1980's Flea Market EQ Booster? Pyramid SE705CD Review and Amp Dyno Test
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ค. 2021
- #AmpDyno #FleaMarket #Pyramid
Trips to the Flea Markets in the 80's and 90's were filled with booths of cheap electronics and the car stereo ones were full of gear from companies such as Pyramid. Today I'm showing off a NOS Pyramid EQ donated from Sean Mullins to OSS. Such an amazing sight to see a 30yr old, brand new flea market electronic item. Now, does it work and most importantly, how much power does this "250W" EQ/Booster actually make? Let's find out!
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Went to the Ebay link. To find out after all this time people are STILL trying to get over on the public by drastically overcharging for this merchandise. I wished I had a wholesale sheet I would upload it for everyone to see. Some of these Pyramid amplifier equalizer combos I was purchasing for only $12.00 even though it had a retail sticker of $249.00 and gold stickers like you see in the video with the ridiculous wattage claims. All bogus stay far away. It was garbage when it first came out and it's still garbage.
Lol BigD opened the cover of this thing and I thought I saw a big scratch-off lottery ticket inside hahaha I do remember these bad bitties and many other brands and while they didn't put out a lot of power by themselves if you shot that 11w directly into the rca input of an amplifier it sure made everyone's systems louder back in the day verses not having one 🤣😝🤷♂️
I used to stick two of them together and combine the channels together to get an incredible base equalizer for my kickers back in the '90s
Such good memories right there sir. Had a couple and it was like hitting the lotto. Would just sit and hangout in parking lots watching the lights dance. So far my favorite video. Never realized how much I miss some of this older stuff
Can you review amp venom illuminator VL-3000. D, please....
You have to remember, the old stock head units in the 70s and 80s were at best 2 or 3 watts so going from that to 12 watts while it may seem laughable today, was a big improvement.
Pyramid was a piece of crap back then, there were other brands of decent equalizers with 35 Watts RMS wich sounded awesome.
The standard go to chip was good for 25W into 4R at like 10% THD... BTL output was the only way to even get that high without a supply that fed them more than 12V.... This thing would have had 2 of them in it, one for each channel
@@MadScientist267 Holy
Cra q at 150+ each
@@rudygarza6410 Lol 🤷♂️
Even more important, many LOUDSPEAKERS were more EFFICIENT than today, so 10 watts might play louder than 50 watts or more into many of the low efficiency speakers of today!
One of the better “alternator whine injectors” out there.
The ground loop is strong with these.
Bro i thought I was the only one that had that problem I swear I never got rid of it!...chassis grounding nor in-line filters helped!
.....I tried everything to get rid of that noise
We put our own caps on the power lines. Easy peasy
Came to say I got one of these in the 80s and it amplified alternator and ignition noise better than anything else! You could turn down a couple of faders to reduce it, at the cost of reducing large parts of your signal!
My first “system” was an equalizer and 2 house speakers in a Ford escort hatch back in the 90’s 🤦🏾♂️
🤚 I’m guilty too.
Same but with two "Thump" 10" woofers that were sold to me for $10.00 ea in a Honda Accord. The good ol' days.
I hear you. My first "system" in a cheap car in the early 90s was 2 Pioneer house speakers with the 10 inch woofers replaced with cheap Pyramid "subwoofers" & home made bass ports hooked up to a 20x2 Jensen amp connected to a Walkman. It was really janky but it got surprising loud. I'm sure the SQ was garbage but I didn't care at that time!
OMG Me too, ford escort zx2! Two pioneer 12s in their house speaker boxes and all lol
Sounds about rite!...memories bro!...memories!
I was soooooooo hoping you would do a review on this. Everyone back in the day had something similar to this. Exactly what you said. A new perspective on this. So awesome 👌
No, some of us would never buy something with such obviously false claims. I'm reminded of the similar "Bavada" unit that my friends and I would make fun of.
@@dizzywow the car audio world in the early 80s was completely different than now. When a 45 watt amp was $250 and you had $50 this was what you bought. 🤣
Now THAT, is a well put together and thorough unboxing. Swear my dad had one. Looked like the coolest thing I'd ever seen and sounded like the 90s
I bought the "Realistic" version of that amp from Radio Shack back in '89 for my first car. The Spectrum Analyzer was absolutely beautiful (for it's time), everyone who saw it was impressed. I kept it for many years and finally gave it away to a friend. Never had a problem with it!
Yes! I had the same in my 1972 VW bus back in '89.
