Reegan wrote:Hey there!
In my 2008 liberty 3.0r-b I am currently running the stock 14 speaker mcintosh system, with an upgraded 4ohm 80 watt sub that I installed a few days ago. I am looking at upgrading the entire system except for the head unit at this point in time.
Does anyone have any recommendation on an amplifier which would be able to continue to run the new sub as well as the upgraded system? I understand that currently the amp is 4ohm whilst the rest of the speakers are 8ohm. Should I continue this set up once I upgrade the amplifier or run all 4 ohm speakers, as I can seem to find more of these around online these days.
Any other general advice or speaker/amp recommendation? Cheers.
Hi Reegan,
when you say "rest of the speakers are 8ohm"? Is this what is stated on the speaker itself?
have you measured the impedance of each channel (E.g. front left, front right) to get a rough idea of the total combined resistance for each channel?
because although the speakers may say 8 ohm on the back, the overall resistance will change depending on how they are connected to each other.
That being said most car amps typically like 4 ohm, but most quality amps are versatile and can run 8 ohms and are even 2 ohm stable
additionally most amps around will provide enough power you need but the build quality, design and component quality can greatly change the tone of an amp (full bodied or weak bodied bass, warm or cold toned mids, crisp or muddy highs) and, if you have a keen ear, the sound you hear will vary from amp to amp. this is why audiophiles are quite selective about which amps they use and have their preferences.
to make things more complicated different speakers have different sounds, some are wet, some dry etc so testing an amp in a shop may or may not be accurately representing the sound quality of that amp from within your car.
so if you dont care about it all that much just go down to a shop and pick an amp with a higher wattage rating than your speakers, as having a lower rated amp will lend itself to clipping thus blowing speakers more frequently. e.g. i've run many setup including 80watt sub on a 350 watt mono amp and even 250 watt speakers on a 1500 watt per channel amp! watch those little buggers move! and pull back a bit when you hear cone flex