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<blockquote data-quote="drkodin" data-source="post: 1843705" data-attributes="member: 545032">An Ohm is just a measure or resistance, anything that uses electricity has a certain amount of resistance.&nbsp; The key is to match your subs to your amp, so i would honestly suggest buying the AMP you want, then going back and buying the subs that matches best to it.&nbsp; ie: if you buy 2-4Ohm subs, they can be wired to 2Ohms, but if the amp gives max power @ 1Ohm then you only get half of the amp&#039;s potential (2Ohms is twice the resistance as 1Ohm).&nbsp; There are 1Ohm, 2Ohm, and 4Ohm amps all around so dont worry so much about that as about the one that fits you and your budget; then buy the subs.As for your kenwoods, it is possible that you need an amp but i&#039;m not 100% sure, i&#039;m going to give you a crash course in something called &quot;clipping&quot;.- All amps have a rated power, and i&#039;m going to pick a rating out of the air for this explination of 200W.&nbsp; Now, on all amps is a knob that is labled &quot;level&quot; or &quot;gain&quot;, this is to match the input signal from the RCA wires to the amp itself, an easier way to say it is that if your head unit (cd player) has 2V RCA wires then you are just telling the amp to run at 2V by turning the gain to 2V.&nbsp; get it?&nbsp; good.- Now, all gain knob have a minimum and maximum rating, so for our imaginary amp lets say a minimum of 4V (this is difficult to understand, 4V is a stronger input signal so the amp doesn&#039;t have to boost or &quot;gain&quot;[get the name of the knob now?] the signal as much, so the knob is all the way down hence it is the minimum rating) and a maximum of 250mV (normal for amps).&nbsp; So this amp has the potential of producing more volume, or &quot;gaining&quot; volume, by turning this knob past 2V for our amp.&nbsp; And now we get to &quot;clipping&quot; which is what this is all about.-&nbsp; All power from all amps is clean of distortion until the amp reaches its maximum power rating (200W for ours).&nbsp; If the gain knob on the amp was to be turned even higher the amp could potentially output 400W of a clipped (or distorted) signal.&nbsp; Clipping is easy to see when it is in front of you, are you familiar with what a sound wave looks like?&nbsp; good //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif !&nbsp; Now draw an invisible horizontal line at the very top and label it 200W, this is our power max.&nbsp; If the gain was cranked and you forced the amp to make more power the sound wave would increase in size like normal (raising above the 200W line) but eveything above that line is deleted, that is the trade off to more power.&nbsp; The harder you push the amp, the more it takes off the top until insetead of a &quot;wave&quot; you just get something that looks like a square.&nbsp; That is what clipping is, when you clip off the top of the sound wave to make more power.&nbsp; To your ear, clipping sounds like distortion.Whew!&nbsp; Ok now that it is all explained lets get to your kenwoods.&nbsp; It is possible that when you turn your volume knob that you end up driving the internal amp way too hard and are just severly clipping the signal, hence the distortion you hear.&nbsp; If that is the case then yes adding a new amp will help a lot.&nbsp; If it is just the speakers themselves that can&#039;t handle the power you are feeding into them (doubtful) then a new amp wouldn&#039;t solve anything.crossovers also help, but i would try an amp first if you can afford it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="drkodin, post: 1843705, member: 545032"] An Ohm is just a measure or resistance, anything that uses electricity has a certain amount of resistance. The key is to match your subs to your amp, so i would honestly suggest buying the AMP you want, then going back and buying the subs that matches best to it. ie: if you buy 2-4Ohm subs, they can be wired to 2Ohms, but if the amp gives max power @ 1Ohm then you only get half of the amp's potential (2Ohms is twice the resistance as 1Ohm). There are 1Ohm, 2Ohm, and 4Ohm amps all around so dont worry so much about that as about the one that fits you and your budget; then buy the subs. As for your kenwoods, it is possible that you need an amp but i'm not 100% sure, i'm going to give you a crash course in something called "clipping". - All amps have a rated power, and i'm going to pick a rating out of the air for this explination of 200W. Now, on all amps is a knob that is labled "level" or "gain", this is to match the input signal from the RCA wires to the amp itself, an easier way to say it is that if your head unit (cd player) has 2V RCA wires then you are just telling the amp to run at 2V by turning the gain to 2V. get it? good. - Now, all gain knob have a minimum and maximum rating, so for our imaginary amp lets say a minimum of 4V (this is difficult to understand, 4V is a stronger input signal so the amp doesn't have to boost or "gain"[get the name of the knob now?] the signal as much, so the knob is all the way down hence it is the minimum rating) and a maximum of 250mV (normal for amps). So this amp has the potential of producing more volume, or "gaining" volume, by turning this knob past 2V for our amp. And now we get to "clipping" which is what this is all about. - All power from all amps is clean of distortion until the amp reaches its maximum power rating (200W for ours). If the gain knob on the amp was to be turned even higher the amp could potentially output 400W of a clipped (or distorted) signal. Clipping is easy to see when it is in front of you, are you familiar with what a sound wave looks like? good [IMG]//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif[/IMG] ! Now draw an invisible horizontal line at the very top and label it 200W, this is our power max. If the gain was cranked and you forced the amp to make more power the sound wave would increase in size like normal (raising above the 200W line) but eveything above that line is deleted, that is the trade off to more power. The harder you push the amp, the more it takes off the top until insetead of a "wave" you just get something that looks like a square. That is what clipping is, when you clip off the top of the sound wave to make more power. To your ear, clipping sounds like distortion. Whew! Ok now that it is all explained lets get to your kenwoods. It is possible that when you turn your volume knob that you end up driving the internal amp way too hard and are just severly clipping the signal, hence the distortion you hear. If that is the case then yes adding a new amp will help a lot. If it is just the speakers themselves that can't handle the power you are feeding into them (doubtful) then a new amp wouldn't solve anything. crossovers also help, but i would try an amp first if you can afford it. [/QUOTE]

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