Please forgive me I have no experience with ICE at all so forgive my possibly stupid questions.

I have now fitted a Sony head unit and infinity front/rears and tweeters all run on the standard speaker cables fitted to car

Sounds fine at a reasonable level but if I pump it up a bit it sounds dreadfull (no where near as good as my Focus standard setup) bass distorts terrible.

Will i need to fit an amp.
Will I need to run speaker cables from amp to speakers
Whats the best sort of amp for reasonable cash
Should I fit a sub, if so what's best for best cash

Thanx for any info.

 

Problem is, you're running the setup from the head unit amp, although it shouldn't sound too bad. Although head units are rated as 4x45/50/40 watts, this is absolute maximum power it hits on occasion. Realistically, you can divide the rating by 3 and get the rms, or continuous power from that. So your hu, rated at 50 wattt (?) is actually putting out about 20 real watts. So pumping it up will strain the amp and cause distortion.

An external amp, dedicated to amplifying the pre out from the head unit will solve your problem. If you spen money on a decent source and speakers, but don't get an amp, you might as well stick to the original setup. Best bet - check out the classifieds or loot.com for a nice secondhand Phoenix Gold (say, the 4150, should be about £150) or similar. The amp will be in the back, so you need to run an rca from the head unit, along with a remote turn on (the blue wire output), power cable from the battery and speaker cable from the amp to the four speakers. As with many things, it will be as good as the weakest part, so its worth spending appropriate money on wire etc.

Does this answer your questions ok?

 

The only time a question is stupid is when its not asked. We all had to start somewhere!!!!!!!

 

BTW, have you seen the FAQ? http://www.chiark.com/scooby/icetoc.asp

 

Thanx guys I now where to start now.

Will be back to tell you how it sounds.

Thanx again.

dazza.