50Wx4 enough for 6x9's?

[jonnyfatman]

I've got a JVC KD LH401 head unit on my K11 powering some cheap Sony door speakers and was thinking about getting a stealth shelf and some Infinity 6x9's. I'm not the sort of person who plays their music ear splittingly loud, I'd just like a bit of rear fill with some kick whilst maintaining boot space. Will the head unit have enough power to keep the 6x9's singing along at a 'medium' volume level until I can afford an amp? I understand that 50Wx4 is quite often nowhere near what is actually put out.

 

[Hugh]

Should be ok but for the long term you may want to amp the front speakers and just run the 6x9's off the HU.

 

[59 bhp is more than enough]

yeah they will run but it will sound EDITED just get a small amp and it will sound a lot better.

 

[Retepetsir]

Should be fine, but remember that 4 x 50W is maximum power, not true power (RMS). The RMS is probably nearer 15-20W x 4, and this is the figure you need to pay attention to!

 

[jonnyfatman]

Cheers for the replies so far... I'm tempted to buy an amp now! One more question then.

I've got various outputs from my head unit like line-out etc. I'm assuming that these bypass the built-in equalizer.

Can I still control the overall system volume from the head unit if the speakers are amped with a separate amplifier?

 

[59 bhp is more than enough]

yeah you can. you have a remote wire from your head unit to your amp. This means you can control your volume and bass etc with your head unit. btw did any of you know that rms stands for root mean squared

 

[Stuart]

yes i did,
been studying this sort of thing at uni

 

[Retepetsir]

The remote wire doesnt mean you can control the volume, etc from the headunit, it just means that when your headunit switches on, so does the amp!

The line-out wont bypass the EQ signal, it'll simply output an unamplified signal for the external amp to use. Then when you adjust the volume on the headunit, the signal sent to the amp is increased/decreased accordingly. Any settings you therefore change on the headunit will still change the speaker output, just like normal use with the internal amp.

Merry Chrimbo

 

[jonnyfatman]

Great, that's exactly what I wanted to hear. Thought that with it going thru 'line-out' it would always be at optimum volume like on my MP3 player in 'line-out' mode for example.

Merry xmas everyone, and may the spending commence!