Having an amplifier for your car audio is not always like which brand amp you should be looking for, it’s more about how to match any brand’s amplifier with your existing speakers. Before discussing how to choose an amplifier for car speakers, firstly you must know that an incompatible amplifier may cause damage to your speakers. Sometimes the amplifier is compatible for 2 speakers but you try to add 4 without ensuring the overall wattage doesn’t exceed the amplifier’s RMS wattage.
So we guess there are no doubts about why it is essential to know how to match amplifiers for car audio speakers. We wish you to enjoy the best car amplifier sound quality and try to follow everything we describe here.
Contents
4 Essential Tips for Choosing The Perfect Amplifier for Your Car Speakers
Choosing the right amplifier for your car speakers can be a game changer. With so many options available on the market, from compact models to high-power beasts, navigating this landscape may feel overwhelming.
However, understanding key factors such as wattage compatibility, channel configuration, and sound quality can help you unlock the full potential of your audio system. In this article, we’ll guide you through essential considerations to help you select an amplifier that will elevate your driving experience. Let’s dig into it.
Power Matching for both Speakers And Amplifier
Power matching should be the first thing that comes to our mind when choosing an amplifier. Most of the speakers have it in their specification on the website. You‘ll find power rating there, RMS power or continuous power or peak power. Do not get yourself flummoxed at all, always consider the RMS or continuous power. It refers to the power your speakers are going to need for maximum time.
In contrast, peak power is the maximum power your speaker requires for less than a second. So, peak power has no role for choosing a car amplifier.
Nominal Impedance Matching with Amplifier
You will find a nominal impedance rating at the back of your speaker. For a novice, we mostly suggest matching the impedance of the amplifier with the speaker’s impedance. Like if you have a 4 channel amp that has a continuous power rating of 500 watts and 8 ohm impedance, it means the amplifier can deliver 500 watts of power to speakers from each channel at 8 ohm load.
Now, think about you having 4 speakers of less than 500 watts continuous power rating and 8 ohm impedance. But the 4 channel amplifier can connect only two speakers normally. So here in this case, if you do series/parallel connection for 2 speakers and connect them into the one channel of the amplifier, you can connect 4 speakers into two channels of the amplifier.
The most important thing here is to keep the impedance level of the speakers either 8 ohm or higher. Connecting speakers with lower impedance than the amplifier’s specific impedance, it will definitely cause distortion.
So for this amplifier, if you do parallel connection of two speakers for each channel, their total impedance will be 4 ohm. But the amp requirement is 8 ohm. So the 4 ohm speakers will get distorted and the amp will continuously keep providing more than 500 watts of power. Which ultimately destroys the amplifier?
But if you do series connection of the speakers, the total impedance for the speakers will be 8 ohm for each channel and it is according to the requirement of the amplifier. For more details for understanding series and parallel connection, try reading an article about calculating impedance of series-parallel connection for car audio speakers. Also you can try an impedance calculator to understand what size and the required impedance and power for the amplifiers.
Channel to Speaker Ratio
Guess you already got an idea about it.. Suppose you have a 4-channel amp and the continuous power rating is 500 watts. For single pair speakers we normally use 2 channel amps. So for a 4 channel amp, we can use 2 speakers. And both of the speakers will have 500 watts power from each channel.
Now, let’s say 2 speakers can’t provide enough sound for you, because in the car it’s better if you keep the speakers from all sides.so if you want to add two other speakers, you can do it by doing series or parallel connection. In this case, each channel will power up two speakers. Same way, it’s possible to add more speakers.
Dedicated Channel for Subwoofer
For the subwoofer in your car audio system, you should have an amp that offers a dedicated channel for the subwoofer. Most of the cases, people use 5-channel amps. Even for the best amplifier for a car subwoofer you must match the RMS or continuous power rating and impedance. Our recommendation is to have any budget amplifier 5 channel amp where 4 channels are for speakers and 1 dedicated channel for subwoofer.
Is It harmless to Connect Tweeter And Speaker in The Same Channel of An Amp?
Let’s say you want a speaker and tweeter to connect to one channel. Your amp provides 250 watts from each channel, so you can wire two 100 watts speakers without any hesitation. But if you wire a speaker and a tweeter together, the speaker will draw 125 watts and the tweeter will get the remaining 125 watts. Because power gets splitted equally.
Now the question is, the less power consuming tweeter getting 3-4 times more power from the amp. Won’t harm the mechanism of the tweeter? Yes, the over power will create problems, but if you run the volume low for the speakers, then the tweeter will remain safe. The more volume you will raise, the more power will be drawn from the amp and then it will be splitted between them. We believe 4 channel-amp is enough to connect 4 speakers and 2 tweeters for car audio. Furthermore, knowing how to tune a car amp will help much to set a clipping and distortion point so that means the power output from the amp doesn’t go out beyond its level.
FAQ
1. How does impedance affect wattage in a car audio amp?
– If you half the impedance the power output will get doubled. Or the other way around, means doubling the impedance halving the power output. Let’s say your amp offers 250 watts and requires at least 8 ohm speakers. But your speaker is 4 ohm and the speaker will draw double power 500 watts. If your speaker is capable of handling 500 watts, then it’s okay for the speaker but the amplifier will face serious malfunction and may get burnt for over power.
2. What power amp do you need for 150 watts speakers?
– It is always better to have 150 watts or more wattage of amp. Because for clean power, experts always suggest at least double wattage of amp in each channel for your speakers. If you use a low power amp, clipping and distortion will be a regulated issue and the amplifier will get heated a lot. For better performance, without much tuning, go for a class D amplifier.
Conclusion
Clear car audio requires an amplifier and now you know having an amplifier is not like you can get anything. There is no clear rule for how to choose an amplifier for car speakers. Yet we tried our best to let you know what kind of things between amplifiers and speakers may damage the sound quality and the equipment. Always try to get less impedance and more wattage amp in your comfortable price range. So even if you upgrade the speakers and subwoofers later, the remaining amplifier won’t be a barrier.
