Will I notice a difference between my pioneer headunit and a 4 channel amp?

[Red]

I currently have a Pioneer Premiere MP3 headunit. It pushes two Crystal Components up front, and two Eclipse coaxials in the rear.

My brother gave me a Rockford Fosgate 4 channel amp (Rockford Forgate 200a4 from '99). Would I notice the difference between the amp and my headunit?

 

[Red]

Bump... Nutbucket? Pepsi?

 

[NutBucket]

Yes. More power=better sound reproduction.

 

[RagingBITCH]

Yes. If it didn't, why would people bother amping their speakers to begin with? 😛

 

[Red]

Ok, do either of you have any opinion on old school Rockford Fosgates? This particular model?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

old school rockford is great. their new stuff is great too, they had a few off years tho.

that amp puts out 50wX4@2ohms rms. your head unit might be 45-50watts MAX so the rockford will sound alot clearer. but your probably going to run it at 4 ohms so you wont get the full rated watts. it still is worth doing tho. it has a high pass x-over, turn that on if you have a sub.

JBlaze

10th try to reply!!

 

[Red]

Actually it's a 600a4, which is 75 x 4 @ 4ohm.

Make a difference?

 

[CRXican]

Originally posted by: Red
Actually it's a 600a4, which is 75 x 4 @ 4ohm.

Make a difference?

that should be good, nothing special but better than what the headunit is pushing

 

[Red]

Originally posted by: CRXican

Originally posted by: Red
Actually it's a 600a4, which is 75 x 4 @ 4ohm.

Make a difference?

that should be good, nothing special but better than what the headunit is pushing

Alrighty cool, I'll probably go ahead and install it then.

So now that I have a complete system (two amps, a 12" sub, components and coaxials, headunit) what can I do to make sure my charging system won't be harmed? I don't want my alternator to die prematurly. Should I buy a cap or something?

 

[tfinch2]

Of course it will sound better. That headunit is probably putting out 50w MAX and 22-24w continuous. That amp will feed each channel 75w RMS.

 

[Red]

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Of course it will sound better. That headunit is probably putting out 50w MAX and 22-24w continuous. That amp will feed each channel 75w RMS.

Oh, ok! That makes more sense. I was thinking the head unit did 50 x 4 RMS and the new amp was only 25 more watts per channel more.

Will it *sound* any better, or will the increase in watts just let the music be louder?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

replace the cheap cable that runs from the battery to the alternator with some 0 gauge cable and you should be good

JB

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Red

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Of course it will sound better. That headunit is probably putting out 50w MAX and 22-24w continuous. That amp will feed each channel 75w RMS.

Oh, ok! That makes more sense. I was thinking the head unit did 50 x 4 RMS and the new amp was only 25 more watts per channel more.

Will it *sound* any better, or will the increase in watts just let the music be louder?

What are the power ratings on the speakers?

 

[thomsbrain]

Originally posted by: Red

Originally posted by: tfinch2
Of course it will sound better. That headunit is probably putting out 50w MAX and 22-24w continuous. That amp will feed each channel 75w RMS.

Oh, ok! That makes more sense. I was thinking the head unit did 50 x 4 RMS and the new amp was only 25 more watts per channel more.

Will it *sound* any better, or will the increase in watts just let the music be louder?

my experience with my pioneer head unit (45 watts max/channel) is that even at reasonable listening levels (say, windows down, you turn it up so you can still hear the music) the unit is distorting and you can actually see the LCD display dimming with each bass drum hit. that's with stock speakers. remember that it's really only pushing 12 watts/channel or so, and that's not very much power when you're trying to fight road noise, wind, etc, especially since you can't really expect to push all 12 watts without major distortion. the 45 watt figure is just for a transient peak, and the unit will need time to recover from that peak or else it will distort. with today's compressed music, there is no time to recover because everything is loud, all the time. so you get a nice sea of fuzz out of the headunit's amp.

 

[psteng19]

Honestly speaking, you probably won't hear a huge difference unless you have really sharp ears.
You will probably notice a difference if you have the music turned way up, where the amp will be better able to power the speakers at louder volumes.
That or if you have really good speakers (components preferably).

I find that the Pioneer units (at least the Premier series) have a better than average built-in amp.