Man I loved that EQ, I had it on my 1981 Chevy Malibu, I thought it sounded great. I still have that EQ somewhere in my garage. One channel isn’t working but after seeing this video I’m gonna bring it back to life😀 thanks big D!
Nostalgia is strong!
Can you imagine if someone like skar made a version of this today that actually did 250 watts and had the eq and everything?!? That would be RAD!
YES! Just have to find somewhere to put it, rare to find a spare DIN slot in cars these days.
@@CheapCheerful Just use a couple of L brackets and screw it to the underside of the dash! That's what we did in my 76 Cutlass. good times... lol
@@bmorg7244 Yes!! That's exactly it.
or if you got a 2 din car. get a 1 din radio with flip up display and slap the eq underneath. so you got a din 2 car play display and a manual eq underneath with actual knobs
They kinda do, but to get an actual 250w, it will be "rated" 1000w.
Pyramid! My first amp - the memories! I loved that I could get a 250w amp with a $250 price tag, that they "let go" for $40 or so if I bought it immediatey lol. I learned a lot installing mine, knowledge I carried forward to my subsequent, much better installs.
White van amplifier scam.
Watch what it do on a pair of Spark-O-Matic 6x9's with a Kraco head unit!
Had a couple of those , one played twice as loud as the other from the time they were new . Put 'em in a pinewood box open ended in a hatchback . 😂
@@jeffreybradley3736 I had an entire spark o magic system, tape deck, eq and speakers...now it wasn't the best equipment, but you could short out wires and it still would work, until it didnt!
🤣🤣🤣
Kraco.
@@audiogman5865 thanks it been a while since I've looked at no budget radios!
I was not bashful rocking out with my Pyramid products in 1990. Now I feel old! Thanks Derek.
I still want one just for that amazing spectrum analyzer that's actually real.
I remember that junk! I had a Pyramid amp and brought it right back and got a Punch 150 and all was right with the world🤗
That was the stuff back in the day
👌😬👍
@@wal I had the Kraco with needle meter on it. haha.
With 2 big home stereo speakers taking up whole back seat
I had this in my '84 Honda Civic .... and the review is spot-on ! But it looked way cool back then with all the blinkenlights. It was just so modern back then.
Thank you for the wonderful memories ☺️.
I had one of these in a brown 4D Chevy Chevette. I cut holes in the front doors for 4 inch (Ultimate Sound) speakers and two Ford Mustang 5x7 speakers in jigsaw cut boxes in the hatch 🤣. I had it connected to a portable CD player double-sided stick taped to the dash. Good times 💽🎛
Ah, the memories of Pyramid, Sparkomatic, Kraco, and etc. We used to say their power ratings were per the "ILS@1.21GW" standard - "If Lightning Strikes @ 1.21 GigaWatts". Great stuff! Keep the reviews of this "classic" gear coming!
You forgot CRAIG brand...
Pyramid with super pro super blue subwoofers. 😁
don't forget Jensen
Ooohhhh yeah! Now we're talking!! This EQ is a gem!
👌😬👍
Anybody else miss the old skool VU meters and spectrum analysers? I sure do
You knows I do!
I miss all the buttons, knobs and sliders along with the level meters!
Sure! Touch screen is cool and it was an interesting experiment but I think that it's time to go back to the way that worked best!
This thing might be crap by today's standards but it could almost be repaired by anyone armed with a soldering iron! I could be wrong but I think that I only saw one electrolytic capacitor in there! Replace it every few years and it's going to keep working for a very long time...
I remember buying an even cheaper eq called “Mustang” back in the 80’s. It was “gold anodized” and had dual led vu meters. In testing it on a makeshift test set up with a stock car stereo it wasn’t any louder and even made the sound worse. The fleamarket stereo scene back then was actually way worse than it is now.
Yes! I had one. It had an 8 watt IC inside and both left and right outputs were tied TOGETHER. Mono output. Never seen before or since. Wild!
I remember that one
I had the mustang 10 band with the Brite ass red and green lights ! It rocked my alpine head unit and mismatched speakers
Didn’t those come from JC Whitney? I remember they had mustang head units
REPVILE I saw them in the jc whitney catalog too. I bought mine at the flea market before seeing a jc whitney catalog. Seeing them in that catalog made me question the quality of everything else they sold.
At least you didn't have to worry about blowing your red Sparkomatic four-way 6x9's with that Pyramid powerhouse.
Definitely need a eq/booster class in the OSSC next year. 😁
Hey I had those Sparkomatics back in the day, bought them brand new, they were still tons better than the factory Oldsmobile 4x10 that had in the car.
