Any problem running these on HU power for a few days?

[yotamutt 10+ year member]

I'm installing PPI 365CSs in front and Polk db651 in rear over this weekend.

Then on Wednesday, I'm having the new HU and PDX-5 installed.

The current HU is pioneer AVH P4000DVD. Is there any risk to my speakers running off HU power for 3 or 4 days?

Any advice much appreciated

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[statonburrell 10+ year member]

just go without the music for 3-4 days...

 

[SicAudio 5,000+ posts]

yup do without.

 

[yotamutt 10+ year member]

I was considering that. That's what I'll do then.

Thanks for the advice.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

Can someone please explain why you guys would rather have no music than run off of hu power? For the first 15 watts or so it's going to be as good as any external amplifier and doubling power is only good for 3db's. Heck, most car audio speakers run into power compression long before you put RMS onto them anyway. Given power compression on most speakers most speakers have maybe 9db's of sustained output over their 15 watt value. That's roughtly, half volume since 10db's is 2x as loud to the human ear at 1k. Yeah he might not want to crank them as that will distort pretty badly, but for just driving around they will do just fine and this is coming from someone with a better frontstage than 99.9% of the forum.

 

[SRim23 5,000+ posts]

honestly, i dont know the science involved on how speakers work and how the human ear hears sound and yada yada yada. but what i do have is personal experience and i remember having 100rms on my components that were rated 125rms, and thinking that it really wasnt anything special. I then upgraded amps and got 150rms on them, and they sounded like a completely different speaker. it honestly was like day and night...

whats the point of installing them now, and in just a few days having to uninstall them and then reinstall them. seems like alot of work for nothing...

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

honestly, i dont know the science involved on how speakers work and how the human ear hears sound and yada yada yada. but what i do have is personal experience and i remember having 100rms on my components that were rated 125rms, and thinking that it really wasnt anything special. I then upgraded amps and got 150rms on them, and they sounded like a completely different speaker. it honestly was like day and night... whats the point of installing them now, and in just a few days having to uninstall them and then reinstall them. seems like alot of work for nothing...

The only way 50 watts in rated power made a difference is some combination of ur old amp being vastly undmerrated and the newv one vastly overrated. Maybe ur first amp was garbage. This will do no harm and the music will sound fine if the op goes easy on the volume dial and crosses them over. Get them mounted up now if u like. Absolutely no reason not to if u dont do anything dumb with the controls. The prior advice makes no sense. They will sound acbeptable for the time being and i dont care what anybody says, they will not incinerate if u dont try to get morf out of that setup than it can give u.

 

[SRim23 5,000+ posts]

The only way 50 watts in rated power made a difference is some combination of ur old amp being vastly undmerrated and the newv one vastly overrated. Maybe ur first amp was garbage. This will do no harm and the music will sound fine if the op goes easy on the volume dial and crosses them over. Get them mounted up now if u like. Absolutely no reason not to if u dont do anything dumb with the controls. The prior advice makes no sense. They will sound acbeptable for the time being and i dont care what anybody says, they will not incinerate if u dont try to get morf out of that setup than it can give u.

being that i went from a pdx100.4 to a pdx150.4, no the previous amp was not garbage. ur telling me that its absolutely impossible to hear an audible difference when adding 50% more power...... i was merely making a point that its a waste of time to give a component setup 15 watts, if that off HU power... it certainly wouldnt be worth my time and effort to go ahead and install them for that when in just a few short days hes installing them for real. itd be different if he had them and couldnt get his amp for a few months, but hes not patient enough to wait a couple of days? come on man. dont be ignorant. to say my advice makes no sense is a little ridiculous.

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

being that i went from a pdx100.4 to a pdx150.4, no the previous amp was not garbage. ur telling me that its absolutely impossible to hear an audible difference when adding 50% more power...... i was merely making a point that its a waste of time to give a component setup 15 watts, if that off HU power... it certainly wouldnt be worth my time and effort to go ahead and install them for that when in just a few short days hes installing them for real. itd be different if he had them and couldnt get his amp for a few months, but hes not patient enough to wait a couple of days? come on man. dont be ignorant. to say my advice makes no sense is a little ridiculous.

You already admitted ur the ignorant one. If you werent and you 'understood the science' you'd know u have to double power to get the minimum 3 db increase needed to hear a difference. i toss the bs flag and say something else changed in ur install. I have gone from 60 watts RMS to 140 just by bridging the same amplifier. I could hear a difference in loudness but definitely not a night and day one.

