Confused about amp

[Ken Cunningham]

I've slowly upgraded each component in my 87 T that came stock with the concert sound speakers. The dash now has 3.5" full range speakers with bass-blockers; the door and rear deck speakers are upgrades. I just replaced my head unit with a Jensen cass/CD. All components are middle-of-the-road.

The sound is still a little weak, especially on CDs, and I'm thinking of adding an amplifier. Do I amplify all 6 speakers? I see problems ahead...

Amplify all 6 speakers:
Use low level (RCA) input -- lose fader control
Use speaker level input -- retain fader control but double the distortion (head unit amplification plus the amplifiers)

Amplify just the rear speakers:
Use speaker level input -- double the distortion and unbalance the sound to the rear. Since I don't go to a concert and sit with my back to the music, I don't like to bias my volume to the rear either.

Amplify the door/dash speakers:
Same problem as above.

What is the way to go here??

 

[SGRIM]

No harm

No harm intended but your never going to get but so good a sound out of the jensen head unit. Before I would buy an amp I would buy a little higher quality head unit. Sony, Pioneer, Clarion all make reasonable priced units that will push the speakers you have OK. Nothing like having every thing on a seperate amp, but a clean source signal is the 1st thing you need. GOOD LUCK!

 

[dragonational]

I disagree with the head unit being inferior. Jensens put out a good head unit(the newer ones anyway). If you are really concerned about the sound of the system then why not run two amps? You can run a low (50 or so) to the 3 1/2 in the dash and run a 200 or so to the door and rears. I have my speakers just running off of by pioneer cd player and they sound fine but i would like to get a system put in eventually. As far as the hookups go, I would run the doors and rears on the high side and adjust the dash to match so that you dont over power the mids with the highs. Harry

 

[soundguy]

a good highend speaker level to line level wont be adding any more distortion than the head unit is putting out (none the human ear can detect anyway). But for cd quality I would exchange the head unit for one that has at least 2 pre-amp outputs , 3 preferred (front/rear/sub). Then add a nice 3 channel amp that the budget allows. 200 watt multi channels are quite cheap now and will provide enough audio fill to sound quite nice in the car and drown out road noise, unless ya looking to feel your organs vibrate when the bass hits, then ya got a long way to go.