Willl this work alright?

[KK07 10+ year member]

Hi there, I currently have an older Denon DCA-3180 2 channel amp laying around. It took a while but I finally found out it does 40 watts rms x 2 at 4 ohm so I'm going to amp my temporary Pioneer 5.25" speakers. I'm still not sure if the amp works or not but the internal board looks fine so I thought I'd give it a try. Does anyone know anything about this amp? I'm just wondering if its even worth putting it in because I'm not sure if 40 watts rms is going to be that big of a difference in volume? I've already spent $50 on random things for putting the amp in (new deck install, rcas, power/ground wire, speaker wire) so I feel like I'm going through a lot of trouble for such a small amp.

I guess my question is, is this actually worth it? I was planning on amping the front speakers and leaving the rears running off the deck for now until I get a chance to pull them out but I don't want to go through the trouble of installing a new amp and not seeing big results compared to running the speakers off the HU. The rest of my system is 2 12" l7s in a 5 cubes ported box tuned to 36 hz powered off of a crossfire bmf1000d with the big 3 done. I'm also getting my Kenwood x889 installed when it gets here pretty soon. Thanks for your help!

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[brandontw 10+ year member]

I havent heard of denon car amps, sound like iy might be OEM????

But anyway, if it is actually 40 watts RMS im sure it would make a difference in sound, im not sure about the speakers you have, but 20 watts RMS from an external amp is often way better than the "50 watts" coming from your HU... HU amps ****.

I would definatly give it a shot. you HU prolly only puts out 10-15 RMS...bleh.

And if you could find out if the amp it two ohm stable, you may be able to run your rear deck speakers from it as well. what do you have to lose?

 

[squeak9798 5,000+ posts]

I havent heard of denon car amps, sound like iy might be OEM????

Denon made car audio amplifiers for the US market many years ago. Actually, they still are (or were just a couple years ago) making car audio amplifiers for foreign markets.....well, foreign to us.

Search ebay and usually there are atleast two older Denon car audio amps on there.

Anyways...you should notice a big difference in power between that amplifier and the HU. Most headunits only actually put out around 10-15w RMS. That amplifier should atleast give you a solid 40w, if not a wee bit more. Big jump in power, which will give you more undistorted volume.

I would do exactly as you suggested...run the fronts off of that amplifier and run the rears off of the HU, then I'd also fade some to the front so that you can get more volume out of the front speakers before the rears begin to distort.

 

[KK07 10+ year member]

Alright, thanks a lot guys. Yeah, all of the searches I've done end up with German ebay auctions. I just have to wait for my HU to arrive and then I can get it all installed. Thanks again!