In every industry, there are levels to that industries products. You will almost always find entry level or budget friendly products all the way to the elite or who cares about money line. Most of us end up somewhere in the middle and are completely happy with that, but there are some of us that desire more. These are the people that want the biggest and baddest equipment on the block. Along with that normally comes a significant cost that most can’t afford, but what if you could? What if a company developed a line of products that makes your jaw drop with a price tag that didn’t? Well, I think I may have found that Unicorn with Genius Audio G4-10K amplifier which will be referred to as “The Beast” for the rest of this article along with the G12CX-15D1 subwoofer which will be referred to as “The Monster”.
Both of these products are for professionals and should be handled with a certain amount of respect. The amplifier draws enough current to power a house and the subwoofer can crush anything you accidently drop it on. The amplifier has been brought up to me on multiple occasions because people have told me that Genius claims it can do 20,000 watts which is a ridiculous amount of power. I will personally say that nobody at Genius Audio ever told me it can do 20,000 watts but was told it was a 10,000-watt amp that is 20,000 watts capable. In other words the 20,000 watt rating is the MAX rating and if you know anything about car audio the MAX rating is almost always double of what the true RMS rating is so for a 10,000 watt amp to say 20,000 watts max on it does fall in line with the normal standards of the industry. The subwoofer on the other hand is a complete monster coming in at over 35 lbs. and has a four-layer spider and a flat four-inch voice coil that can handle 5000 watts rms and 10,000 watts maximum but let’s go over all that later. The first thing you need to know about this subwoofer is if you’re going to pick it up please use your legs, because this thing is a back breaker.
First Impressions
Let’s talk about The Beast a Genius G4-10K first which is a massive amplifier coming in at over three feet long and weighing at least twenty pounds. This Genius G4-10K amplifier is huge and it requires a ton of power to produce the output you would expect. Maximum amperage draw listed of this amplifier is 1450 amps at 1ohm. Genius informed me the amp is half ohm and quarter ohm stable but I did not test the amp at those low impedances because the test bench couldn’t handle it. Additionally, if the company does not have it listed, I don’t feel like it’s something I should review, so use that info at your own risk. This amp is made to compete and that’s proven by the fact that its 18-volt capable. That means you can upgrade your audio electrical system to an 18-volt system, which allows higher current and more power output. If you hadn’t realize the kind of Beast you had purchased at first glance, then, when you look at the power and ground inputs you certainly would. I say this because this amplifier requires dual zero-gauge power and ground inputs. If you have never seen zero-gauge wire, then take a look at welding cable and that should give you an idea of the size the cables need to be, and then realize you need two of each. Just staring at this amp makes you feel like a badass and that’s a great first impression.
Now let’s talk about the subwoofer, which can also double as an anchor for a battleship. This subwoofer lets you know right off the bat that it means business from the large ribbed surround to the stiff cone, but then you try to lift it out of the box and reality sinks in of just how ridiculous this Monster is. The motor structure is 502 ounces and the spiders are four layers that are attached to a four-inch flat wound voice coil. All these components mean that this sub can handle a ton of power and stay linear. This ensures the sub will continue to produce a crazy amount of pressure without distorting the cones movement. The voice coil is completely exposed, so the sub will stay nice and cool while reproducing all those lows. Another uncommon feature of the subwoofer is it does not have terminals. Instead it has 8-gauge wire that is two feet long coming off the side of the woofer. This is called a direct wire coil and is done when a subwoofer can handle so much power that a speaker terminal would actually cause power loss due to it not being able to handle the transfer of power from the amp to the coils. Speaking of coils, this subwoofer has dual 1ohm coils so it can be wired to .5 ohm or 2 ohms. This is nice, especially if you have two of them, so you could then wire the amp down to a 1ohm load.
