Alpine Car Stereo in Chapel Hill, NC

As of late, we have started to see a lot more Blaupunkt car amps, speakers, and subwoofers online and at Walmart and other places. If you are not familiar with the brand, Blaupunkt became a household name in the US in the 70s. The name became synonymous with quality and car stereo systems to many high-end makes like Audi, Volkswagen, Porsche, Mercedes, Proton, Vauxhall, Pontiac, Holden, and BMW. They named their car stereo receiver after cities and scored very favorably with people looking for the top-rated audio system for a while.

However, Blaupunkt goes back much further than that, all the way back to 1924. They were founded in Berlin under the name “Ideal,” during the infant area of the radio. During those days, every radio that when out the door car rigorously tested by a technician who would market with a blue dot, indicating perfect working order. It was only a matter of time before the blue dot became a symbol of quality. That is the origin of the name Blaupunkt – German, for Blue Point.

• 1932 – First car radio in Europe
• 1952 – World’s first VHF car radio
• 1959 – One million Blaupunkt car radios
• 1971 – Ten million Blaupunkt car radios
• 1974 – First car radio with traffic information receiver
• 1979 – 25 million Blaupunkt car radios
• 1982 – Prototype of first route guidance system
• 1989 – World’s first mass production ready traffic navigation system
• 1999 – Production of 100 milion Blaupunkt car radios
• 2002 – First web-linked navigation system
• 2007 – 75 years car radio
• 2010 – Back in consumer electronics

After leaving the consumer electronics market, the company resurfaced in 2010 as Blaupunkt Global. It now offers a lot more than just Blaupunkt Car Stereo Receivers, Amplifiers, Speakers, and Subwoofers. Under the  Blaupunkt Global brand community umbrella, new product categories shown at the 2022 CES show included eBikes, Automotive Back-up Cameras,  Automotive Parts, and Accessories.

With that said, the quality of yesteryears is somewhat questionable. And all we have to do is look at the new price point. Both mono and multi-channel Blaupunkt car amps sell on Amazon for less than $100.00! What does this mean? Well, one thing is for sure these are 1000+ watts car amplifiers as stated on the box. Putting the misleading advertising aside, something many companies have done at one point or another, the issue here is that these new Blaupunkt car amplifiers fall way short of the mark!

For example, in the case of the AMP1504, Big D struggles to get 70 watts @ 4 ohms. That is about 48% of the rated power of 150 watts X 4 @4 ohms.

There are quite a few brands to consider when it comes to budget amps, even though they lack the recognition of companies like Alpine, Pioneer, Rockford, or Kicker, and no, I am not talking about Skar! One of my favorite budget amplifier brands comes from Brazil, and it is called Taramps. Snoop around the internet, and you will see that Taramps more than delivers for the money! One of my favorites is the Taramps TS 400×4, an honest 100 X 4 bridgeable car stereo amplifier with a frequency response of 18Hz to 30KHz. Another brand to consider for mega power on a budget is Bully Performance Audio, but these have been in short supply as of late!