GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

$150 choice 5.25" seperates
Eclipse (allthough i've seent hem at $300)
Diamond Audio D6


At $300 5.25" seperates
Focal
JL-Audio
Boston Pro's
Diamond Audio Hex

I've also considered Audiobahn with silk tweets. Once you figure out their power rating then you can match them correctly. They are rated as a pair and not each speaker. Am I the only one that thought power/RMS was supposed to be per/channel? Diamond is even more confusing. On their 4" Hex they claim 20-100rms. When I called to ask if the 100w was peak they said no, it was rms. I asked then what's the 20w for. they said recomended power range. I then asked what is the peak. they said "what peak". huh? I said so, 100w is the peak. The said no, 100w rms. I got nowhere with them. I think they now list it as 120w peak.

DamonB

RMS or peak power listings for any audio product is a bunch of crap and is meaningless. Everyone measures it differently and fact is the amount of power has little to do with the sound quality.

It's very easy to build a speaker that can survive 500 watts but that doesn't mean you can actually stand listening to it.

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

Yes, but I do want to match the power rating. The voice coil ont he Eclipse point source is seperated (for example) in my truck. The prices are also a bunch of crap. The Eclipse is $300 at the store and $150 on ebay, the same for Focals. Infinity Kappa Perdfects are $400 at the store and $200 on ebay. Diamonds are a good price n ebay except for Hex's, that price never budges. Audibah's tweets sound really good but i'm not shure if their woofs can handle much "amplified" power.

poss

iTrader: (5)

too much clean power almost never blows speakers. It's underpowered, over driven speakers that tend to blow. Basically put as big and nice of an amp on them as you can afford. (Obviously within reason, no need for a 1000w rms amp for a couple of 100w rms speakers.)

Dinnercoat

Peak power is what a speaker can handle for about 1 second before blowing out. RMS is the power it can handle constantly at all times, you want to concern yourself with RMS on the speakers and also RMS on the amp as well as the ohms.

The manufacturer's website should tell you the peak and RMS.

DamonB

Exactly. The amp clipping and passing high distorrtion to the speakers is what kills them. How much power the amp can make without clipping has everything to do with the quality of the amp and nothing to do with whatever power rating numbers you find for it.

You can very easily blow a 100 watt speaker with an amp rated for only 40 watts for instance. Anybody want to donate some specimans and I'll prove it?

https://www.rx7club.com/interior-exterior-audio-26/300watt-amp-400watt-sub-%3D-any-good-239545/

Fact is the only way to select speakers is by listening to them. Buying anything without hearing it first? You're taking your chances. The rest of the components and the install count as well. It's very easy to make great stuff sound like crap, but you can never make crap sound like great stuff.

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

ok, that other thread gave me a head ache.

Truck:
JL-Audio 500/5 (not installed yet)
Ecplise point source 5x7's & Audiobahn plates 5x7
I want seperates in the front that can handle the 100w/ea.
The rears are only rear fill at 25w/ea.
I like silk tweets but Diamond, Boston Pro and Focal's are pricey.

RX7:
Kicker 700/5 (funny rated higher peak then JL but lower RMS)
Was going to do rear fill but will bridge rear channels to front at 80w/ea.
Diamond Audio Hex in front door Bose box.
two JL-Audio 8w3's in custom tire well box. They are rated at 200w/ea @ 3ohm RMS. The amp is 200w @ 4ohm. The 1.5ohm load may be too much for this amp. I was originally going to use the JL amp but it's too big for my previously made custom setup in which I removed my XTant amp.

Railgun

Remember (and I don't know why people always forget/don't mention this), look at sensitivity ratings too. 120w at 86dB blows. You don't need a billion watt system to sound good. I'd take 80w at 100dB over the above any day.

Just my $.02.

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

Only the Focal's are 94.5db sensitive, the rest are 88-90db. Less RMS but higer DB.
I called Eclipse about my blown pointsource and they do not fix nor sell one seperate and warranty is non transferable. That makes me not want to get their seperates, allthough I thought it would be clean to have all Eclipse stuff. Oh yeah, the Boston Pro's and Infinity Kappa Perfect's are 3ohm so I think those are kicked off my list.

FDNewbie

iTrader: (10)

GoRacer, here's my $0.02 (in line w/ everyone else's comments so far):

- Re: quality of sound, Boston Acoustics Pros/Components are AMAZING. I have yet to have someone sit in my car and not have their jaw drop. Literally. The clarify is like nothing else you've ever heard. Amazing.

- In plain English, you want to OVERamplify your speakers. So if the speakers are say, 200 watts EACH, you want an amp that will deliver nothing LESS than 200 watts to EACH speaker. Careful w/ this, cuz some stores will try and sell you say, a 200 2-channel amp. That will only give each speaker 100!

- I'd recommend sticking w/ a 2 channel amp for your speakers, unless you're an audio freak and want to play w/ the gain separtely for the front & rear speakers. In that case, you'll need a 4 channel amp.

