Those Kappas are I believe exactly what Laramie runs (or at least ran at one point), and he told me that you really need an amp for those, otherwise they might be underpowered and not work very well at all. I'd wait for his two cents on those.

Even though he is a moderator and a good friend of mine, don't ever shy away from disagreeing with either of us if you feel that way. I will never come after you for respectful disagreement (and Laramie has no power in the 2nd gen section... ).

I wouldn't know because I haven't done the research, but I believe Laramie regards Kicker as a "Bose" type brand. Sure, they may be a bit better than most, but they are way over-priced for that little bit.

I'm not sure about the signal going back and overloading anything, haven't researched that, but you have to understand the basic principles of electricity. If it terminated, there wouldn't be a circuit, and you'd only need one wire to each speaker. The flow does go back to the HU, now whether it can actually damage the HU, I have no idea myself.

From my experience, Jensen makes low-quality products. I'm not saying they don't work or won't work, but compared to other brands, Jensen tends to be on the lower end of quality. Kenwood tends to be middle-ranged.

He's not "pushing" his opinions, he was stating them. The OP has a choice whether to listen to him, me, you, or whomever he chooses.

5-way speakers are, IMO, pretty useless. You can better sound out of a high quality 3-way. When you start trying to put to many parts into the speaker, you start sacrificing on each of those parts to get the others to fit and work.

 

The best system you can build for yourself is the one that sounds best to you!
Before you buy anything go around and listen to different brands and see what sounds good to you.
Try to if you can to listen to systems installed in vehicles, friends systems, friends of friends systems.
They will sound different in vehicle moving down the road verse installed in a wall in the store.
Some audio shops will even have systems installed in there own vehicles that they may let you listen to.
Also check out this website http://www.diymobileaudio.com/forum/, remember that these guys build some insane systems
but lots of good info on there.
Also tons of info on this site too http://www.bcae1.com/
Both of these site will help you get your install right.
Good Luck.

Dave

 

So I'm just trying to understand the RMS rating as it applies to speakers and amps. Using the speakers I linked as an example, it looks like the Kappa 5.25 speakers run on 4 ohms and 55 RMS each and the Kappa 6x9 speakers run on 4 ohms and 110 RMS each. Does this mean that at a minimum, I need a 4-channel amp than runs 4 channels at 4 ohms and 110 RMS per channel?

Or am I totally confused?

Also, dhvaughan mentioned a 3" depth limitation for the front speakers. The ones I am looking at are 3 5/16 depth. Will I just need a 5/16 spacer to install them?

 

My reasoning for steering clear of Kenwood speakers and headunits is simply the quality design. I have spent a lot of time with almost every brand of speaker on the market and I know that on the bottom line, a kenwood speaker and headunit will let you down quicker every time compared to say a Pioneer deck. Not saying that Pioneer makes good speakers, but their decks speak volumes.
Ask any audio professional and they will say the same thing I did. What happens when you charge up a line and the charge doesn't have a circuit to go anywhere? It usually stays in the same spot and will dissipate down. Same goes for Amplifiers, but you have to keep in mind that the internal components are a hell of a lot more sensitive to power fluctuation than say two wires in which you hooked a 9v battery to. I simply took the "teacher" way out and explained it in a "wrong" way so that those that do not know what they are dealing with in terms of electricity could grasp the content of my post.

I'm glad that you never torched anything, I really am, but try it on a CB one of these days. Hook up an Amp and with out anything to recieve what that amplifier is pushing, see how long it takes before you have a pile of blown up junk sitting on your table.

I know you are not picking a fight with me, but this is a forum and we are all entitled to our opinions and the occasional argument as well. I explained my reasoning for my distaste in Kenwood products, and now I'll talk to you about Alpine.

Do they make a great product? Yes, they do. My issue? You buy a name. That's it. It's kinda like Apple for you computer geeks out there. You buy an Alpine product and you just bought a mediocre performance deck with the price tag of a high end deck. That's my problem with them. Not to mention the fact that like Kenwood, I find that Alpine decks are hell to navigate on..

Which brings me to my next point: When you're looking at decks, yes, brands must be considered, but what about navigation? I'm sure that we all have been there in the regards of driving in traffic or on an eight lane highway and a song or track came up that we wanted to change or turn the volume up. What good is a deck that you have to take your eyes off the road, find a button, and then press it to get the desired result? It's not. Make sure you buy a deck that is not only well made, but one that you feel that you can navigate on while not taking your eyes off the road.

As for your Jensen comment, I shall not go there as I would make this post three times longer than it already is. Jensen is a cheap, low quality product and you get what you pay for.
There is no need for a five way speaker. It's just insane what people will try to sell you and you my friend took the bait hook line and sinker. It's called a pseudo value added product. It may look better, but in the end, it really isn't. I have found that even some three way speakers cannot perform as well as a general two way.

I have explained this, but in short:

They are cheaply made and hell to navigate on.

I explained a lot of this in a PM to you, so if you have more questions, please come back to this thread or my PM and I/we will be glad to handle them.

As I told Kuato, I was away on vacation so it took me awhile to get back to this thread.

 

Good day Laramie,

I have a '' simple'' question.

Is there a good site where i could find specs of Infinity amps on the web.

I went to a few cars parts resellers , found a few amps (( under the seats, door jams etc )) and they all have differents numbers ( not the ones XXXXXXX688 or XXXXX902s) so i'd like to find out WHAT i'm buying before.

I could very well go with the scope, DVM and dummy loads to tests them but some of them won't accept a return...(bad them ).

Thanks in advance.

Jacko

PS: i would fit this unit ( the one i will find locally ) into the Dak on this picture.

 

I know i'm a year late but.... to sum everything up, RMS is constant power and Peak is, well, the highest wattage the speaker will accept before it blows. Decks or Head Units do have an internal amp but they arnt that powerful, maybe 52wx4 at most. The best thing to do (and yes you can do this on the cheap, i did it for 500bux) is get a 5Ch amp (it will power every speaker in the car, well 5 to be exact) and hook your door speakers and sub (if you want one) then route it to your head unit. this will result in a much better sound quality in your speakers. Reason being, is that your speakers will not be able to perform at their best just running off of the head unit (lack of wattage). As far as brands go, Pioneer is a great cheap company for speakers subs and head units. Sony not so much, they tend to use cheap materials that will in the end be worth as much as garbage. Kicker is not cheap nor is it expensive, its a good brand as well. But know this when buying car audio and this is usually true, usually, the more you spend the better it sounds. With that, Alpine is in my opinion the best at making amps and head units and Infinity is by far the best speaker mfg i have ever exposed my ears to although Polk Audio is amazing too just not Infinity status! Just incase you came back to read this lol