@@ksavage681 I had a couple sets of them myself. Then I "moved up" to Jensen's. 🤣🤣🤣
Hahahaha! Jenson or green cricket's rocking it!!!
I still have my cheap Pyramid amp from the 80's and it still works great for my needs. It's on it's 33rd year and still going strong. Great video and channel.
Wow 😲 that's cool as hell dude 😎
OMG! I still have my pyramid booster. Used it with 2 8's in a sealed box and ran 4 6x9's in my vw bug back in 89/90 and used it till 96. Was always burning hot but it never quit. To me it sounded amazing. 4 tweetz off the radio. My dad was even jealous and he was running 2 10's
I used to have one of those and I loved it with my Realistic 6inch and Jensen 6x9. I was rock in. So many memories..
Better than a cheap stock radio from the early 80's, just not a lot better.
Yeah, most were only about 4 watts.
I was 16 back in the 80's, and anything was better than stock back then. As long as it was loud.
Boy do I miss the flea market stereo tables/vans. Pyramid EQs, Amps, and Subs. Love to see the PB-100 amp get tested as that was the only vamp I ran by them.
Had a sparkomatic loud n clear system back in 87 when I first started driving had the 80 watt power booster with the loud n clear 6x9's. With a set of pyramid 12 inch subs 😄 😄 thought I was doing it back in the day
Thank you for this video. I always wondered about these EQ boosters. I remember having a Radio Shack Realistic when I was a kid.
It's always a BEAUTIFUL THING to find N O S audio gear! Have fun!
I had a Pyramid amp and 2 Pyramid 12’s in my Chevy Cavalier Z24 back in 1996
@Shrug Life Dude I had a pair of 8s or 10s that were that semi transparent polypropylene, but my 12s were paper. Those were the days😂.
@Shrug Life Dang man! I'm having a moment with all of these great memories going off in my head😮😂. Hey wait up🤔, your name ain't Oscar is it? I had a buddy that had that same setup in California.
👌😬👍
Before I could drive I bought one of the clear Phase 3 15s from the flea market. It fit perfectly into a shop vac canister. The canister had a lip around the edge for the screws. Lol. Powered it with a home receiver with a choke coil for the crossover. 😅 Those were the days!
@@themaddrummer8341 Dude I remember using a old console radio and some cardboard for my first box, so I can relate.😄
To get the full effect of this amp you need to play a cassette in an 8-track player with the cassette-to-8-track adapter.
Awesome Big D!! I've been waiting for this.
Man the amount of old school stuff I've found over the years in brand new condition is insane. You'd be surprised what you can find. I love that joyous feeling of appreciation. It's a pleasure to be able to have that experience LOL
Oh for the love of God.... Pyramid! I started out with a 85,000watt pyramid amp in the 90's fried every sub i put on it. Probably because I thought the gain was the volume knob 😄 😄 😄
My buddy had an equalizer similar to that in his Dodge Omni when we were in high school. IT SUCKED! But it looked really cool in the late 80's
@Shrug Life if it had been an Omni GLH I would have insisted better quality equipment
I bought some PYRAMID bridging modules off EBay recently, even if I never use them I just 💘 collecting vintage car audio. After all, it's from all of our hey day's...
In '88 I had an '81 Mustang with stock AM radio and 1 speaker in the middle of the dash. Realizing that my boombox had speaker outputs, I bought a Craig EQ/booster and and installed a pair of 6.5" Pioneers in the rear side panels (yes, if someone on the husky side sat in the back, they would muffle the sound a bit). Running wires from the boom box to the Craig allowed me to listen to my cassettes and FM, instead of that crappy, blown dash speaker (in AM none the less). That is officially my intro to aftermarket car audio. Thanks for bringing back some nostalgia.
I used to own a stereo shop in the 90's. I sold a ton of these. Paired with a couple of beefy 6x9s' in the rear deck, this was a decent, affordable setup for it's time.
It was bro!...made my realistic 4x10's bump tho in the 86 Cutlass Supreme Brougham
Jenson tri ax, or Craig power play
I guess it might actually be an upgrade with factory radios often struggling to get to 1 watt per channel in those days. Those factory radios often really sucked well into the 90's (because they were built with parts and designs from the early 70's) and usually the factory speakers were absolutely crap too. I remember pulling a dash speaker out of a new mid-80's car and finding it had an alanco magnet!