Maybe what the op asked about is a pointless thing to do but what he wanted to know was if this would cause problems. I've done something similar before. Doesnt sound great but the music doesnt become mush either. And it doesn't automatically kill anything. i could really blow ur mind and try to explain why you rarely if ever actually see 150 watts.

 

[T3mpest 10+ year member]

You already admittf ur the ignorant one. If you werent ud know u have to double power to get the minimum 3 db increase needed to hear a difference. i toss the bs flag and say something else changed in ur install. maybe what the op asked is pointless but what he wanted to know was if this would cause problems. ivd done something similar before. doesnt sound great bu the music doesnt become mush either. i could really blow ur mind and try to explain why you rarely if ever actually see 150 watts.

50% more power is good for a decibel or two, that's about it. Yeah you can hear it, but it's not going to be drastic. Speakers also rarely take anything near what your amp puts out especially not with 75% of this forum trying to set gains with a DMM for their fronts... Perhaps those 2 amps have a differnet gain ratio? Other than that I can't imagine the difference being super big for any other reason. That being said I always run big amps on my fronts for dynamic peaks and being able to keep the gains a little lower which helps with keeping noise out, which is very important since I'm a high effeciency guy too.

 

[SRim23 5,000+ posts]

You already admitted ur the ignorant one. If you werent and you 'understood the science' you'd know u have to double power to get the minimum 3 db increase needed to hear a difference. i toss the bs flag and say something else changed in ur install. I have gone from 60 watts RMS to 140 just by bridging the same amplifier. I could hear a difference in loudness but definitely not a night and day one.
Maybe what the op asked about is a pointless thing to do but what he wanted to know was if this would cause problems. I've done something similar before. Doesnt sound great but the music doesnt become mush either. And it doesn't automatically kill anything. i could really blow ur mind and try to explain why you rarely if ever actually see 150 watts.

sorry, guess my use of the word ignorant wasnt correct in that situation. i was merely agitated because i expressed a real life experience that i had and who are you to tell me that i didnt experience what i said I did. To ME it was a huge difference and i started to hear things in the music that i hadnt before. I'm not saying that i had X amount of DB gain, nor did i blow my ear drums simply by that much power. my speakers simply seemed to come to life from one amount of power to the next. I guess your post agitated me because I hate when you share an experience and someone tries to tell you that you are wrong... you werent there, you dont know. and no, literally nothing changed. took one amp out, put the other amp in.

now when i typed my response, though i didnt quote it, i really was responding to the guy that posted above me, T3mpest. he asked why most of us would rather go with no music at all, as opposed to installing them on HU power. I shared that to me it wouldnt be worth the time.

 

[eharri3 10+ year member]

I

sorry, guess my use of the word ignorant wasnt correct in that situation. i was merely agitated because i expressed a real life experience that i had and who are you to tell me that i didnt experience what i said I did. To ME it was a huge difference and i started to hear things in the music that i hadnt before. I'm not saying that i had X amount of DB gain, nor did i blow my ear drums simply by that much power. my speakers simply seemed to come to life from one amount of power to the next. I guess your post agitated me because I hate when you share an experience and someone tries to tell you that you are wrong... you werent there, you dont know. and no, literally nothing changed. took one amp out, put the other amp in.
now when i typed my response, though i didnt quote it, i really was responding to the guy that posted above me, T3mpest. he asked why most of us would rather go with no music at all, as opposed to installing them on HU power. I shared that to me it wouldnt be worth the time.

That I agree with. I will say this. Going from 60-140 watts per side, I heard a difference. The slight extra loudness did help me appreciate the clarity a bit more, but not 'night and day'. For running off head unit power I'd say it sounds fine to someone who's never run high end components off a powerful amp but to those in the know you couldn't imagine doing it. When I was selling my last truck I took out all my good stuff. I had the dealership's car audio shop put in an old but good set of components I had laying around to fill the aftermarket tweeter holes and ran them off a cheap Alpine head unit I had in the garage. Whereas before with my Alpine head unit everything stayed clear up to about 30 out of 35 with this setup distortion set in at about 16-17 on the volume dial. I lost that 'life-like' feel where the singer was whispering directly to me and the finger was actually plucking the guitar string.

I was back at the same shop not too long ago and told, the truck went from there to the dealership, got purchased, then went right back to the shop for new stuff.