I have 6.5 coaxials in my doors that take 60W RMS, I also have an Alpine deck which puts out 65 watts per speaker. I know that in reality it puts out less, but I would imagine it alteast puts out 50W per channel. The HU does not push these speakers at all, if anything it is perfect for the stocks I have in the back. The fronts arent loud, midbass is lacking terribly. If I buy a 60w*2 amp to push the coaxials, will the sound gretly improve or will I need to throw 80-100W to get the midbass going and all that good stuff?
Well, first thing is that it's basically physically impossible to fit an amplifier in a head unit that can do anything more than 20 watts... I recall 22 watts as that "magical" number for some reason, actually... Hey, if I could make an amp that could do 50x2 into a package smaller than a cigarette pack I'd be rich, right? Anyways, the second game that HU manufacturers play is in the distribution of the numbers... You might expect 20x4 to mean "20 watts for each of the 4 channels", but in reality it's very often "20 watts distributed to 4 channels"... ie. 5 watts each. So at any rate, your Alpine deck is most likely putting out something actually obnoxiously lower than 60 watts to each of those speakers. Getting a 60x2 amp is probably a great solution for you. Bearing in mind that it would take a 4x increase in power to effect a 2x increase in excursion, getting a 100x2 amp really wouldn't be any big deal, from a mechanical powerhandling (ie. excursion) standpoint. From a thermal powerhandling standpoint, since you aren't going to be playing your music at absolute full-bore levels of output continuously, you wouldn't have an issue in that scenario anyways (since lower volume levels = amp puts out less power)... Not to mention that since musical tracs aren't recorded at 0dB levels... And since instruments aren't like test tones, rather they raise and lower in volume, play and stop, you again have a level of protection. Of course, yes, if you did decide to play solid test tones recorded at 0dB reference levels at absolute full bore volume levels, then you might damage your speakers. But my guess is that you'd not like what you heard - you'd hear them distressing - long before that point. I definitely don't sweat running an amp that's "too large"... because in application, that's usually not true, and it does buy you more headroom to play with. B)
Alpine claims to have an output of 27w RMS per channel on their HU's... In any case though, an external amp would give you a much better sound.
That says it all External amp, even 50x2, will make you speakers sound better. 100x2, if properly set up, would be better.
That says it all External amp, even 50x2, will make you speakers sound better. 100x2, if properly set up, would be better. [/b][/quote] Haha i know. I don't care if it put out a true 50x2, i'd still take an external amp that did 50x2 over the internal one.