WoW I used one to run my highs and mids back in the day,lol
I can remember using a Kraco 5 band booster eq & an Audiovox 7 band booster eq back in the 70's & on & off until about 5 years ago. It was still working great when I dropped it off at Goodwil. Should have kept it, oh well! 😄
Definitely brings back memories. Amazing it's new in box at it's age. Great video sir.
I loved the 80s systems. My favorite was a full pioneer with eq, ts m4 and tsx7.
Had a set of TSX7s on the rear deck in my Sentra. Ran them with a Jensen deck and a Realistic EQ Booster.......those were the days......
@@christopherharris3229 yep. I bet I blew 10 sets of the ts m4s. I wish I had them all back.
Realistic equalizer is the one my dad had. I remember "whoop there it is "song came out that time era. Tag team😎
Getto boyz same era
Omg the video I thought I didn't need but deep down I do. For car audios sake. Great job bro👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Thanks for watching and commenting!
Love it!! Please get more old stuff. Brings back good memories of the 80s-90. Thank you. Chicago House music pumping thru that thing back in the day
That's actually an under-dash unit, Big D ;-)
I had that exact EQ!
Wish I never sold it.
I loved pyramid and Pyle back back in the days
I'll have you know that in 1986, I was sporting one of these fantastic items hooked up to an OLD Panasonic cassette deck in my 1979 Mercury Zephyr rocking my Pioneer TSX-30 wedge speakers in the back window. Often cranking Run DMC. It was mounted right next to CB radio.
I gotta admit, the vu meters are pretty damn cool!
you have to see it at night, is awesome
Eq amps were a thing in the 70's and 80's. Having a spectrum analyzer was a bonus. I honestly think if a manufacturer came out with a spectrum analyzer in a double din head unit it would sell like hotcakes. Car audio enthusiast would snatch them up left and right. Great video Big D. Awesome sauce.
I had a similar Pyramid EQ back in 88 hooked up to some Pyramid 6X9 was my first system in my 1972 super Beatle those were the days
5:21 Back in the day, this thing got me intrigued into car audio. Years went past and heard a guy with amp & subs system a block away, I was hooked. Old school subs seemed to have far greater sound travel & efficiency then modern subs of today.
🤣 I had one of those back in the 80’s. It had a couple of IC amplifiers in it I think. Blast from the past...well, maybe not a blast but it was from the past.
😂😂😂
WOW, a flashback! We had one of these in my Mom's Cutlass Coupe, it was "boosting" a Kraco auto-reverse 2-shaft tape deck! Must have been 35+ years ago!
Ah Kraco.
The mullet mans equalizer. Good enough to listen to some good ole rock in the 80's camaro with those Pioneer 6x9's.
I had one of those back in the day. I can't remember what I paid but I think it was under $100. It sounded pretty good on some 6x9's in my old 2nd gen Camaro.
I can't remember if I bought one of these from either lechmere or Montgomery wards back in 1989
Don’t think about that being more than 30yrs ago. We start feeling ooooolllllddddd
Back in the mid 80s we used to sell these EQs in a package deal, it was a MGT cassette deck this EQ and a pair of MGT 6 1/2s or the 6X9s for 199.00 installed. For 10.00 more you could upgrade to Jensen 6X9s :)
We had a 10% defect rate on the EQs and 50% of them brought in bad ignition noise ( home-o-noise as we called it).
I got a sharp pain in my neck when I saw your thumbnail.. Great video as usual... Cheers.
Way to cool to see something brand new from that time , was in the car audio business from the early 80s till 2002
I had something similar, different brand back in the early 1980's. It worked much better with speaker level inputs
I think Shawn woke up half drunk, saw this in his room and said "wtf? Oh well at least I didn't buy a tattoo last night"
I remember that PYRAMID Eq from back in the day. I still have that 1990's Car stereo guide mag. But mine is in way better condition. I subscribed to that monthly CAR STEREO magazine for about three years starting in 1989 . Back in 1984 I had a CONCORD head unit with a SONY 11 band passive Eq and a TARGA 60 watt per channel amp powering a pair of 6 x 9 's Triax JENSENS on my 78 Camaro. The system sounded loud/punchy and clear. I later upgraded to a SONY head unit and an Alphasonic 50 wpc amp powering a pair of PROTON plate door speakers and a pair of MTX tweeters. A SHERWOOD 100 wpc amp powering a pair of 10' KICKER subs with an ALTEC LANSING SUB X over to control the subs and plates . Much powerful sound. Great memories from my youth years.
