car audio question regarding amps...

[jonnyjack]

hey,

i currently have a pioneer deh-p2000 deck which has 180watts total, 45 to each channel...i have infinity reference speakers, 5 1/4 in the front and 6 1/2 in the back...i get distortion when i turn it up on the freeway...if i get an amp, the music would sound cleaner with the extra power right? if so how many watts should the amp supply for me? TIA...

 

[Adul]

The music would sound a lot cleaner with a good amp. A 4 channel 30 Watt amp(4 channels rated at 30 Watt RMS) should more than suffice. You be surprised how load a lower wattage rated amp will sound. Especial if it cost the same has a whigher wattage rated one. Rockford fosgate, Orion, PPI, and alpine makes some nice amps. You want to look for a good quality one and avoid those cheap highpower ones. They often don't reach their rated power and sounds quality goes down at higher levels. Also it is not needed for your speakers.

Also a higher quality amp with have a regulated power supply built in. helping insure a constant and level power output to the speakers. Especially when the bass hits. On the wattage ratinns. You want some that rates the amps RMS rating and not peak. Also a amp with a low THD is good to have. .05% or lower.


oops typo thanks Doodoo

 

[Doodoo]

Theres no way that deck is putting out 180 watts. 50 watts per speaker should make those infinitys sound real nice. Are those infinitys the 2000 line? Those are real nice speakers. You could get either a 2 or 4 channel amp to run those infinitys. As for brands..check out MTX, PPI, ESX, or even Kicker. I was never a real big fan of Fosgate...dunno why though. Adul...isn't .5% THD kinda high? I think .05% is a nice THD. The regulated power supply isn't really a big deal. If it isn't regulated, you'll get more power from your amps with the increased voltage.

 

[Farbio]

the pioneer deck may make that 180 watts on rare occassions, but not very often...if you're lucky, the speakers are getting 25/channel on a regular basis, so an amp making 30-40 watts/channel would be a huge difference, but like stated, make sure that's an rms rating. and stick to the brands mentioned, although u could also look at xtant or infiniti's beta line is very nice with a good amperage. and as far as THD, anything less than .1% is inaudible, so go lower than that.

 

[jonnyjack]

i had forgotten...thanks for reminding me, the 180(45 per channel) i was talking about is not RMS, it was max...the RMS figure for the pioneer deck is 22 watts per channel...thanks for the input so far...anyone else have anything else to tell me?

 

[xero]

hey jonny..
Good amps to look for:
MTX
ESX
Kenwood (eXcelon line)
Infinity (Beta line)


....if you go to http://www.ampmanaudio.com they carry the ESX amps...ESX amps are AWESOME amps for the price you pay........i've heard that they're sweet amps...and they're relatively cheap too....i would definitely stay away from Fosgate...that's just overpriced junk you dont want! i would also stay away from Kicker and PPI amps to run your speakers..those are VERY high priced amps and mostly used for subs and stuff...i mean they're clean and you could run your highs off them, but i dont think you'd wanna pay that much for an amp to run your highs...especially 4 channels.....OUCH!

 

[Livin4Real]

MTX? All you need is a punch 50.That will push 8 door speakers crisp and clear.

 

[impulse]

That head unit is probably putting out somewhere around 11w rms. For any amp I would go with names like kicker,ppi,orion, or any well known name brand. I would also suggest something around 30w per channel rms, any more than that and you can blow those speakers pretty easy.

 

[shabby]

Decks barely push 10 watts per channel, thats why you're getting distortion, the deck isnt pushing enough juice to the speakers. A 30x4 amp would be enough for those speakers, unless you wanna stick some 15 inchers in the back