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HELP!! Best Value Amp Selection(s) Needed!!

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REPTEAM Posted: Sun, Oct 7 2007 11:03 PM

I purchased the following from Crutchfield:

    Alpine CDE-9873  HU

    Dash Speakers - Polk DB351 w/ PAC BB-300A2 Bass Blockers

    Front Door Speakers - Blaupunkt GTc652 6-1/2" Component System w/ PAC BB-600A2 Bass Blockers

    Rear Seat Side Panel Speakers - Polk Audio DB690

I'm adding this sub to the system and now need to pick an amp or amps to do the following:

    AudioBahn AW1000Q 10" Sub 

  1. I want to power the Dash and Front Door Speakers with the HU.
  2. For ease of installation and trunk space considerations, ideally I want to buy ONE amp and power the 6x9 rear Polks and the 10' sub. What would be a couple of good choices without breaking the bank for a super high dollar four channel amp.
  3. I will go with two amps if needed, but would then need to run another pair of RCAs from the HU. If I go this route what would be a couple of good amps to use, and why?

THANKS!! 

REP ~ 2002 Chrysler Sebring Convertible


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c blaze replied on Mon, Oct 8 2007 12:12 AM

for the back speakers go to the links at the bottom this  amp will do the job well its under rated and rockford fosgate amps are high end quality amps but i know a site to get it at a wholesale price   and i see the sub is 600 rms watts, and is a dvc 4 ohms sub correct if it is i got the amp u need also the link at the bottom ,and  make sure u wire the sub down to 2 ohms,if u need help get u a wiring diagram

<Mod Edit: linked to Crutch. Please link to manufacturer's website or to Crutchfield's website. >

http://www.crutchfield.com/App/Product/Item/Main.aspx?I=575P3002&search=Punch+P3002

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=MA+Audio+HK800D&btnG=Google+Search

HU=Pioneer DEH 1900mp Amp=Mtx Ta 4501 Subs=2 American Bass Dx12's Tweeters=X Audio Cap= Massive 2 Farad For future INstall !! 2 12 Cvrs,Rf T5001tb
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c blaze replied on Mon, Oct 8 2007 12:55 AM
oh and forgot to mention theat rockford amp for your back speakers has input and ouput for your rca's cables so u could run a short rca cables to the ma audio amp i suggeste from the rca output on the rockford amp w.o running 2 rca cables from your headunit
HU=Pioneer DEH 1900mp Amp=Mtx Ta 4501 Subs=2 American Bass Dx12's Tweeters=X Audio Cap= Massive 2 Farad For future INstall !! 2 12 Cvrs,Rf T5001tb
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REPTEAM:
I want to power the Dash and Front Door Speakers with the HU.

I'm not sure you can do this - you can run the dash speakers off the front channel and the door speakers off the rears, but that will give you weird fading problems, but should work fine.  You probably can wire the speakers in parallel off the front HU channels, since they are basically tweeters, I think the 2-ohm load will be acceptable and work okay, but I wouldn't count on it.

For ease of installation and trunk space considerations, ideally I want to buy ONE amp and power the 6x9 rear Polks and the 10' sub. What would be a couple of good choices without breaking the bank for a super high dollar four channel amp.

You can't really do that with your setup, it's a good idea - what you would normally do with that would be get a 100Wx4@4-ohms amp, and bridge the rear channels to a 200W SVC-4-ohm sub.  You have a 600W sub that is DVC-4-ohm, which means it is designed for 2- or 8-ohm operation and the amp is not stable at 2-ohms bridged and not powerful enough at 8-ohms, usually.

I will go with two amps if needed, but would then need to run another pair of RCAs from the HU.

Actually, your HU has two pre-outs that can be front and rear/sub.  If you want to control the sub from the HU and have the fader work and are running the doors and dash off the front HU channels, the config that makes sense for you is to use either the rear speaker level outputs of the HU to the rear speaker amp (or a line-output converter) and the rear-pre-outs of the HU (in subwoofer mode) for the sub and leave the front pre-outs unconnected. 

If I go this route what would be a couple of good amps to use, and why?

For this rears, if you want to maximize what the db690's can handle, you want a 100Wx2 amp, if you want to keep them from overpowering the fronts you could go with a 65Wx2, you could also just keep the gains down on the 100Wx2 amp depending if cost is a big issue.  I would look at the Profile AP600, Clarion APX2120, or Visonik V502PB.

For the sub, you want a 500W-700W RMSx1@2-ohms amp, so I would recommend the  Profile AP1000M, Visonik V1800PB, Kenwood KAC-8103D, or one of the three 600W amps that CF has for $300.

HTH!!!

