Anyone familiar with old school amps?
 

I have an old school Clarion amp, looks like this thing was manufactured in 96'. Its an APA2060 mofset 30w x 2. When I was much younger it was installed in my older brothers car hooked up to a pair of Pioneer 6x9s. That car was passed to me when I was old enough and I remember that setup really cranking. The 6x9s were in wedge boxes but holy smokes did they deliver both volume and clarity.

Now many years later I have that amp after finding it in my parents garage. I also have a truck in need of some audio. I was thinking of installing it and either running a pair of 6.5 door speakers or 6x9 rear speakers with it. The only thing is my modern head unit is putting out 50w x 5 (peak) already. Am I essentially "downgrading" by hooking up a dedicated 30w x 2 amp to power a pair of speakers (that are rated to handle much higher) I've heard chatter online that suggests old school amps were made better/were louder etc. I don't know if there's anything to that, anecdotally I can say I remember that amp/speaker setup being awesome! But that was years ago.

I'm not looking for a booming system anymore, just a nice well balanced one to fill a small truck cab with. Just wondering if it's worth the effort installing the amp or just letting the head unit do the job.

some of the older amps were under rated as far as wattage output goes/ they were called "cheater" amps, because people would use them in competitions in a lower wattage class than what the amps really put out. but not all amps back then were made that way. a few are orion, linear power, and Rockford fosgate.

the 50watts your headunit is putting out now is actually around 20 watts per channel rms.

If you want clarity use the amp. You HU is putting out 18wrms at the most. That amp will be a Night and day difference from that HU.

and that 18 watts is at 10% distortion. Use the amp!
stick to good door speakers...better yet components to put the tweeter up higher! You need them in front just like a home sound system! Not in the back!

Yes as others have said that you should go with your AMP. Back in the day it was a running joke on some head units and low end amps to where we would add ILS to the wattage. If Lightening Strikes..... What you want to look at while looking at your Radio and your AMP as other have touched on is the thd of the amp or unit. Most Amp from back in that day that were good had a thd of about 1.0 or 0.8 if you were lucky (Had money) I don't remember the Model no anymore but I had a Pioneer 4 chan amp from back in the early to mid 90's. It weighed a lot but all the options it offered and THD was best in the class had it until a few months ago where someone offered me enough money that I couldn't say no. Clean pure power is better then dirty under power. Just remember that your 6x9's were in a sealed box and added some bass that you can't get with just a normal door or stock speaker location. Adding a Speaker Baffle can help some with keeping your speakers dry and keeping some good sound.

I like to have my sound in the Rig, When your in my van and you are playing the system, To the outside you would like it is hardly on until you open the door and the sound spills out.

For me if you can build or afford to have some door pods or kick pods built it would only add to your sound system.

Good Luck and Enjoy
James