standard gamma radio

[mcgee9t2]

i have the standard radio, could someone tell me what power output it is?

ive been told that its only 10 or 20 watt or something? is this true?

if this is true and i was going to upgrade my door speekers to aftermarket ones (which are 70 watt RMS or so ) would i have to buy an amp?

cheers

[jv]

speaker ratings are the maximum they can handle so you would be fine running them from your standard head unit. you can always include an amp later

[troublestarter]

thats not strictly correct
the rms rating is the recomended minimum power rating
if you run 70 rms speakers of a 10 watt h/u they probably will not last very long as the h/u will not provide enough power to drive the speakers cleanly and efficiently

[jv]

guess this depends on whether the original poster is talking about max figures or continuous figures?

[troublestarter]

well he states rms for the new ones

[jv]

i am confused. so 'most people' who upgrade their car speakers will do so to ones that have a vastly higher rms figure than the head unit can provide and yet the speakers won't last very long?

say for example average punter buys this average headunit:
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/kenwood-kdc-bt6044.html

now assuming that's 50w rms output (not stated so could well be max but lets assume for now)

punter buys some nice 6 by 9's for his rear parcel shelf:
http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/hertz-energy-ecx-690-3.html

which are stated as 100w 'continuous' (assumed to be rms)

so the punters speakers won't last long?

rms:
http://www.webopedia.com/term/r/rms.html


not questioning your advice or anything, just thought as you are an audio dude i would clear this up

[troublestarter]

rms is the nominal (minimum/recommended ) continuous power rating
the kenwood h/u is 50 watts max (4x12-15 rms)
so in an ideal world a set of 50 rms speakers would last a lot if run from say a 2x60 rms amplifier rather than 15rms
if you put a small amount of power into the speakers the following will happen the amp in the stereo will go into clipping/distorion
this is where the signal coming from the stereo will change from AC (which is good) to DC (which is bad) this causes the coil in the speaker to get hot and eventually expand it then will touch the gap surrounding the coil and will burn out
the problem is a lot of people cannot tell the difference between music and distortion and think oh grest they sound brilliant then the next thing they know they have a knackered speaker
also if this happens and a coil burns out in some circumstances it can become that damaged that it sends dc voltage back down the speaker cables and can blow up your stereo

if you were to put the speakers onto an amp as an example 2x60 rms the amplifier will give more clean power into the speaker thus when set up correctly using a scope and test tones (as it should be done) it is nigh on impossible to play a distorted signal into the speakers therefore resulting in the speakers not getting hot
as an example i have a set of 80 wrms components in my mk4 golf (i've had these for 6 years) and i am running an amp doing 2x195 rms into them and never blown a single one
hope thats easy enough to understand

[jv]

see what you mean, cheers

[troublestarter]

no worries buddy