Rear Speakers

[Cro]

From what I understand, the front speakers are supposed to be the ones doing most of the work and the rears are only supposed to be helping out a little. If this is true, is there a point in buying another 2 channel amp or going with a 4 channel to power the rear speakers too or would it be fine if I just ran the rears off the head unit?

[Navy I.C.]

The point for me is to get the extra stress of powering the speakers off of my HU's circuitry and let the HU concentrate on delivering a good clean signal to the amps. The end result is to get better sounds with less distotion at mostly all of the volume settings.

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by Cro

If this is true, is there a point in buying another 2 channel amp or going with a 4 channel to power the rear speakers too or would it be fine if I just ran the rears off the head unit?

Running the rears on the headunit is perfectly fine, in fact if people insist on running rear speakers at all this is what I tell them to do. I've had a 4ch amp giving all the speakers the same amount of power and it's just a waste of money. Spend this money on better front speakers, not on more power for the rear that you'll never even come close to using.

[aznxthuggie]

Originally Posted by Navy I.C.

The point for me is to get the extra stress of powering the speakers off of my HU's circuitry and let the HU concentrate on delivering a good clean signal to the amps. The end result is to get better sounds with less distotion at mostly all of the volume settings.

that must rarely happen because i've been on so many forums and no one has ever complained about that.. also its ok to run off head unit power.. but once you get past 65% the head unit amp should start clipping.. which creates distortion.. i duno wat the hell ur talking about the head untis circuitry or whatever.. i always delievers a clean preamp out signal unless somethign is wrong with the rca cable or you have the gains wrong

also i have non of my speakers run by my head unit.. i amped the front and back.. sending 87rms to each one.. sounds great even for 60rms speakers

[Navy I.C.]

some people get distortion and think they're at their limits, other people think about cleaning their signal flow. one way is to use separate ckts (componets) for signal processing and amplification. it doesn't take much to induce noise into ckts that uses signals that small (.500mv -4v is common). i think of every phase of every system i build as a future reference system. but thats just me i guess

[DJ Brady]

I'm a big fan of not using head unit power as well... my thinking isn't necessarily to 'free the head unit of extra responsibility', but more to keep the temperature down (using the head unit's amp will heat things up in your dash). I think discrete amplifier power is better, I refuse to believe you can pack 50w x 4 (common claim of most head units nowadays) into that tiny space and get true clean power out of it...

[AZFlyingDiver]

yep, 50w x 4 is really more like 22w x 4 (roughly) true RMS... not really enough to do much with...

[PaulD]

I don't like headunit power, personally. I wonder why alpine's new line (the 98xx series) all have built in power, to me it's just a waste

[Cro]

Yea, but if I can go without buying a more expensive amp just to power the rear speakers and not sacrifice the overall sound quality, whats the point?

[bumpn lude]

are your rears stock?

[Cro]

No, my stock rears blew out so i replaced them. Didn't put in anything fancy, just a pair of boston acoustic fx's. I know now that I shouldn't have wasted money on rear speakers until getting better fonts, but its too late to change that. The fx's can handle more than the head unit can provide, but i just dont want to invest anymore money in a already bad decision.

[Navy I.C.]

Originally Posted by Cro

No, my stock rears blew out so i replaced them. Didn't put in anything fancy, just a pair of boston acoustic fx's. I know now that I shouldn't have wasted money on rear speakers until getting better fonts, but its too late to change that. The fx's can handle more than the head unit can provide, but i just dont want to invest anymore money in a already bad decision.

how do you figure rears are useless, even if you crossover your fronts perfectly with your sub, the best you can hope for is half the sound half as full w/out rears. if switch your a/v outs on your HU to the front a/v outs you can fade from front to center w/out losing subs. It won't take long to see what you'll be missisng

[loismustdie]

Originally Posted by Navy I.C.

how do you figure rears are useless, even if you crossover your fronts perfectly with your sub, the best you can hope for is half the sound half as full w/out rears. if switch your a/v outs on your HU to the front a/v outs you can fade from front to center w/out losing subs. It won't take long to see what you'll be missisng

are you saying that with only front speakers you will only get half the sound.......wtf!?!?

[bumpn lude]

i say run them off the head unit for now. then save up and get components in the front. then save up again and get a 4-channel amp. or u can get them at the same time if u have enough. do what ever you want. u dont have to get an amp right this second, but i would eventually. thats just me though.....

[Navy I.C.]

Midbass transition
For sub-bass to sound natural, the system must have good midbass capability as well. These two are interrelated because harmonic components of the sounds produced by instruments that play in the sub-bass range must be accurately reproduced in the mid-bass range for a system to sound accurate.
In car audio, we normally don't have the luxury of using very large drivers to reproduce midbass. For this reason, the ability of a subwoofer system to smoothly transition to the mid-bass region becomes very important to achieving top-notch fidelity, (enter front 6's rear deck 6x9's or if your fortunate 8's). How I see it, (and the folks at JL Audio), from sub to rear to front it's all a piece of one sound. If you take from the system your taking from the sound.