I've been out of the car audio game for a while so please try to bear with me. I'm looking for a small 2 channel amp that will turn itself on based on input signal rather than a 12v remote wire. Something like the powered sub in a home theater setup. I want it to come on when there's an input signal and turn off after a prescribed time of no input signal. Does anyone know offhand of any models that do that? It doesn't need to be a large amp. 60 x 2 would be fine.

 

I've never seen an amp that will do that, but sonicelectronix has a small device that will detect a signal and turn on your amp via its remote wire. Check out their site under amp devices/accessories.

 

Thanks victus! I checked it out but wound up going in a different direction. A few different directions actually.

Tried the PAC SOEM-T loc/remote trigger. It worked excellently as a remote amp trigger. However, hooking it up to the rear speaker outputs and using the line out converter didn't work as well. There was still some clipping, but not as bad as the cheap line out converter I tried before. The specs on it say that it will accept an input signal up to 60 watts per channel so not sure why its doing that. Going to try to return it to the shop I got it from.

From there I went on to finding a different amp with speaker level inputs. That led me to the Alpine KTP-445U "power pack." Its a tiny little 4 channel amp with speaker level inputs designed to be put behind the dash rather than in the trunk. Its rated at 4x45w RMS or bridged 2x90w RMS. I've got it in bridged mode running a pair of Infinity Kappa 692.9i 6x9s. This thing rocks! The install was super easy and looks pretty clean. It only requires a 15 amp fused power wire and a ground. No remote turn on wire needed, although it does have one. Even has a 12v remote out for triggering other amps.

Preliminary impressions are pretty good. Its still not quite a perfect solution though. I did notice at very low volumes the input is still being slightly overdriven and the bass sounds a bit distorted. Sonicelectronix has a line out converter that accepts a 150w per channel input so I may try that next. Here's what it looks like now. I still have to clean it up, but I'm going to wait until after I try a few more things.