How to choose an amp for speakers with different rms ratings?

[jimmyducati 10+ year member]

my front speakers are 6.5" alpine type r's rated at 50w rms, my rear speakers are 5x7 alpine type r's rated at 100w rms. is there a feature that i should be looking for on an amplifier to be able to adjust the power to the front and rear speakers so i can run both close to there rated rms power? any suggestions on amps? ive been looking at 4 channel soundstreams, good quality right?

Click to read more...

 

[Falcons 5,000+ posts]

you really dont wanna overpower a speaker just because their voice coils are so small they are easy to blow. what i would do is either get a different set of speakers to even out the rms (swap out whichever you dont like more) or run the amp at the lowest rated rms. so the 100rms speaker is only taking 50 watts rms. i would hate to see you blow your front stage just because you wanted to even out the rms. but yes the soundstream amps are good quality.

 

[Pataforce8 10+ year member]

Most any four channel amp has different gain adjustments for the front and rear channels. I'm running 60 watt rms speakers up front and 40 watt rms in the back, no problem. Just try and find a picture of the gain adjustment knob(s) on whatever amp you want to buy to see if it has separate front/rear gains.