2002 Ford Focus Sony CDX-GT410u Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Stock speakers, no amp, no subs

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REPTEAM replied on Sun, Oct 14 2007 9:16 AM
TigerHeli:

REPTEAM:
I want to power the Dash and Front Door Speakers with the HU.

I'm not sure you can do this - you can run the dash speakers off the front channel and the door speakers off the rears, but that will give you weird fading problems, but should work fine.  You probably can wire the speakers in parallel off the front HU channels, since they are basically tweeters, I think the 2-ohm load will be acceptable and work okay, but I wouldn't count on it.

It seems as though the stock Sebring wiring setup has already addressed the fader issue between the front tweets and front door mids. The stock harness seems to split the front fader output "somewhere" along the wire routing to both the front tweets and front door mids. In other words, there is only one set (+ and a -) of HU outs per side despite ultimately providing HU internal amp output to two speakers per side. Of course, the wire coloring of the harness wires at the HU are not the same as the colors that appear at the actual speaker locations on the front door panel and front dash area speakers. When we originally set everything up we figured that the negative ones were the wires with the black stripes. However, one speaker wire set was throwing us. As I recall it was green with a purple stripe one and green with a perhaps a red stripe. I might be mis-remembering the exact colors but I do know that there was no black stripped one. BTW - this was at one of the front door speaker locations. In a situation like this how do you tell which is which to avoid an out-of-phasing situation?

Anyway, if after installing two amps - which is now a given for me - can I simply just run the rear sub off of the front HU RCAs to a mono amp, and the rear POLK 690's off of a suitable amp provided signal by the HU's rear RCAs? I would then just connect the HU harness wires at all for the rear POLK 690's, which again would be getting their signal from an external amp. Am I messing with screwed-up system impedences by simply using the Alpine's internal amp to power the front door panel Blaupunkts and front dash 351 Polks, and the aforementioned two amps  - one powering the 690 rear Polks and one powering the sub? All this assumes that I will buy the right amps as you and others suggest,etc. Fading is not an issue as it seems the car accoustically likes the default setting or no more than one click to the rear.

I'm trying to avoid amping the HU's internal amp signal with an external amp for obvious sound quality reasons. Am I thinking straight on this one?

BTW - a separate issue with my current setup as I first described (I do have a temporary "loaner" older 2 channel 1000W amp powering the DVC-4ohm sub via the HU's rear/sub RCAs) is that the unit cuts out at higher volume. I'm assuming this is due to the fact that the HU ouput is not strong enough to power the six other speakers. I did have CF send me a new HU, but the problem persists. Thus, the need to install an amp for the rear 690s definitely seems needed. Does this all seem to make sense?

LAST QUESTION(S): I thought that my sub was a 1000watt sub (AW1000Q). Is that not the case? Regardless of what it is rated, when you have say a 600 watt DVC-4 sub what RMS rating range are you looking to get to run it? In other words, I suppose the possibly too-much power 2 channel 1000w "temporary" amp I have now running as it is - bridged - would continue to work for the rear sub if the gains are not turned-up too much right? It seems to be doing fine now. If all things are otherwise the same, is a mono amp "better" than a "bridged two channel" amp to power a sub? If so, why?

For ease of installation and trunk space considerations, ideally I want to buy ONE amp and power the 6x9 rear Polks and the 10' sub. What would be a couple of good choices without breaking the bank for a super high dollar four channel amp.

You can't really do that with your setup, it's a good idea - what you would normally do with that would be get a 100Wx4@4-ohms amp, and bridge the rear channels to a 200W SVC-4-ohm sub.  You have a 600W sub that is DVC-4-ohm, which means it is designed for 2- or 8-ohm operation and the amp is not stable at 2-ohms bridged and not powerful enough at 8-ohms, usually.

I will go with two amps if needed, but would then need to run another pair of RCAs from the HU.

Actually, your HU has two pre-outs that can be front and rear/sub.  If you want to control the sub from the HU and have the fader work and are running the doors and dash off the front HU channels, the config that makes sense for you is to use either the rear speaker level outputs of the HU to the rear speaker amp (or a line-output converter) and the rear-pre-outs of the HU (in subwoofer mode) for the sub and leave the front pre-outs unconnected. 

See my comments above about using the front/rear pre-out RCAs. 

If I go this route what would be a couple of good amps to use, and why?

For this rears, if you want to maximize what the db690's can handle, you want a 100Wx2 amp, if you want to keep them from overpowering the fronts you could go with a 65Wx2, you could also just keep the gains down on the 100Wx2 amp depending if cost is a big issue.  I would look at the Profile AP600, Clarion APX2120, or Visonik V502PB.

For the sub, you want a 500W-700W RMSx1@2-ohms amp, so I would recommend the  Profile AP1000M, Visonik V1800PB, Kenwood KAC-8103D, or one of the three 600W amps that CF has for $300.

