Hey.. Im trying to vastly improve my sound set-up over the stock AP1. I dont have the best components at all but fairly decent I believe, got everything in a cheap package deal from a friend, its all pretty much new.

Just wondering if you think a small amp would be of any improvement with what Ive got so far?.. Im not going to run a sub.

I have this Pioneer head unit new in box, it was $275.00 new I got it for $100.. four Planet Audio U5220s mid speakers.. two in the stock door panel location and I fit two behind the seats.. and two PA 1 3/4" tweets. Ive put sound deadener mat inside both doors all the way up.

Any other ideas on what I can do to improve? Would powering this off of the deck sound good enough or would an amp be worth buying?

 

Depends on the rms values of your HU & speakers. They need to be as near to each other as possible to get he most out of them.

 

Did you just buy random stuff because you found it cheap? You may want to be careful with that approach. There are a lot of extremely poor products out in the car audio world.

How does it sound now, what are your problems? "Better" sound is extremely subjective. Is your imaging off, is it not loud enough, are the highs too piercing (that is a massive tweeter)?

 

Its not all installed in the S yet. Im waiting on the modifry DCI.

The speakers are 100w max power and 40 or 50w continuous power I believe. The headunit is 50w x 4 max, 22w x 4 continuous. I dont know if I should power off of just the headunit and be fine with the top down or if it needs an amp.

 

You'd likely be OK without an amplifier. But, to be honest, you'll almost always be better off investing in some better components and an amplifier to power them.

I'd have a hard time recommending the use of an amplifier for the components you just installed as they're not capable of handling much power (I'd be very hesitant to run 40W to them) and there's nothing worse than throwing money into an amplifier that is matched to your current speakers only to have to invest in a more powerful amplifier a few months down the road when you decide to upgrade your components again...

 

You should also be looking at the sensitivity rating of a speaker. This tells you how loud the speaker can get with fixed power going to it. The higher the louder. Without amp, I prefer something >92db/W. If you ever drive with the top down and still want to hear the speaker, get an amp.

RMS tells you how much power a speaker can take. Hypothetically,

A 500W RMS continuous speaker at 0db/W will produce no sound even if you hook a 1000W RMS amp to it.

A 10W RMS continous speaker at 150db/W will blow you away even if you hook it to an ipod shuffle.

 

Those are great examples, I am so going to jack those,