Do I need an amp?

[mattman]

Ok...

My current setup -

stock VS tape deck, stock 6" fronts, pioneer 3way 6.5" in the parcel shelf (only put in yesterday). The 3ways are much clearer than stocks and give good bass... but don't really go any louder, if anything they are a touch quieter.

I'm looking at putting in a pioneer 4x50W HU.. the 6.5" speakers are rated at optimal 35W.. max 220W (which is basically a BS figure).. is this going to drive things nicely? like are the 35W and 50W figures on the same scale? I'm not interested in a sub at all, about all i might do is swap the front speakers out for 3ways as well..

Basically... given the above proposed setup.. to get a bit more volume out of things (above the stock speakers/HU), am i going to need an amp? or will the new (more powerful) HU do the trick?

[hakhawk]

unless you want it REALLY loud, juststick with the pioneer unit, no amp, get different frot speakers, and u'll be fine.

the 50w figure on the headunit, willbe quite a shock, as thats a max figure, rms for each channel is really about 7-8watts.

but it will drive your speakers nicely.

[mattman]

so with the new HU it should still be getting plenty louder than stock?

I'm only ever going to be listening to it when driving... so it doesn't need to be insanely loud... i do like to keep my hearing

[dephilile]

I think pioneer head units in theory put out 14W rms per channel. But this depends on things like the size of the power wire and that going to the head unit.

A pioneer head unit won’t be much more powerful than the stock head unit, not enough to see a noticeable difference IMO. You will probably see an increase in the quality of sound however, more volume before distortion.

The 6.5” speakers you talked about above will run fine from any after market head unit. If you do decide to get an amp I would suggest you get some splits for the front.

If you want really loud AND good quality you are going to need an amp. If you just want loud with average quality then powering some 3ways from the head unit will do the trick.

[mattman]

I thought there would be a bit of a difference at least... the old speakers were MAX 30W.. i would have thought the old HU would be paired to that nicely.. giving around a max of 30w.. so even jumping to 50w should give it a bit of a kick... although my logic could be completely wrong

[Tasmaniak]

the Pioneer will be much louder then the stock unit, including the speaker upgrade. This will keep you satisfied for some time if your coming from the stock headunit. Don't worry about an amp just yet. Save that till later once the bass bug has bitten in deeply.

[mattman]

Nooooo i'm not getting a sub :P I need my boot... The 3ways already push the bass hard enough to distort the music (admittedly not that difficult at the moment).

Thanks for the reply though... sounds like this should do the trick for me Now just to see how badly I can screw people for a price :P