I started outon putting in a simple sub in my turck and now I have come to realize the pitfall of car audio.......a little is not enough.

I have installed 4 alpine type R's in the doors already 100W rms and was wondering what would be the best set up for amps for what I would like to do? I now want to add a head unit either the Alpine CDA9887 or the Kenwood 991. I have a sub box on the way and it will take 2 10"s and I have selected the JL10W6 for the two empty spots.

My main question is can I run my 4 door speakes and two factory tweeters off of the main deck and 1 amp for the two subs? Or should I have a seperate amp for the doors and one for the subs and not bother with the amp from the head unit?

I would like to save a bit of money if I could and use the amp in the head unit that is why I selected a higher end head unit but if this is not going to be of any advantage I may replace it with a cheaper one if I need 2 amps.

I thought of running just one sub but have changed my mind and said to myself you can always tame the base down if you have to. Right?

Thanks for your time
Phil

 

You are going to go waaaay further with a step down cd player and a amplifier. The amp built into the decks are pretty much the same across the entire line and across the entire industry. The lower level one has the same amp as the higher level one. It will struggle to give you the levels and performance you are expecting.

You can use the system with one or two subs, one will be a closer match to the small built in amp of the headunit. In either case though, I would have a amplifier on the other speakers and sit back and enjoy what the extra power will bring.

 

What he said.

I was in a shop listening to a Sony deck I might buy for my fiancee. We were listening to a pair of Boston Acoustic coaxial 6.5" and 2-way 6X9's. The difference between running off the head-unit and then off a Clarion 2 channel amp was more than impressive, it was huge. They actually played some mid-bass with volume and precision.

The amp was the Clarion APX2181 which puts out 90W x 2 @ 4 ohms. The deck was putting out less than a quarter of that RMS...

Find an amp that can deliver 80W+ to four 4 ohm speakers and you're laughing. Then a second amp to power your subwoofers.

Just going to have to find a deck with 3 pair of pre-outs for your front, rear, and sub.

 

Thanks for the replies it was kinda what I had thought but maybe just maybe if there was a slim chance LOL to save some $$ I would have taken it. I think I already have my amps picked out. Either the PDX line or the JL slash2 line. Any input on the two would be appericiated.

Thanks
Phil

 

Phil, the Alpine PDX uses the same amp topology as the Eclipse ICEpower XA series and the Pioneer Premiere series. Eclipse being the manufacturer that first brought the technology to market and are now 4th generation on it. Would you consider these other companies as well?

 

PRS-D4200F This Pioneer Premier amp will give you 75W to your front speakers, and 300W to your subwoofer. The rears can remain running off the head-unit, but you'll have to find a head-unit capable of that.

Mr2NR, if he were to bridge the rear channels for the subwoofer, could he then run the front and rear speakers in parallel on each front channel to run the amp at 2 ohm? Will, and can, this amp operate with that setup? Or does the entire amp have to be running at 4 ohm?

 

The sub from what I can see is a dual 4 ohm sub, so parallel wired to 2 ohm, not many if any 4 channel amps are going to operate in 2 ohm bridged. So that would be a nogo on that idea. He could operate the system as you have described if he series wires the sub to 8ohm and runs the amp bridged. He would have a lack of output on the sub for now and no fader control between the front and rear speakers but it would work until he adds a dedicated sub amp into the system. Or yet again, he could power only one coil on the sub for now and power the front speakers as well (or the front and rear and have no fader control).

He is best with a dedicated mono sub amp and either a 2 channel to power the front speakers or ideally a 4 channel to power the front and rears.

 

Yes, you are right. But he mentioned that he has two subwoofers. If he wired each sub's voicecoils in parallel, then the subs into series he'd bring the load back to 4 ohms. The downside is that he's still not giving those two subs much power on the amp I suggested.

The subs he's looking at have an RMS of 400W. Giving each 150W off my suggestion isn't going to work.

Listen to Mr2NR. 2 or 4 channel for your door speakers. An amp that can do 800-1000W @ 4 ohm for your two JL subs.

 

^
well said

 

JL 10W6's are monster subs to be putting in a truck LOL I had 2 W1v2's and it was sometimes too much. But like everyone says, there's no such thing as too much. In my opinion anything by JL is super good. Yes it's expensive but sooo worth every penny. I have a truck and im running a JL 300/4 for everything... Components on the front channel and my sub on the rear channel. If its a pickup truck and you wont have anybody sitting in the back it would probably be in your best interest to go with a 2 channel for your speakers as opposed to a 4. Whats the point in having a front/rear fade if nobody is gonna sit in the back? I have a crew cab and i don't even run rears. Yes i'll agree it does add some dynamics to the sound, but you may (or maybe not) be paying more for a higher output 4 ch then you would be for a 2 ch. Also to save money you might want to consider going with one W6 instead of 2. That's like 500 bucks in your pocket right there if i'm not mistaken. One of those subs in a properly tuned box would hit really hard and you'd have that extra money for an extra amp. However, if you end up amping your speakers and throwing a big amp on your subs in a truck cab you could probably make peoples heads cave in....which is awesome! lol