I remember this. "Roadmaster" is the brand they sold at Walmart early nineties
This is the perfect setup to dash mount and then hide about 5000w of class D amps and _swear_ the Pyramid is what's knocking the windows out of it...
10/10, I absolutely would do it.
Damn, I had one of these in the 80s-90s. When I started doing Car Audio. It was fun back then,tells how old I am.
I remember this stuff 90s I’m 50 now great test we had a store here in Alabama Pete lands they sold groceries and stuff like that had a special place in the store wow great video gotta love the tiny wires too
OMG, I still have the manual book for this EQ from when I bought this back in the 80’s
What is amazing is how much of a work horse most of those old audio components used to be. How many of us connected 10+ speakers to something like this back in the day? Straight up parallel and they kept working! I know I did. They didn’t put out jack for power but they just wouldn’t die.
I ran a Pyramid passive EQ for many years. Great little piece. 1989
It was given to my cousin for his birthday today. He had one in his Suburban in the late 80s early 90s. He loved it!!!
Awesome 👏
I had one of these hooked up to my kraco truck box speakers with a passive radiator. Back in the day, in the 1978 ford courier!
I had one of these Pyramid eq/amps as a kid in the early 90's, used it on an old battery charger driving some factory ford door speakers in my bedroom.
I don't recall it ever pulling more than 5a on the (definitely accurate and reliable) ameter on the charger lol
The most memorable feature of the setup was awful clipping behaviour, and if driven too hard it would start to oscillate due to the 60hz charger noise lol
I use to have that same one. Worked great for my mids and highs.
I had that exact eq! Cool to see it new
You didn’t push the magic button that makes this unit bump!!! Gotta push the button!
Big D I’m so glad you tested one of the boosters from back in the day. I always wanted to know what they put out? Thanks for letting us look behind the curtain…
Amazing time capsule, thanks for sharing.
I had that some one in my Camero when I was a kid. Loved it.
Great vid that took me back to the old skool. 👍🏼
Brings me back. Had that pos and the lighted back deck speakers in my Montecarlo.
This was wicked in the days never knew you can still buy them new will love to have one again
Man you took me back with this one bro💯
Wow I didn’t know I would be watching this for 5-4 years but those years were very good
A modern day version of this could be made today with over 1000w rms in the same package, never thought I would live to see the day.
You mean the Walmart VR 3 250,350, and 1,000 Watt amplifiers the red ones junk!!!
Brand new 👌
That Spectrum Analyser is gorgeous
Wow takes me back to the 80's... 😂 Great job 👍
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I had one of these and it made me and my younger brother feel cool.
👌😬👍
I had one of those and I loved it!
My dad used to use this in the 80s and 90s also.. they did work pretty well for powering mids.
That's pretty cool! Just a couple of months ago, I bought an Audiovox AV220 off Ebay. Just like your equalizer, mine was brand new in the box and never used or installed in a vehicle. I use it in my apartment as a house stereo. It works really good. It even plays cassettes!
That’s pretty sweet
So sweet to go back in time remember my brother having a pyramid amp and some thump speakers appreciate and going back in time to the 80s
Man, this brings me back.
I use to have that exact model back in the early 90’s. 👍
I remember when these were sold, never fell into the wattage claims back then, I also remember a similar EQ from a company I think was called FAS, that EQ was amazing back in the day. I also had an EQ from I think was Audiovox, or AVX they started going by, that was not that impressive for sound, but I remember it cranked on a set of Jensen triax 2's oh the good old days. Thanx D for all that you do with these very entertaining videos👍
I had this installed in my 1969 VW Beetle when I was in high school in the mid 90s. I /loved/ it. I knew it was crap, but I still loved it. Connected it to a pair of 3-way Pioneer 6x9s, and a pair of Jensen 12s in the back deck behind the back seat. It actually added some thump to the car.
I had that Car Audio mag AND that Pioneer Premier head unit with the mini remote to impress all my friends - what a throw back!
I remember that one. I almost bought it. I decided to get the pre amp version. I didn't believe it could be 250W. Back then it was always a dollar a watt. My buddy's dad had a vendor's license. So we went to The Wholesale House in Hicksville, Ohio to get our car stereo items.
In the 80s people loved those things. My friend ran some American hifi 6.5" subs in a custom huge ported box in back of his audi back then...was impressive.
omg !! i had all the pyramid stuff in high school. but then came along the ole majestic 100 x100 equalizer booster with the trusty jensen 6x9 triax!!!! lmfao!!!! great reviews big d, love the old school and flea market videos!!!