Do I need a bigger amp?

[dghii]

Originally Posted by Starter986

lol, the **************** it doesn't. You say the same thing in the rest of your sentence.

****************ing semantics, lol.

Have a nice day.

No I didn't.

A 1000 watt amplifier would not work with speakers rated for 40 watts? Of course it would, until you turn the amp up beyond what the speakers can handle you overheat the voice coil and and blow the speaker. Likewise, a 20Watt amp will ruin a high wattage 'rated; speaker by providing a crappy signal (clipping, square wave) at high volume, causing a speaker to destroy itself trying to reproduce a distorted signal. Hook up a 9 volt battery to a speaker and see out unhappy the speaker voice coil gets.

Point is, consumer car stereo power specs are all about marketing. Power ratings get everyone's attention....alway have.

[Bush Pilot]

Yeah, large power output numbers are easy to achieve if distortion isnt considered. I’d rather have a lower power amp with good distortion specs than vice versa. It’s more useable power.

[Starter986]

Originally Posted by dghii

No I didn't.

A 1000 watt amplifier would not work with speakers rated for 40 watts? Of course it would, until you turn the amp up beyond what the speakers can handle you overheat the voice coil and and blow the speaker. Likewise, a 20Watt amp will ruin a high wattage 'rated; speaker by providing a crappy signal (clipping, square wave) at high volume, causing a speaker to destroy itself trying to reproduce a distorted signal. Hook up a 9 volt battery to a speaker and see out unhappy the speaker voice coil gets.

Point is, consumer car stereo power specs are all about marketing. Power ratings get everyone's attention....alway have.

Yes. A 1,000W amp would work with 40W speakers. However, if you "cranked it up"... "turned up the volume", or otherwise "taxed" the speakers with too much power... there will be a fail. You "push things too far, you pay.

Same thing with people.

"Push"... "Provide"... whatever. I said semantics. We both win.

Have a great Thursday.

[clickman]

To close the loop, I replaced the amp with a Kenwood Excelon X802-5. It's a 5 channel with 75W to the front and rear and more to the series-wired door speakers.

It's as good as I can expect with the quality of the speakers in the car (and my failing ears), so I'm happy.

I am however considering replacing the cheap Hertz coaxials in the front with component Focals (ES 100 K). But given that's over a thousand $ and a bit of jiggerypokery to get them installed, it might take a while...

[BRAN]

Not an expert here, but I would try to avoid mixing different Ohm sized speakers. 1 Ohm gap might be acceptable, e.g. 4Ohm/3Ohm or 2Ohm/3Ohm. And check your head unit. It normally shows, what ohm sized speakers it can power. The door speakers might be the culprit in your setup.

just my 2 cents...

[derekcohen]

I recently went through the journey of replacing the Porsche/Becker CR220 and Haes amplifier. According to the specs on the amp, it is 4 x 40 watts, and I will assume that this is not RMS.



The new system is a whole another level: Alpine Ilx-507a ... which is 14 watts x 4 (probably RMS), but this would not do much for volume unless the speakers were fairly efficient and the car (986S) was just idling! So the Alpine KTP-445U power pack amp was added (4 x 50 watts rms). The power pack replaced the Haes in the trunk. This feeds Focal speakers in the dash and doors (ICU100 and ICU130). I retained the rear (original) speakers for now, and they are pretty weak and will be replaced at some stage.

These Focal speakers are dual cone. The sound is very clear and detailed. Excellent spatiousness and imagery. The downside of the ICU130 is that they do not produce much bass - in retrospect I should have gone for the ICU165, but went safe with the original sizing. So in came a Pioneer TSWX140DA under seat powered subwoofer. This is really compact and fits behind a seat. 50 watts rms (170 watts music power). All the amplification is Class D. The added bass fills in the sound very well, and seems also to add more detail in the mid range.

This is just a wonderful system, and does not need to be played loudly with the top down. There is just so much power on tap.

The head unit has wireless Car Play, but the real joy is its ability to stream from Tidal and - even better - to connect a SSD and play FLAC files up to 96 bits (CD quality is 44.1). The little SSD can be seen in the tray.



I hope this info help someone.

Regards from Perth

Derek