bigaudiofanati2
10+ year member
CarAudio.com Veteran
You need an amp plane and simple head units are only going to give you like 16 watts rms that's almost any of them
Actually you could get hella loud off a head unit. But past maybe half volume it's becoming distortion. You will get louder with an amp and the music will stay clean much higher in the volume swing.
When I traded in my last truck I'd had the holes drilled in the sail panels for tweeters so I didn't want to just throw in my old head unit and coaxials and show up to the dealer with empty holes in the interior. I took my Hertz components out and threw in a set of 3 year old Eclipse comps and ran them off an old cheap Alpine head unit I had lying around since I didn't know where the stock one was. Sounded good and 'adequately' loud up to about slightly above half volume then started to hurt my ears at anothing above 20 or 21 out of 35 on the volume.
Whereas running hertz comps at 140 watts rms per side I was able to go up to 28 or 29 out of 35 and it was VERY loud but still chrystal clear and perfectly smooth.
That's the difference. It's all in what you perceive as 'loud', which is why there's no perfect answer to your question. What is loud enough to you may well be half my normal playing volume. A head unit running Alpine comps may turn out to sound perfect to you or you may end up hearing it and realize the amp is worth it after all.
The lowest end of the head units may do 14 or 16 watts. The better ones can manage 18 or 22. In normal listening you will rarely see 100 percent of that wattage and depending on your listening volume you may be playing with as few as 1-5 of those watts at any given time during a song. The limitations of internal amplifiers have kept the power spread between head units so negligible that it isn't worth looking at even if you won't be running an amp. In terms of overall loudness you'll never see any difference between one mass market head unit and another, only between head unit only and an amp.
When I traded in my last truck I'd had the holes drilled in the sail panels for tweeters so I didn't want to just throw in my old head unit and coaxials and show up to the dealer with empty holes in the interior. I took my Hertz components out and threw in a set of 3 year old Eclipse comps and ran them off an old cheap Alpine head unit I had lying around since I didn't know where the stock one was. Sounded good and 'adequately' loud up to about slightly above half volume then started to hurt my ears at anothing above 20 or 21 out of 35 on the volume.
Whereas running hertz comps at 140 watts rms per side I was able to go up to 28 or 29 out of 35 and it was VERY loud but still chrystal clear and perfectly smooth.
That's the difference. It's all in what you perceive as 'loud', which is why there's no perfect answer to your question. What is loud enough to you may well be half my normal playing volume. A head unit running Alpine comps may turn out to sound perfect to you or you may end up hearing it and realize the amp is worth it after all.
The lowest end of the head units may do 14 or 16 watts. The better ones can manage 18 or 22. In normal listening you will rarely see 100 percent of that wattage and depending on your listening volume you may be playing with as few as 1-5 of those watts at any given time during a song. The limitations of internal amplifiers have kept the power spread between head units so negligible that it isn't worth looking at even if you won't be running an amp. In terms of overall loudness you'll never see any difference between one mass market head unit and another, only between head unit only and an amp.
macq32
10+ year member
CarAudio.com Elite
the quality of a head unit has nothing to do with its rated power, thats just stupid. some of the best head units dont have amps on board at all
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