Ok most head consoles that you buy aftermarket are around 25watt RMS x 4, and when I look for speakers the 5.25" are usaully 50 watt and then 6x9 are around 100watt RMS, how in the world does that add up, there has to be a trick to it, I'm new to audio systems, but I somehow don't believe that you need another amp to power that do you?

 

you gotta be carefull with this one-because everyone's an expert. Everyone understands things differently.

A good reference would be crutchfield.com or get a catalog from them. They answer alot of questons with detailed descriptions and you can always call them to ask questions. On their website, they allow you to enter your vehicle type to narrow down your choices. They also provide ALL instatallation stuff FREE! The Ram adapters for your dash,wiring and antenna could run you 90 bucks alone, so it helps to have them thrown in.

Just remember
RMS is the constant power a speaker can revieve without distortion
5.25 speaker - 50watt RMS and you put 60 watts RMS on it = BOOM blown speaker
Usually a speaker will be rated for RMS like this- RMS 7 to 40 watts, so just stay in between there
If you go closer to the larger number you can always adjust your levels.

Don't pay attention to PEAK power, they just list that to seem bigger and better than the next guy.

OH yeah watch for the car stereo shop guys at places like Best Buy, car toys, and Circuit city-they will sell you stuff that you don't need to help their commission

I learned by asking a bunch of people them same questions over and over and then comparing answers to determine whats best for me.

I installed this system myself- It's not that difficult

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[IMG]local://upfiles/3823/Mk266159039.jpg[/IMG]

 

Ok, that works, but what I'm trying to say is how do you pull out 50 watts RMS when your amp in your head unit only provides 25 watt, do you really have to get another amp, that can't be right?

 

last set of 6x9s i put in were 110watt each infinity kappa 3-ways ($250/pair-crutchfield). worth the money. I ran them through my pioneer dehp-8200 without an amp and they were much louder than the stock, and could handle full volume without noise, but were limited by the 4x45watt output. truthfully, its not necessary to amp 6x9s, but if you want loud, you gotta. I used an mtx 250 watt for those. If your goin to put down money on an amp, you might as well go bigger and decrease power at the gain, because you will most likely be replacing your speakers before your amp, you dont want to overwork your amp, and you want to leave yourself room to upgrade without replacing the amp. if your going with subs, you need to amp your 6x9s or you wont hear them.

 

i used to sell at circuit city and they were on commission and i went to best buy and they are not on comission, i installed at both places and some people did sell stuff you didn't need to get the numbers up, but if i was going for good quality i would stay away from stuff like lightning audio and the names you never ever ever see in competition, stick with infinity, rockford, memphis, all the household names and yes you do get more quality by spending more

RMS=constant
Max= something you'll never get!!

i would put "bass blockers" on all the speakers which basically cancell out all the frequencies that the speaker can't handle (they make different ones for different sized speakers) which in turn will cause very little if any distortion, i myself have the pioneer DEHP6500DVD (dvd/tv/monitor touch screen) and stock speakers with the "bass blockers" and it's very loud and very clear, no amp

contrary to what some believe, 9 times out of 10 people blow their speakers b/c they are underpowering them (unless you have good stuff and you crank it for hours at a time, then it's different reason) so if you get an amp get one that is good along with good rca's speaker wire b/c you're only as strong as your weakest link, i've personally heard killer stuff sound like crap b/c they didn't wanna spend an extra $5 for speaker wire while the guy with half as good of stuff sounds alot better b/c he spent the money on the wires also!!

so basically you don't need an amp but it will play it louder and probably clearer and "bass blockers" are a good investment for around $10

 

Maybe this wil clear things up. The 25wRMS from the head unit is OUTPUT power. The speaker rating is INPUT power.

There are 2 thoughts (probably more) of system design. Matching the head unit to speaker rating, ie head rating is = or < speaker rating. For simplicty lets state all ratings in RMS. As stated before this is the main cause of speaker blowouts. If you take a 25w head and put it on 100w speakers and turn it up all the way, its mostly the distortion from the amp that kills speakers. The last few percentage of watts that an amp puts out is distorted. After many installs and competetions(sp) what i have found out to work the best is to take speakers that are rated at about 80% of the amps rating and don't turn the volume all the way up. This way the amp is putting pure clean sound out. I had 110w amps pushing 80w speakers on each channel. Never went above 3/4 volume. I won 6 out of 10 comps, never finished less than 5th place, in the High-Q class. This class is for purity of sound verses loudness.

The "bass-blockers" are just capacitors with varing values that shunt the lower frequencies. If you do a google seach for bass-blocker, you should be able to find a chart that says what size capacitors cut off what frequencies. The easist way is to go to a stereo shop and they have them already with the frequencies on them. You just install them inline on the positive lead of the speaker. The smaller the speaker the more bass you want to cut of course. This is the rule that I generally follow: 3.5" to 5.25" cut off at 200hz, 5.25" to 6X9 at 100hz.

I hope this helped abit.

 

Ok now I get it. I get that if you have an underpowering amp that you will kill the speakers, but say if my head unit is 25 watt RMS, this isn't going to be good but could I hook up a 35 watt speaker as long as I don't blast music at full? Or is that too much of a difference between them?

 

anyone know what size speakers are in a 95 ram laramie slt w/ infinity sound?
I'm thinking about replacing the front door speakers, and the back seat speakers...
i was told the doors are 6x9's and the rears are like 5 1/4 or 5.....
anyone replaced these speakers in a late model ram yet?

 

Go to cruchfield.com and they have a area that tells you all the sizes

http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S...01&vehicleid=0

 

That should be good. As a rule of thumb I never turn up past 3/4 vol.