Newbie ICE q:
 

OK, currently have a newish (and cheapish!) Sony HU - mp3 single slot (cdx-r3300) with only one pre-out. Before I bought the car the previous owner had upgraded speakers all round - Caliber. Don't know what power rating, price of em etc. or even if they are any good. They sound ok, not exactly spectacular.

Lacking in bass, I bought an active sub cheap off ebay (was £200 new, a blaupunkt velocity) that is only rated @ 140w to give a bit more punch, which it does quite well. This however obviously uses the pre-out.


The Q then (eventually):

If I bought an amp, how would I set it up and would it be best to just get it to power fronts? I did read somewhere it is better to have a more powerful amp than speakers rather than the other way around? As the amp i was looking at is a 2-channel one, rated at 760w, it is obviously rated much higher than the Caliber speakers.

Also, I think the sub can be run directly from the speaker connections rather than the HU, so if this is correct I presume I can run the amp from this pre-out instead?

I'd rather not take up more boot space than I have already with the sub, so would the amp be able to be fitted under the front seat or something (MY95 WRX).

Give this ICE newbie some advice :)

i've only worked on a 2002 wrx but i would not recommend more than around 450w for door speakers without checking their rating and putting some dynamat in the doors to stop them vibrating. it will be easier if you can mount the amp to the back or the rear seat and then u can use a pair of rca splitters to split the signal to the amp and the bass box and you can also daisy chain the power and remote signal for both items so you will have less wiring to do in the car just one run to the boot.

I could put the amp on the back of rear seat I suppose. Daisy chaining power/remote sounds good as its already been prooperly wired (not by me!) to battery and HU.

RCA splitters - so I can get by with one pre-out and split it then? That would be cool.

I might have to discount the amp I was looking at then if its too much power for the speakers.

Thanks for advice :)