Thread: Adding Amp

1: I'd amp the fronts before the rears
2: what amp are you using?

Sprint, I haven't got to the stage of selecting an amp yet. It's all still in the planning stage, as I haven't had anything to do with them in the past. All I know so far is 4 channel for 4 speakers. I'm happy to hear suggestions.
Don

how much do you want to spend?

It's a Defender, so it's noisy. I don't ever expect concert hall/ Range Rover sound. And I'm not made of money. That said, I'd like to get something reliable, probably not top end, but not bargain basement crap that won't last five minutes. Also, I don't really know what a reasonable one would cost. As I said before, it's the planning stage, and I'm fishing for ideas. Do you have something to suggest?
Don.

It depends if the clipping you are getting is coming from the amp or the speakers, I replaced the rear's in my defender with polk's (won’t buy anything else) instant improvement in quality (and only 4" coaxials) more bass and more volume and a lot clearer.
You need to look at the WRMS of the speakers you have and there efficiency (db rating) 4ohm speakers tend to have a higher efficency but there sound reproduction all ways seems to suffer for it.
Chances are your headunit it 4x50W (and that would be 50W per channel at 2ohms and with only one speaker connected, so with 4 speakers connected at 4ohms you will be lucky to get 15Wrms per channel. (look at the ppower cbale going into your headunit and ask yourself would you run a set of spotlights of that? (2x100W?)
Likely be getting clipping from the headunit , but adding an amp won’t solve the problem straight away, you could end up destroying your speakers if they are not rated to handle the higher power, a 4X50WRMS amp will work well for most car audio speakers, just make sure it is rated for 4ohms at 50W as some/most manufacturers claim 4x50W but it’s at 2ohms and its not RMS(like head units) true RMW power is down around the 25W mark per channel.
Look at polk amps, option audio do some decent ones also, and I hear good things about the high end pioneer amps
Still a lot to consider as far as bass goes, personally I cannot stand people who crank the bass up in everything, ruins the sound. It is possible that your speakers do not have an adequate crossover (simply a basic band pass filter[i.e. a capacitor] in most coaxial systems) and your distortion could be a result of the lower frequencies trying to be produced from the tweeters/mid drivers rather than the woofer. Size can play a big factor in the accuracy of bass reproduction yes, but efficiency and quality of the speaker makes just as significant a difference, for instance, my 4” coaxial polks put out more bass at higher volume than a mates 6” fusion audio splits.
In short, don’t waste money on cheap gear, headunit, amp, wiring and the speakers themselves will all have the downfalls, matching a system correctly will ensure the best sound re-production possible in any budget, put a 300W amp on a 50W speaker and you will find you it will distort at a lower volume than a better matched say 65W amp (allowing you some headroom before the amp clips) use to thin a cabling, and you will lose not only power in total tot eh speaker but are likely to drop certain frequencies (rare that is though) where possible do not route the Audio lines beside your power lines either, as you could end up with interference/noise due to the capacitance between the lines or induced current (I think I have the terminology wrong there though, surely someone will correct me)
Cheaper amps also tent to introduce a lot of noise internally from cheap mosfets and leaky capacitors.
lastly can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of blaupunk but I hear good things, so a decent amp, good quality adequate cabling and insulation and you should get decent sound

I am sure someone will come in and contradict what I have said, but that's my 2c. .

Leroy