HTH!!!

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TigerHeli replied on Mon, Oct 15 2007 8:09 AM

REPTEAM:
It seems as though the stock Sebring wiring setup has already addressed the fader issue between the front tweets and front door mids. The stock harness seems to split the front fader output "somewhere" along the wire routing to both the front tweets and front door mids. In other words, there is only one set (+ and a -) of HU outs per side despite ultimately providing HU internal amp output to two speakers per side. Of course, the wire coloring of the harness wires at the HU are not the same as the colors that appear at the actual speaker locations on the front door panel and front dash area speakers. When we originally set everything up we figured that the negative ones were the wires with the black stripes. However, one speaker wire set was throwing us. As I recall it was green with a purple stripe one and green with a perhaps a red stripe. I might be mis-remembering the exact colors but I do know that there was no black stripped one. BTW - this was at one of the front door speaker locations. In a situation like this how do you tell which is which to avoid an out-of-phasing situation?

Not necessarily - The stock Sebring had the dash speakers in parallel with the doors, but they could have made sure the stock HU was 2-ohm stable, or they could have used 8-ohm speakers which would give a 4-ohm load at the HU.  Neither one means you can wire 4-ohm speakers to the same wiring, and could explain the overheating problems with your HU, but I don't know that.  This is getting complicated, but what you may end up needing to do is run the dash speakers off the HU and then get a 4-channel amp for the front and rears, and another amp for the subs.

For phasing, you can use CF's newly posted wiring info for your vehicle

 

Anyway, if after installing two amps - which is now a given for me - can I simply just run the rear sub off of the front HU RCAs to a mono amp, and the rear POLK 690's off of a suitable amp provided signal by the HU's rear RCAs?

You can but you will have fading issues.  More below. 

Am I messing with screwed-up system impedences by simply using the Alpine's internal amp to power the front door panel Blaupunkts and front dash 351 Polks, and the aforementioned two amps  - one powering the 690 rear Polks and one powering the sub?

That is very possible, yes (that you are messing with screwed-up system impedances). 

Fading is not an issue as it seems the car accoustically likes the default setting or no more than one click to the rear.

The car may no longer acoustically like that setting when you add external amps to the equation.  Fading is an issue. 

I'm trying to avoid amping the HU's internal amp signal with an external amp for obvious sound quality reasons. Am I thinking straight on this one?

From a pure SQ standpoint you are thinking correctly.  Personally, I would want the rear pre-outs going to the sub-amp so I can set them to subwoofer mode and control them that way.  I would run the rear amp off the HU's rear speaker outputs and the front amp (if I added one) off the front pre-outs, even if it reduced SQ slightly, so that the fader actually faded correctly, but that's just the way I would do it personally.

BTW - a separate issue with my current setup as I first described (I do have a temporary "loaner" older 2 channel 1000W amp powering the DVC-4ohm sub via the HU's rear/sub RCAs) is that the unit cuts out at higher volume. I'm assuming this is due to the fact that the HU ouput is not strong enough to power the six other speakers. I did have CF send me a new HU, but the problem persists. Thus, the need to install an amp for the rear 690s definitely seems needed. Does this all seem to make sense?

That could very likely be due to the 2-ohm load on the front HU channels and nothing else, but I don't know that for sure.  That would be my best guess though. 

LAST QUESTION(S): I thought that my sub was a 1000watt sub (AW1000Q). Is that not the case?

Probably 1000W peak - 600W RMS from what I have read. 

Regardless of what it is rated, when you have say a 600 watt DVC-4 sub what RMS rating range are you looking to get to run it?

600-750W at 2-ohms. 

In other words, I suppose the possibly too-much power 2 channel 1000w "temporary" amp I have now running as it is - bridged - would continue to work for the rear sub if the gains are not turned-up too much right? It seems to be doing fine now.

If that amp is bridged, and your sub's Voice Coils (VC) are wired in parallel, the amp is seeing a 2-ohm load that it is probably not stable at bridged (which could also cause the cut-outs at high volume that you describe.  Are you sure it is 1000W RMS bridged at 2-ohms and not 1000W peak?  It is doubful that you could reduce the gains enough to drop a 1000W RMS down to 600W and get reliable performance out of it.  50-100W probably but you are looking for a 400W drop in output.

If all things are otherwise the same, is a mono amp "better" than a "bridged two channel" amp to power a sub? If so, why?

Generally yes.  For one thing - a mono amp is designed for a subwoofer, so it only amplifies the bass frequencies and not the full range.  Secondly, they will often be a Class D as opposed to Class AB, which means the amp will use less current and run cooler. 

Hope This Helps!!!

2002 Ford Focus Sony CDX-GT410u Sony XT-100HD HD Tuner Stock speakers, no amp, no subs

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