Is this true about having enough power?

[nyankee97 10+ year member]

I read somewhere that your amp's power rating should be in the top quarter of the power rating of your speakers. For example if you have speakers rated at 100 watts RMS, then you amp should be rated in the 75 - 100 watts RMS range. Is this true?

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[JimJ 5,000+ posts]

Well...running an underpowered amp isn't bad, it won't hurt your speakers, unless you have the gains set so high that it's sending the amp into clipping.

Generally you want as much power as your speakers are rated for, maybe even slightly over to give some dynamic headroom.

 

[3.5Max6spd 10+ year member]

distortion is a greater factor in getting spekers to sound like a ss- but yes, as long as you run good speakers, more power than rated for the speaker shouldn't be an issue with properly set gains

 

[teeroy 10+ year member]

i tried to post this as a separate question but kept getting an error... so i think my question is sort of relative to this so here goes... (sorry for the hijack)

i have a set of mb quarts (RCE216's and RCE213's) and am looking to get a single 12". do you think i should get a 5 channel amp to run my system? i'm not looking for competition boom nor am i looking to rattle my car to pieces either. what i'd like is something to run with my stock HU (i have a stock nav system), sounds clean and less hassle of going separate amps etc.

can i achieve this with a 5 channel? or should just got with a 4 channel running the speakers and a mono running the sub?

if the 5 channel route is ok, what amp should i run? btw, my speakers suggest a 60-130w rmp... so does this mean i need an amp that can output at least 60-75w continuous to avoid distortion?

im sort of a noob here so sorry for the basic q's...

 

[teeroy 10+ year member]

btw, ne one heard of this amp??? BOSCHMANN PRO Z-8529X

are they decent? looks like the power rating i need...

 

[Alpine CDA-9815 10+ year member]

Personaly I like to go with an amp that puts out more RMS power then the speakers are rated for. That way you can give the speakers their RMS rating/get the most out of them, but since you have more power you can keep the gain on the amp down... so you don't send the amp clipping.