What should I upgrade next?

[vincentp83 10+ year member]

I just installed my base system. For my budget, it sounds incredibly good. All I have in my car right now are 4 coaxial 6.5" Alpine speakers (Which are kickass and cheap as dirt), and a a Kenwood Excelon x890 (Which is even more kickass).

I'm ready to take the next step to improve sound quality, but I still want to keep my budget reasonably low. I have a slightly older JBL amp sitting around at home. It's a 200 watt, 4-channel amp, so I can only assume it puts out 50 per channel. Anyways, I'd like to use this to save myself money, so I really just need to get a sub. From my limited knowledge, I guess I would use one amp channel for my front speakers, one for the rears, and possibly two for a sub? I'm probably only going to buy one sub, looking for punchy, natural bass, so I'll go with either a 10 or 12 inch single sub. I'm looking at the Rockford Punch Stage 1 or something similarly inexpensive, with a sealed box.

Now, my real question is how should I wire this amp, will it be able to cover the power to all of the speakers, or do I leave a pair on HU power? Also, would it be prudent to add some tweeters to my system, since I'll be increasing bass, perhaps it would help to increase the highs as well. If it matters, I listen to almost exclusively rock.

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[vincentp83 10+ year member]

Anybody?

 

[MBrock4u 10+ year member]

Well there are several ways to go here. In my opinion, it is better to have all speakers amped especially if your looking for sound quality. On the other hand it is not nesessary to amp your rear speakers if you want to save some money. You can bridge your amp to run your sub and amp your front speakers. Thats your best bet for saving money. Unfortunantly, that amp won't provied much power to a sub. It would be better to amp all 4 speakers and run another amp for your sub. You can always save some money to do that at a later time. Just some thoughts...