Will a filter help with the reduced power output I will be using

natedagreat6666

Purchased a pair of polk dxi570's from crutchfield, was told they would run fine on what I have but wanted a 2nd opinion

The speakers of course are 60 watts rms and 180 peak

The amp I will be using is a class a/b Kenwood kac 941 which has 40 watts rms x 4, they'll be getting 80 rms each but once I have money for the rear speakers these speakers will only be using 2 channels unbridged 40 rms 80 peak

I plan on using the high pass filter which is settable between 30 and 200hz which I will have at least at 80 , so will this be ok clipping wise if I just turn up the high pass filter , and will I get any bad distortion past like 80 percent of the volume or will already be too loud of sound for me to tell

natedagreat6666

can someone move to car audio section, my bad, didn't look first

[Deleted User]

natedagreat6666 wrote: »

can someone move to car audio section, my bad, didn't look first

Done. :cool:

pentoncm

They will be fine. Power is much less important than clipping. It would be worse to give them 20W but drive the amplifier to clip rather than give them 100W that is clean.

MacLeod

The high pass filter has nothing to do with clipping. Youre thinking of the gain. The gain is what matches the amps input with the head units output so that when your head unit is at 50% volume, your amp is at 50% as well. Too high and when your volume is at 50%, your amp could be at 80% and when you hit 100% and try to go higher, thats when you get clipping.

The high pass filter is just that, a filter that cuts off frequencies below a certain point. Your 5x7's wont play 40 Hz that well and and theyll distort so you might want to cut them off above that point. 80 Hz however is a little high. Id cut them off at 50 Hz cause theyll play that low with little problem. 63 Hz would be the highest I would set it. You want your speakers to give you some good punch and 50-80 Hz is where most of this punch energy is.

natedagreat6666

MacLeod wrote: »

The high pass filter has nothing to do with clipping. Youre thinking of the gain. The gain is what matches the amps input with the head units output so that when your head unit is at 50% volume, your amp is at 50% as well. Too high and when your volume is at 50%, your amp could be at 80% and when you hit 100% and try to go higher, thats when you get clipping.

The high pass filter is just that, a filter that cuts off frequencies below a certain point. Your 5x7's wont play 40 Hz that well and and theyll distort so you might want to cut them off above that point. 80 Hz however is a little high. Id cut them off at 50 Hz cause theyll play that low with little problem. 63 Hz would be the highest I would set it. You want your speakers to give you some good punch and 50-80 Hz is where most of this punch energy is.

I don't really need anything below 80 hz, as i have already have 12" rockfords in the trunk which will soon be swapped for a 15" alpine dvc

The thing is though is I plan on switching the speakers from bridged on the amp to the regular single alone channels ( when I put in rear speakers for back vocals) which will be only giving40 of the 60 rms, I just worry that when I turn the volume up high they'll clip unless I'm thinking of the gain in the wrong way like you said, the amp gain will not be adjusted as the jvc arsenal unit has 5v out as max volume and all amps will be 5volts for easy setup, so I should definitely be good to go

MacLeod

You want 80 Hz running thru your front speakers to pull the bass up front as much as possible. If youve got 80 Hz running thru your subs, all your bass will be coming from the back. Having your front speakers dig down as deep as possible will go a long way in keeping all the music up front with you.

natedagreat6666

I'll keep that in mind, not quite up to speed with everything, my last car I just upgraded the speakers and didn't put in a subs so I wasn't really aware of difference with the direction of sound, just tuned it right and enjoyed

MacLeod

We can help ya here quite a bit. Traffic has slowed down a ton here lately but eventually somebody would chime in with some info. LOL

natedagreat6666

I'm just surprised to learn something I thought I already knew, somehow I got this idea the amplifier should have an equal rms value to the speakers or a bit higher or it would clip, when really the rms is the max continuous power?

just waiting now for the second pair and the rca cables I ordered so I can replace all 4 speakers

KaosTsoc

natedagreat6666 wrote: »

I'm just surprised to learn something I thought I already knew, somehow I got this idea the amplifier should have an equal rms value to the speakers or a bit higher or it would clip, when really the rms is the max continuous power?

Ideally yes. You want to get an amp that is equal to rms of you sub, or slightly higher, cause that will give you more head room (meaning: you have more power if needed). Under powering is ok as well, but you would need to take care and not over push your amp. Having too much power is an issue as well. You would put to much power to your speakers, and then blow them. The overall determing factor is how much money do you have??

Thanks

natedagreat6666

KaosTsoc wrote: »

Ideally yes. You want to get an amp that is equal to rms of you sub, or slightly higher, cause that will give you more head room (meaning: you have more power if needed). Under powering is ok as well, but you would need to take care and not over push your amp. Having too much power is an issue as well. You would put to much power to your speakers, and then blow them. The overall determing factor is how much money do you have??

Thanks

I owe my parents money so I probably won't go past this, but mostly I don't wanna change the amp as it's 20 years old and has some quality to it, it's packed inside, no space except for the wind tunnel heat sink that the fan turns on if the transistors get hot enough

I have heard about amps putting out twice the power, but the headunit is 5v and the amp can take 5v so no tuning means it won't clip too easy and I probably won't turn up all the way with how loud they should be, I had kickers in teh front and sonys in the back of a previous car, costed like $120 on sale at best buy and damn was it loud enough, not to mention I couldn't max out all the way as the amp to kickers was rated for 5 more watts of peak when bridged, but everything was loud as hell lol

I've since sold the other smaller kenwood, but the nicer one was before powering the kickers bridged before I got the small kenwood and man did I hear an overexcursion, the speaker like wowkowogdodfsjd all at once when I was playing with the bass settings, so I watched til everything was set right

natedagreat6666

http://manual.kenwood.com/files/B50-7943-00.pdf