Amp selection

Mike

I have a pair of Polk 602's in rear and a pair of Polk 502's in front(yeah I know they are a few years old but still sound good) What I want to do is boost up the volume a bit and keep the nice clean sound. I need advice on what kind of amp and size of amp I should get. Any help is appreciated.

PoweredByDodge

what line are these from??? they dont sound like dx or exii gear - is this db or mm stuff? or maybe original ex ? if so - whats the rated RMS on the speakers?

in general i'd say a nice decent 75 x 4 watt amp would do the job. alpine / mtx / RF / cadence / hifonics

Mike

Yeah they're old. Series EX II. EX 502a are rated at 100w max. EX 602a rated at 120 w max.

PoweredByDodge

ohh exII's - that's not that old - you can get away with 40 x 4 for an amp -- to push them to their utter limit -- 65 x 4 and BE SURE TO USE HIGH PASS CROSSOVERS.

i toyed around with ex ii 6x9's for a while -- they were rated at a higher rms than the dx -- which really i never understood because it was a wholly untrue rating... i could never get over 75 onto them without them breaking up -- that was with a 80 hertz high pass xover @ 18 db/octave.

i think 65 - 70 x 4 outa the amp with a 100 hertz high pass xover will do fine... u can drop the xover point lower as long as u drop the power level -- ie 50 x 4 with a 70 hz xover.

i tore the hell outa my ex 6x9's -- had a good time doing it though

Mike

Thanks for the reply and info. Right now I'm looking at Alpine amps. I'm trying to decide between MRP-F200, MRP-F240 or stepping up to MRV-F 340 or MRV-F 540. As I search the net I get different specs on different sites. A bit confusing. Do you think I'll be able to hear the difference between these amps? Which would you suggest? Or do you know of another amp that will sound good with my speakers? When a spec is 65X4 is that max or continuous pwr? Which spec should I use max or continuous? Sorry about all the ?'s but I'm new at this and just want to get the best sound out of my Polks. Thanks.

sntnsupermen131

the 65w is going to be rms(continuous power)
max or peak ratings are next to useless
companies will put them on their amps/speakers to make them seem better
for example..i saw an amp a few weeks ago...i think it was a sony
and on the amp it said 1200 watts
and the rating was like 125x2 @ 4 ohms
they can do that because its like 500x1 @ 2 ohms
the 1200 watts is the max
so dont pay attention to the max or peak power
stick with rms and youll be good
-Cody

PoweredByDodge

as cody said -- rms not max is what u wanna look at.

secondly -- alpine has started publishing both 12.5 volt and 14.4 volt ratings for its amps... usually u can split the difference between the two and call it your "realisitc" output -- but for standardized reference look at the 14.4 volt rating. so 14.4 and rms is what u want.

the mrp's aren't enough juice (imho)

i'll be straight with u -- the F540, its msrp is like 600 dollars and it only does 80 x 4 ??? gimme a break... i can get two mtx 502's that'll do 125+ x 2 each for that price RETAIL... there are a lotta better amp companies out there that wont charge u that much for a foreign product.

the 340 for 400 bucks does 55x 4 rms -- again that's hefty for that small amoutn of power -- i've never been much of an alpine freak due to high pricetagsfor small power.

u can look at something like an RF power 551 X -- its 70 x 4 for 400 retail -- but RF is usually underrated -- so u can feel confident that is more like 80 x 4 for 400 bucks -- 200 less than the alpine.

If you want my personal reccomendations.. here u go -- in this order...

1- Hifonics Nemesis NX880 -- 100 x 4 at 4 ohms -- more power than you need BUT its affordable! and its damned good looking, cosmetically as good if not better than the alpine... it is on sale for 260 bucks!!!!!! (390 minus 130 "domain dollars instant rebate").. 400 watts of clean good solid power from an amp company that knows damn well how to build a good item for 260 bucks is a win win situation.

2- Hifonics Zeus ZX6400 - 85 x 4 at 4 ohms -- more in the power range of what u need and its about 300 bucks on sale as well at sounddomain.

3- Phoenix Gold Tantrum 600.4 -- 75 x 4 at 4 ohms -- if you're hell bent on spending 600 bucks on an amp that's only ballpark 80 x 4 -- then do it on one that could actually be worth that money like this one-- 550 retail.

4- Profile California Series 640 -- 75 x 4 at 4 ohms -- this is a good budget amp -- it only costs 160 bucks at crutchfield ... its not going to go nose to nose with teh above amps, but if money is an issue or this isnt an amp you're going to keep for 4 or 5 years or if you are getting a different car or you dont eventually want new speakers, then this may be something more right for you... its one of the few lines of lower priced amps that the members of this forum as well as most people in general will agree perform well, are durable, and satisfy their users at a low price (and they're not bad lookin -- silver with red pin stripe).

hope this helps

Mike

Great. Thanks for the reply and great info. I guess I will look into Hifonics. Sounds like good advice to me.

The only specs I can find on my speakers is the max. watts. 602 is 120w max and the 502 is 100w. max. So will the Nemisis be too much and will it harm my speakers or should I go for it?

sntnsupermen131

the nemesis would be too much power
your rms is usually something like half the amount of the max or maybe a little less
hardly ever is it more than half
so the 602 will be about 60 watts rms and the 502 50 watts rms
so i think the alpine 340 or the profile would be perfect for your application
youre probably going to want an amp that does like 55-65 watts, but I wouldnt feed those speakers any more power than that
-Cody

PoweredByDodge

ya it is overkill but i figured its just so damned cheap that u can run it with the gains at zero and "save" it till u get bigger speakers.

I gots ta finds me an amp that's like 200 x 2 and 75 x 2 -- literally a 4 channel thats 200 to fronts a 75 to backs -- they ought a start building crap like that.