SP amplifier, as in Super Power or Street Power. This series comes from the need to outfit cars that compete in the new category called “Street Challenge” in some competitions it’s called “Street Demo”.

What is “Street Power”? Literally, amplifier power for the Street; an amplifier that will be used on the street, in the open spaces, with the door open, and cranked up for all to hear. If you want competition level sound quality and want to blow the doors off at the same time, these are your amplifiers.

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The Z-Series SP amps were a chance to make a completely new project. To reach our goals we first developed a new forced air cooling system in a chassis with internal heat sink fins and fans to blow the heat off the chassis. Fans blow on to the fins to move air down the chassis, and the side vents down the side create turbulence that sends hot air out and cold air in along the whole length of the amp. This got us half way there. Then we found a new space-age material, to insulate the output transistors, that can pull heat off devices much faster than the standard insulators. So now we could transfer the heat from the devices to the chassis faster then pull the heat off the chassis faster.

The result: We now had an amplifier that you can crank up to full volume and play that way all day long. And, with a few upgrades in circuitry that we made, you also get: High Pass, Low Pass, and Band Pass crossovers, x10 Range Switch for accurate crossover frequency selection, Variable Sub Sonic filter using the band pass, Variable Bass Boost, Variable Gain, Auxiliary RCA Output, Available Dash Remote.

In most amplifiers all these preamp controls give you more versatility but they also rob you of signal quality. But in the Zapco Z-Series SP amps, even with crossovers and bass boost you get over 103dB signal to noise ratio, less than 0.1% THD, and greater than 60dB channel separation. And the SP amps get a 10% power gain from increased thermal efficiency that reduces the "de-rating" of the output devices.