speaker wattage

[blackhawk911 10+ year member]

I am looking to get new speakers cuz the ones I have now are blown, I just have a question about the wattage for the new speakers. On my factory speakers there 20w nom and 40w max. What does 20w NOM mean? Does that mean the wattage that the speakers needs to run on, I dont understand.

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[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

nom or rms. means rated power. basically if you feed those speakers 40 watts all day you will fry em. its in the ballpark of 20watts that is easier on them.

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

you will prolly start hearing distortion also. with such a low rms rating you will prolly end up blowing those jus like the last ones.

 

[blackhawk911 10+ year member]

so if I got a speaker with 20w RMS and peak at 100w I would blow them becsuse of the 20w RMS or wont because of the 100w peak?

 

[wilzyx 5,000+ posts]

throw that peak number out the window, only pay attention to rms. rms is what they are meant to be played at. max means nothing. when you buy speakers find an amp that puts out power similar to their rms

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

20 watts rms is what the company has rated it for. after that you will prolly start hearing distortion. and once you get to a point they will stop getting loud and jus sound like poop. basically you wanna match the rms of the head unit(or amp) to the rms of the speaker without going to far over.

 

[audeogod 10+ year member]

The 20 watts RMS is how much power they can handle continuously. The PEAK power is how much they can handle for a brief second or so, like on a hard bass note or powerful loud burst of any musical instrument for example. Whether or not you blow them again depends on how much power you are feeding them. Are they on an amp or on just a deck??

 

[blackhawk911 10+ year member]

Well my car comes stock with 2 amps, 1 for the front 2 speakers and 1 for the back 2 speakers. When I buy the speakers I am getting a new HU, 2 subs, and an amp for the subs. So thats why I was trying to stay near 20w rms because thats what the stock speakers are. Is this right?

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

if your gonna get a new system you need to bypass those amps for your speakers and get a good amp for them. and a good componet set for the speakers.

 

[blackhawk911 10+ year member]

see I wasnt planning on getting new speakers untill I found out that 1 was blown and the others were in bad shape. so this is why Im looking for speakers. I was just planning on getting 2 pairs that worked with the stock amps and that was the same size. this is why im asking about the wattage so that i can get it right so that I dont blow them. So seeing that my stock speakers are 20w RMS should I stay at 20W and get a higher peak or get something with higher RMS?

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

well if you blew them you are prolly turning the volume up to much and clipping the amp.

 

[audeogod 10+ year member]

You can go higher on the RMS, it won't hurt anything.

Did the factory speakers say what ohm load they are?? Most factory speakers are a higher than average ohm load, like around 8 or 10 or 12 ohms. Almost EVERY aftermarket speaker will be 4 ohms. That means that the amps would push a lot more power when turned to the same volume level as before and if they aren't built for it, then they wouldn't last, the amps I mean.

I'd bypass the factory amps and either run new speakers on just the deck, or put them on a new, nicer amp. Also ,depending on the size of the speakers you are replacing, it's going to be difficult to find speakers in the 20 watt RMS range. Most will be 40 RMS or higher, but that is not a problem. Don't try to look for speakers that only take 20 watts. Also PEAK wattage means next to nothing. Only comes into play if you were putting a 100 watt peak speaker on a 500 watt peak amp. Not likely you'll do that.

 

[skadude016 5,000+ posts]

You can go higher on the RMS, it won't hurt anything.
Did the factory speakers say what ohm load they are?? Most factory speakers are a higher than average ohm load, like around 8 or 10 or 12 ohms. Almost EVERY aftermarket speaker will be 4 ohms. That means that the amps would push a lot more power when turned to the same volume level as before and if they aren't built for it, then they wouldn't last, the amps I mean.

I'd bypass the factory amps and either run new speakers on just the deck, or put them on a new, nicer amp. Also ,depending on the size of the speakers you are replacing, it's going to be difficult to find speakers in the 20 watt RMS range. Most will be 40 RMS or higher, but that is not a problem. Don't try to look for speakers that only take 20 watts. Also PEAK wattage means next to nothing. Only comes into play if you were putting a 100 watt peak speaker on a 500 watt peak amp. Not likely you'll do that.

yup. your gonna hate it when the subs drown out the speakers.

 

[blackhawk911 10+ year member]

the front doors are 4x6" at 2 ohm and the back decks are 5 1/4 at 2 ohms

 

[blackhawk911 10+ year member]

I didnt blow the speakers the last owener did and theres only 1 speaker that is blown the rear deck speakers cone is damaged