- When getting a sub, always ALWAYS get a mono-channel dedicated amp for the sub. Getting a 3 or 5 channel amp to power both the speakers and sub is incredibly underpowering everything. And for subs, don't believe the hype. A 10" Alpine Type R, S, or E will give you incredible bang for your buck. Trust me...I know. I had one, then went to JL 8w7s, then to a 12w6v2. It's all hype. Too big, too expensive.

- Pic your speakers, then get an amp to suit. Don't limit what speakers you can get because you have an amp in mind. That's doing things backward

~Ramy

DamonB

Good advice. No matter what killer source unit, zillion dollar amp or gigawatts you may have what you are always listening to is the speaker. Get the best speakers you can afford (that means you have to listen to them!) and then go from there. Design the system around the speakers, not the head unit or amps.

DamonB

I can't stress enough how big a difference that is. If you were to double the power output of the amp you would only get a 3dB increase in sound pressure level. The 94dB speakers will play just as loudly on less than half the power as the 90dB speakers.

Now on the flip side I would still buy the speaker I thought sounded best. Yes, the less sensitive speakers will need more power but power is easy to come by.

MrRx

iTrader: (1)

If you go with compont speakers for the front you will want to run a 4 channel amp for them.

My speakers really came alive after I installed my 500w 4 channel in the fd 4 X 75W RMS

my headunits 50 were making so i could barly hear my front speakers.

Herblenny

iTrader: (13)

my two cents..

I'm not longer an audiophile but I used to be about 10 years ago.

I when thru various top end subs, mids and highs, and amps. My car at that time was an 88 celica convertible (which i still own) with 20 speakers powered by 5 amps (approx 2.5k watts).

And my favorite speaker back then was Boston Pro seperates and JL subs.
I've listened to Ramy's car and it sounds great!

X-JaVeN-X

here's my .02...buy a/d/s speakers...then find a good amp to power them.

The earlier post about how speaker ratings are a joke is true. You can blow a $1341234 speaker if the signal from the amp is clipping. Clean power is good...distored power is bad. Like mentioned earlier, it doesn't take many distored watts to blow a higher rated speaker.

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

Well as I stated above for the RX7 I have Diamond Audio 4.5" Hex (not shure where to mount the huge x-over though) and those drop in the Bose box perfectly. Tweeters need to be mounted somewhere. No rear speakers (was going to do rear fill with JL-Audio 500/5 and Audiobahn plates). There are two JL-Audio 8w3's and I need to keep them at a 3ohm load since the kicker can't go lower then 2ohm (the JL can). The Kicker 700.5 amp is black and thinner, so it works with my hidden setup but it's no way as clean as the JL @ .005thd and the kicker @ 1.5thd which makes me worried about clipping.

The speaker dilemna is with the truck since I decided to use the JL amp there and need front speakers. I think I will either get Eclipse (cause they are 1/2 price on ebay and the rears are pointsource) or Focal's. Since I only have one 10" Infinity Perfect sub in the truck the Kicker may be a better match but then it's custom work to get the JL amp in the RX7, instead of just dropping it in.

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

Ack, my kicker amp may not work in the 7. The two JL's are 8W6's which are dual 6ohm. The kicker can't do 1.5ohm. Would it be worth running them at 6ohm? Wouldn't that drop the power down to 100w-150w max rms? They are rated for 200w RMS/ea.

FDNewbie

iTrader: (10)

I disagree. You can do incredibly well with a 500w X 2 channel amp for components in the front, if you have decent components w/ a high pass filter. I'm running a 4 channel amp, but am only using 2 channels for the fronts, one for each side (speaker & component tweeter). The other 2 channels are for the rear, for adjusting the gain to get SOME level of imaging in a car that's so small that you can touch the rear speakers with your ear if you turn your head LOL.

So yea...I see no reason to get a 4 channel amp for just front components. If you did that, the same 500w amp, running 300 rms would have delivered 150 watts a channel, and the high pass filter would take care of what sound goes to the speaker vs. the tweeter. So you'd get more power to your speakers (actual sound), and enough power to the tweeters, which are only for high's anyways, so they don't require a lot of power.

~Ramy

X-JaVeN-X

That kicker is like 75w x4 (4ohm) I think it will also do like 130 x 2 (2 ohm stereo bridged)

If you wanna use the kicker. Wire one of the wife each sub in parallel and run it to one of the kicker's bridges. Do the same with the other sub and run it to the other bridge. This should be a 3 ohm load on each bridged channel. This will probably give you about 100watts per sub...maybe a little more if that kicker is underrated at all.

GoRacer

iTrader: (2)

The Kicker is 40x4 & 210w 5th channel (sub). I can bridge the front & rears and get about 70w/ea X 2ch. The 5th channel would be 420w @ 2ohm but will not handle 1.5ohm. So my choice is either run the subs @ 6ohm or not use the amp. I called Kicker and they said at @ 6ohm each sub would would probably see only 75w and they are rated for 200w (rms). I think I was running 90w/ea with my Xtant amp bridged rear channels and it didn't kick hard enough.