Experienced with audio?.. need help

I love System 10 - but after 15 years, it's on its way to the retirement home. I'm replacing the rear speakers with the 6000cs infiniti components (RMS 2-90w) and powering them with an infiniti 2x50w amp. Is the amp going to be enough power for the speakers? I've ordered a set of the RMB8 for the front and have a spare infiniti 2x50 amp that would not do the RMB8 justice. I don't want to have a lot of small amps in the car, but have found a possible solution since the RMB8 can handle 46-175 RMS.... Infiniti Reference 5761a 6 Channel Amp ...I want to take maximum advantage of the speakers without having to do a subwoofer...

I have an Alpine Flex five amp and it runs everything in the car. Except the 8'' in the doors only because I took them out. It sounds great. I have a Memphis system though.

Ya, 50W a side from your amp should be more then enough. Most nice head only have 45w per channel and drive speakers just fine. Just turn the base up a little, maybe do a line level input from the amp, not the pre-amp input. But it should sound really nice.

It all depends on if your talking about RMS power or peak power. The RMS (continuous) power number is more important than a peak number. Most new stereos have enough continuous juice (20ish RMS watts) to power any speaker. Typically 50 watts RMS is more than enough. 30 watts RMS is enough to make most speakers loud enough (and free of distortion) for highway driving with the windows down.

This is just a basic generalization. The efficiency of the speaker also contributes to the clear volume it can produce.

For my system, I used a 50X4 channel amp. I'm running the front speakers and the 8" woofers on them. The rear speakers are powered by my head unit since the rear speaker dont need to over power the fronts. When I get bored, I diconnect the 8" woofers and used those two channels to power a 10" base tube. All in all, I perfer the tube over the 8" door woofers.

So I just got done chatting online with crutchfield and apparently running a 6 channel amp at 2 ohms, you would need 12 speakers to use all of the channels...??? I just thought that using one amp would be easier than having a couple of amps in the car. I assume that rewiring the car for this is a complete nightmare... Just trying to take maximum advantage of the setup without having to get too crazy.. What amp setup would make the most sense? I know I'm going to end up replacing all of the speakers, so a total rewire is unavoidable...and I'll probably end up with a sub at some point (Rockford 10"), but having never replaced a stereo in a car, I'll need some professional assistance or it will take me 8 months to do this around my work schedule...so I guess the question is would it be easier to use one 6 channel or a couple of smaller amps...

-Most amps are usually rated using 4 ohm impedance vs. 2 ohm. The reason being that there is more distortion and heat produced at 2 ohms.
-Most amps can handle 2 ohm power but the crappier the amp is the quicker it will over heat and shut off when you crank it up
-You can drop the ohm resistance from 4 to 2 depending on how you wire up your speakers (its complicated but deals with wiring them up in series or parallel). Your also increasing the power out of each channel substantially when you do this.
-The number of channels you need depends on the speakers you get.

If you get a pair of separates in the front and separates for the back and replace the 2 8" mid-woofers then were talkin 6 channels of power required.
If you get a 3 component system with a tweeter, 4" speaker and 8" mid-woofer for the front then only 4 channels are required.

All in all, the easiest set-up depends on the component speakers you get but with that said, a 6 channel amp can power all your stock speakers with the least amount of headache for wiring. In actuality you can power all 6 speakers with a 2 channel amp but let keep things simple here

First of all, The front speakers are much more important than the rears, a nice set of components in the front and stock speakers in the rear will sound great. rear sound is just for fill in. 80% of the sound is the front.

50 watts from an infinity outboard amp is plenty of power for any speaker. those components will rock.

You could use a five channel amplifier also, Just hook up both of your 8" speakers to the 5th "sub" channel and this will see two ohms, and the rest of your speakers will be a 4 ohm load.

you never really want to push interior speakers at 2 ohms, you usually only gain around 40-75% more power but you get 10 times the distortion, I would only use 2 ohm loads on low frequency drivers like your 8" woofers, because the human ear if less sensitive to distortion in this area.

I hope you have a good head unit, Because it seems as if you are buying really nice stuff and a good headunit with a good D/A converter and rca outputs will dramaticly better the sound of an onboard amp. (line level is ghetto) but to each his own.

you could)
1) use those two infinity amps to power you two sets of interiors, and get a seperate two channel or mono amp to run those 8" woofers.

2) sell those 2 infinity amps on ebay and pick up a nice 5 or 6 channel amp to run everything (MUCH easier installation and cleaner setup)

3) I know you said you might not want a sub but a single ten inch or 12 inch sub in a good box will blow those 8" woofers away ( the door just isn't a good enclosure) then you could install that component system in the front and leave the rears stock. Use one of those infinity amps to power the fronts. your headunit to power the rears. And bridge the other infinity amp to run a single sub at two ohms, so probably giving it 150 watts. (if the sub is a 4 ohm sub). This would sound really good and you wouldn't have to spend much else.

Just a few options


Also Crutchfield is expensive for amplifiers or most anything actually, ebay is the cheapest, just look for a good 5 or 6 channel amp. Infinity makes good stuff though. Just found that 6channel infinity for 219.00 "buy it now" on ebay.

If you want anymore info on anything car audio feel free to pm me, (sorry for rambling but car audio if my thing), I love doing that stuff.

Thanks for all of the help everyone - I've never had a car worthy of investment until now and just making sure to do it once and do it right. I should keep it simple with the 6 channel. I've been told that the Rockford subs bleed off power and a 600 watt sub is preferenced for a competition setup (spl?), rather than one that just sounds outstanding. The Infinity Kappa Perfect 10.1d DVC sub (350wRMS) seems a more rational choice with such a small cabin size. I would eventually like to remove the back seats a have a custom setup put in there, but that seems lightyears away right now. So...looks like I've got a path now to build the system that Toyota could've but didn't (the cars were so damn expensive new)

For Subs, I still think a Bazooka 10" tube with at least 100 watts going to it is all you need for personal listening. That tube hits harder and cleaner than the 12" that Im using now (my bazooka got stolen a while back). Anything more would just be a nuisance to anyone a block away

I've got two 11" subs, each getting 500 watts rms from an Audison VRX 1.500. It sounds awesome in the car but once you get out of the car and even stand next to it it doesn't sound that loud at all. I dont think it would be a nuisance, it only bothers me when peoples cars are rattling, now thats a nuisance.

As far as subs go I think the enclosure is more important than the sub. (I always build my own) But infinity perfects are AWESOME subs. They are very sensitive, 94dB on the 10, and 96dB on the 12, highest I've ever seen for their size.

You could go also go with a single voice coil 10.1, and bridge the two sub channels, this would cause the amp to see a two ohm load, giving the sub 296 watts instead of 214. This would give you almost 2dB louder bass. But running it at 4 ohms with the dvc might be a little cleaner.