I have 2 rear speakers and 2 door speakers both made by prioneer. the total watts equal 600.. Should I buy a 600 watt or 700 watt amp?

 

first what model speakers do you have. What you are posting is peak power not rms. Unless you are really running some high end model that I don't know about.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by BLUE EH3 &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">I have 2 rear speakers and 2 door speakers both made by prioneer. the total watts equal 600.. Should I buy a 600 watt or 700 watt amp?</TD></TR></TABLE>

those are definately peak wattage specs that you are using. I would say your speakers are 30-35 watts RMS...or maybe u have the upper end model of pioneer and its 50 watts(the new model). you need to get an amp that has an RMS rating that is equal(or close to it) to your speakers RMS rating. the RMS means the 'normal' power it can handel over a long period of time, peak means for short instances it can handel that wattage.

Some others can weigh in here but I would say if you have the 30 watt speaker, just leave it to ur head unit to power it. if you have the 50 watt speaker, you could get something like shown here: http://www.crutchfield.com/S-c...C6202
I would just get an amp for your front speakers.

I have a CDA-9807 cd player, SPR-176a Alpine Type-R components, Alpine MRV-t320 2-ch amp powering the front components and then the SPR-174a rear speakers running off of the cd players amp.

As you may have noticed, I like Alpine

 

600w or 700w

 

u cant go off of peak wattage, you have to go off of RMS

 

howdo i check it

 

how do you check what? the RMS wattage? when you buy it look at the box or the tag at the store....or on the net....

just go to your local Best Buy or Circuit City, they might b able to help you. i say might because where I live, they dont know anything but they bullcrap like they do....its kinda sad to listen to them.

 

i dont have the box anyone, the speakers are in my car

 

pioneerelectronics.com

You do remember the model number?

 

with those speakers you'll be fine with any 4 channel amp. i personally like the kicker 350.4 amp and the eclipse ea4000 eclipse is more but worth the price.

 

TS-D681R and TS-A1781R

 

u want to give the speakers less power then they can handle otherwise u'll blow them out

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GOTSUBZ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">u want to give the speakers less power then they can handle otherwise u'll blow them out</TD></TR></TABLE>
not true . I have Alpine Type-R (SPR-176a) and they are rated at 50 watts. I am putting about 70 watts to them and they are totally fine, i have had them in 2 different cars(my Altima and now my Civic). What causes the speaker to blow is distortion and clipping. now, overpowering the speakers means you have to do it within reason, im not saying to hook a 100 rms per channel amp to your speakers because that will probably blow them, im saying overpowering them within a reasonable range is safe

If you do have the 30 watt speakers, you wont want to get a powerful amp, i dont know of any amp that just puts out 30 watts, your head unit comes close to that anyways. Personally I would get new speakers that can handel more power and get a 2 ch amp for the fronts and leave the rears the way they are. more sound is supposed to come fromthe front speakers so the rears only are supposed to have about 15% of the car stereo's sound...ofcourse this is depending on preference though.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by GOTSUBZ &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">u want to give the speakers less power then they can handle otherwise u'll blow them out</TD></TR></TABLE>

Speakers can never have too much power, provided you can adjust the gain accordingly.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rochesterricer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">

Speakers can never have too much power, provided you can adjust the gain accordingly.</TD></TR></TABLE> so a 600 would enuff for my 600w speakers

 

Are you talking peak watts or rms watts? Only use rms ratings for both amps and speakers.

But, generally, you want an amp that puts out more power than your speakers are rated for. That way you have something called headroom. As an amp gets closer to its clipping point, it will tend to create more noise. Therefore, you want to have plenty of clean power before you hit that point. It will work just fine with less power though. Its just not totally optimal.

 

peak watts<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rochesterricer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Are you talking peak watts or rms watts? Only use rms ratings for both amps and speakers.

But, generally, you want an amp that puts out more power than your speakers are rated for. That way you have something called headroom. As an amp gets closer to its clipping point, it will tend to create more noise. Therefore, you want to have plenty of clean power before you hit that point. It will work just fine with less power though. Its just not totally optimal.</TD></TR></TABLE>

 

Personally if I had the 30 watt speakers that I think you have, i would just run them off of the head unit. If you have the high end speaker of that brand i would definately get an amp.

 

Peak watts are essentially meaningless and almost arbitrary.

 

<TABLE WIDTH="90%" CELLSPACING=0 CELLPADDING=0 ALIGN=CENTER><TR><TD>Quote, originally posted by rochesterricer &raquo;</TD></TR><TR><TD CLASS="quote">Peak watts are essentially meaningless and almost arbitrary.</TD></TR></TABLE>

Exactly. "Peak watts" is a value determined on a test bench somewhere on a regulated power supply outputting an extremely clean 14.4 volts (sometimes higher) with a high input signal voltage. None of these variables are generally able to be duplicated in most car stereo setups and therefore, the number the manufacturer puts in front of "peak" usually means nothing.