BukvaMan

I have an 6 channel amp wich im gonna use 4channel for the speakers and the other two for the subs. All speakers that i find are rated at 80 do 130 watts. but i see guys use similar setups with speakers that are rated twice as much what the amp can give them so im a little confused . from what i know to get the best quality of the sound they should be somewhere there or even more power then they need... cause your not really turn them up all the way .....i guess you get my point...

what do you guys think ????


thanx for any input !!

Adamo0926

The only reason to have power handling specifications for speakers is so you don't feed them too much power and overdrive them so you fry them. And you would know if you overdrive them because you would hear distortion. Clean power does not fry speakers, distortion does. If you have an amp capable of putting out 100 watts of peak power and the speakers have a power handling rating of 200 watts peak, the same speaker with a 100 watt peak rating would sound no different.

Any good installer will tune the system levels anyway. The idea is to not set the levels from the amp too high because that affects the signal to noise ratio. If the amp levels are too high it will introduce noise into the signal. When the tuning is done, the amp levels should be set in a way that you could turn the head unit to max and that would be the output level just below audible distortion could be heard.

So if you have an amp capable of 200 watts peak and your speaker handling is only 100 watts peak...you won't be able to use all the power the amp is capable of generating without risking damage to the speakers. And even though the levels would have been tuned, you can still have a CD that can drive the speakers into audible distortion because the CD may have been recorded at a higher level than what was used to tune the system.

I would make sure the speakers have power handling capabilites that are equal to or greater than your amplifier power.

But if you aren't hearing any disortion when you listen, you probably aren't in any danger of frying the speakers. And keep in mind that tweeters will fail before mid-range or subwoofers do.

Power handling specs are not related to how a speaker will sound.

Adamo0926

A sidenote.....if you are going to use a 6 channel amp, what is the power rating for each channel ? Most 5 channel amps have 1 channel with more power to drive a subwoofer. For example....75x4 and 200x1.

If your 6 channel amp has only 1 channel for a subwoofer you can use the 6th channel for the center speaker in the dash and keep the 5.1 surround sound capabilities. I don't know how 6 channel amps are set up since there are not a lot of them out there.

BukvaMan

i have a infinity reference 6 channel amp wich is giving 54 watts per channel on first four channels and the other two are ment for the subwoofers wich are 150 rms per channel. im not gonna use the center speaker for anything else then the wireless phone thing so i didnt feel like spending the extra money to get two amps and for the center speaker wich i dont need anyways. ) if i do decide in the future i can always add an two channel amp and do it but i dont think i will for the money ill probbably get springs . but one more thing why do focal speakers like the 165a1 have a nominal power handling of 60 watts and max 120 and we are talking here rms not peak.

BukvaMan

and im gonna use two 12 " infinity subs . do you think thats enough power to drive them in an sealed box.

Adamo0926

I'm really stretching my memory banks here...but I think most 2 subwoofer applications would have the subwoofers wired in parallel which would reduce the input impedence thus getting even more power from the amp. And most mult-channel amps have only one subwoofer channel unlike yours. If your 2 subs were wired in parallel then you would probably bridge the 2 sub channels on your amp to feed the subwoofer box...which effectively would give that one bridged channel 300 watts rms and be driving a lower impedence load as well....increasing the power even more.

For instance if the amp is rated at 150 watts rms into an impedence of 8 ohms and each sub has an impedence of 8 ohms, the power to each sub would be 150 watts. If the subs were wired in parallel I believe it would drop the impedence to 4 ohms...so if you used one channel that was rated at 150 watts into 8 ohms to drive the subs when wired in parallel, you would be sending approx 300 watts to the subs. Now if you take it a step furthur and bridge the 2 150 watt channels into one channel and use that one channel to feed the 4 ohm load (the load if the subs were wired in parallel), you would be sending approx 600 effective watts to the subs.

At least this is how I remember things from when I had subs installed in all my other cars.

And don't think that 600 watts to a sub box is WAY too much in reference to the 4 satellite speakers at about 50 watts/channel. Keep in mind that it takes a lot more power to re-create low frequencies because the cone has to have enough excursion to be able to move a lot of air and generate the sound waves. You really can never have too much power for subs, pratically speaking.

Toronto-TL

I couldn't agree more with adamo0926.

Bear in mind also you can overdrive the amp and blow it if you're impedence drops below the amps rated specs.

Make sure you match you equipment correctly.

Adamo0926

A very astute observation by Toronto.....which is more important than enything else. If wiring the subwoofers in parallel and it brings the impedence down to 2 ohms....make sure your amp is rated to be stable to 2 ohms and can deliver rated power at that impedence. My guess is that wiring 2 subs in parallel will give you a 4 ohm load to the amp....and almost all amps (unless they are pieces of crap..lol) are stable to 4 ohms.