Testing The Beast
 |
 |
Testing this Genius G4-10K amplifier is not easy by any means. Its huge and requires a lot of wire to get it hooked up properly. Once I had it wired up and turned it on, I was excited to see what it could do but also worried about what it would do to my bench. I first wired it up at 4ohms and based on the power listings I was looking for 1500 watts at 14 volts. The problem is there is no way my bench was going to stay stable at 14 volts for any of these runs but fortunately Genius provides the power output ratings from 10 volts all the way to 18 volts. I decided that while doing the tests I was going to base my “pass” or “fail” on whether the amplifier produces the listed power at whatever my bench’s voltage drops to during each test. Below are the results of each run as well as the voltage it was achieved at.
GENIUS G4-10K |
||||||
| Voltage | 10 V / Rated | 10 V / Actual | 11 V / Rated | 11 V / Actual | 12 V / Rated | 12 V / Actual |
| 4 Ohm | 650 watts | N/A | N/A | N/A | 1000 watts | 1470 watts |
| 2 Ohm | 1300 watts | N/A | N/A | 2178 watts | 1900 watts | N/A |
| 1 Ohm | 2300 watts | 2720 watts | N/A | N/A | 3300 watts | N/A |
As you can see from the results, the Genius G4-10K amplifier actually produces more than its rated power by 200 to 400 watts in each test. I have no doubt in my mind that this amp will achieve the 10,000 watt output and if you had a very stable and beefy electrical system along with the proper cooling I am sure it has the ability to do 20,000 watts but that is just not something I can properly test. It does need to be noted that the amplifier does have a fan located on the bottom that must be allowed to circulate to keep the amp cooled. This means elevating the amp or having an open back is required for proper operation.
Testing The Monster
This 15″ subwoofer is an absolute monster that can take any type of abuse that you throw at it. As far as testing a subwoofer, the only thing I can do is throw some ridiculous power at it and test the SPL output using TermLab so that’s what we did. I first needed to know what type of box to put this thing in so I took the Thiele Small Parameters and put them into Term Pro by Term Lab. Term Pro is an amazing box building program that can give you a good idea what type and size of box the subwoofer will perform in and then allows you to tweak it from there. Once I had the parameters in the program showed the sub will play well in a ported or sealed enclosure. I decided to use a prefab box from Atrend so I could do a fair review using a box that consumers can purchase. The box ended up being 2.25 cubic feet and tuned at 39Hz which in Term Pro showed good response curves across the board. Now that the box is selected, I loaded the sub and placed it into the back of a 2005 Dodge Magnum and wired it down to a 2ohm load to The Beast. I ran a sweep from 20Hz to 100Hz to see what the maximum output on Term Lab would be and to see how well the sub would handle the power. Before the sweep I took the temperature of the voice coil and it was at 73 degrees Fahrenheit. I ran the sweep and holy hell is this thing loud and violent! After picking up everything off the floor that fell from my shop shelves due to the massive bass vibration, I just shot thru the building I was able to check the numbers. The amplifier threw 2178 watts at the sub and TermLab showed 137.7 db at 45Hz. For any normal human being that is very loud and coming from a 2.25 cubic foot prefab box its actually pretty impressive. I have no doubt in a proper DB drags enclosure tuned higher you could do 143db to 148db with a single sub. On top of the insane output I was curious as to how well the sub would handle just being beat on with almost 2200 watts listening to every 90’s woofer cooker bass track I could find. I ran the sub for 30 minutes full tilt and beat the hell out of not only the subwoofer, but my shop and the car were hurting too. I took another voice coil temperature check and it was sitting at 97 degrees Fahrenheit, barely even breaking a sweat.
Conclusion and Pricing
The conclusion is very simple, both products are insane and fall under the “elite” category that I spoke of in the opening of this article. Along with the elite level product I said you would expect to pay elite level prices, but thats where Genius makes me a liar. I say that because you can pick up the Genius G4-10K amplifier for $2400 retail and the G12CX-15D1 for $530 retail. If you have the means to purchase these products then do it, even if you don’t install them in your car, they are just badass to look at and are a definite conversation starter.
Wanting one for your ride? Hit me up on my web site at www.car765.com
Also you can see this beast do over 20,000 watts at 12 volts below. I was unable to test the amp at these loads and voltages due to my test bench’s inability to provide the amperage needed. Apparently in Panama they have a nuclear reactor setup on their bench.
