I replaced my head unit and door speakers at the same time and am still not happy with the way they sound. If you keep those speakers you are probably going to need an amp.
I can't say how many car amps take line level in. But make sure you get one that does because there will be no preamp out connectors on the stock radio. Seeing as the radio takes aux in what more do you need?
Yeah, I would say if you want good sound, go for the amp. Replacing the head unit really doesn't make much difference when it gets right down to it as far as pushing speakers. The only way to achieve the right sound in the ride is to run an amp that can push your speakers. I had a hell of a setup in my '03 QC with a dedicated battery just to run my amp for the subs, and a seperate amp on my speakers. Ran a 1 farad cap on the main battery to keep my lights from dimming, and I had it goin' on when I turned those babies up. I was a bit younger then, and less considerate of neighbors, I might add....if my exhaust didn't wake them up, my music sure did. I was not a well-liked young man in the neighborhood, I'll say that!
In all seriousness, just make sure you get an amp that puts out enough RMS to fully supply the speakers, because there's no sense having a bad-ass setup if you don't give them enough juice.
So it sounds like i need a minimum amp RMS rating per ch of 100w for the amp to only be sufficient for my JBL speakers? I was looking at a 300w RMS amp with 200w to be split in the front and 100w for the rear; does this sounds sufficient? Wow, what did I get myself into...
I too had a very nice setup in my old truck many years ago which got me into trouble with amp'd door speakers and a 15 with a capacitor... Now I'm only looking to run a nice clear more all around set-up. I have no intentions of rattling of my mirror's off!!
Yeah, I would say so. I usually ran a fairly similar setup, and 100w RMS per channel should be plenty, I would think. That's probably not far from what I'm gonna run when I redo my speakers here in the next few months. No subs this time, as I don't need to rattle everything to pieces, but I want a nice crisp sound when I turn her up.
I had an '02 Firebird a while back, and the subs hit so hard they would pop the latch in the back and my hatch would open while I was going down the road...happened a few times on the freeway! :Wow1: I'm getting too old for that kind of crap.
Good choice on the JBLs by the way - those things should sound SICK once they get to thumpin'!