amp for speakers

[whiteshark]

probably a stupid question, but i don't know much about car audio.
i want to hook an amp up to my four 6 3/4 speakers. they're all aftermarket with a max of 150 watts. and my cd player is 52x4 max. so if i were to add a 200 watt 4ch amp to my system would that replace my cd players amp as the power source, or would it combine the power of the two? again sorry for the dumb question

[SunsetOrange98Camaro]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but since you will be running the speakers off and aftermarket amp and not from your HU you only count the watts that your amp will be putting out. So in your case each speaker will only get 50 watts. The amp will be hooked up through the RCA's from your HU and they are only sending a signal, not any power. But the speaker outputs on your HU are putting out power so thats where the wattage comes in to play. So actually your HU is putting out more than your amp is. But HU's are usually rated at maximum power so I doubt it will actually put out that much. You might want to go for a bigger aftermarket amp. Hope this helps.

[Camaro Bob]

When you connect an amp to a head unit, you use the RCA patch cables. (unless you use the high input splice in). The signal out of the deck is unpowered. It is just a signal. The amp gets the signal and amplifies it. Note how the jacks on your deck are called "preamp outputs". Meaning, "before amplified". To answer your question, no. It doesn't add the power, becuase at that point the signal isn't powered. Even using high input the signal isn't added. The amp has built in circuitry to step downt the signal. So no. It's rating comes from the amp rating. Also, the power you get from the amp is rated at a certain impedance. If an amp is rated at say, 100 watts per channel at four ohms, and you are running eight ohm drivers, you aren't getting 100 watts. Your getting closer to fifty. Any Questions, just email me. And your question isn't stupid. Electronics can be hard to understand. [img]graemlins/burnout.gif[/img]

[whiteshark]

now i know, thanks [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img]

[megabass]

Just a bit of advice. It will be easier for you (and us) if you keep all wattage ratings in RMS and forget about peak unless that's all you got to go by. RMS is more commonly used anyway. When you say your HU is 50X4, most often that is peak and not RMS unless it says RMS. Makes it sound more powerful when rated at peak, huh.

Typically the RMS wattage is about half of the peak wattage. Also, is the aftermarket amp you're looking at rated at peak or RMS. If it is 200 (peak x 4) it's really only putting out about 25 watts per channel. If the 200 is indeed an RMS rating, then it's closer to 50 watts per channel. As someone mentioned earlier, you might still want to think about a more powerful amp.

Steve
www.subthump.com