First of all, I'm doing something few people would do: putting a good sound system in a '94 F-350 with a 7.3L IDI turbo diesel.
(my next mod will probbably be a lift-kit if I can afford one)
I have noticed already that I think my power-supply is being streched pretty close to it's limits(?). I'm assuming the people in here know all about power-problems because some of these systems have a lot of power! I ordered a sony cd-receiver with 4 52watt channels, 204 total watts(?). Any ideas on what to do that would be really cheap? Is there anyone else who has done anything similar to what I plan to attempt? My cd-reciever should arrive tomorrow, as soon as my new rear speakers arrive I think I should try for blowing out the pathetic 20watt stock speakers (actually I might geet good money for them off e-bay).

Logan

 

Logan, Let me ask you some questions first. How much money are you looking to spend on your system? Are you looking at keeping stock speaker locations, or custom work? What are you going for with your system Loud, or Quality, or Both? What are you going to do about subs? Size? How Many?

Thanks

Murph

 

Yea its 52 watts x 4 but rms power is about 12 maybe 15, you will have no power supply problems, and you probably wont be able to blow your stock spekers altho they will sound better with the new stereo, whatever you do please do not hack up the factory wiring go buy a pig tail at best buy or circuit city and it will plug right into your factory radio harness and make your instalation mush easier since you will know what each wire does

 

while I din't hack up the wireing, so far I haven't seen too many signs of a major power loss. Otto, I wouldn't dought that after sending 52 watts(the peak out-put) across the speakers a few times that they will be gone. But, I already have some great pioneers to upgrade everything with.

Logan

 

If you really think your deck is 200 watts thats fine, but just consider the size of a 200 watt amp for a minute most are about a foot long and a foot deep, now how did all these car stereo manufacturers mahage to fit that into a din sized deck? the mystery boggles my mind, (not) what both of us know is that your mine or anyone elses deck really isnt 50x4 but it sells decks so they put it on there, flase advertising in the car audio world is amazing and nothing ever gets done about it, oh and my "45x4" kenwood didnt blow the factory spekers

 

I won't argue, you are probbably right, but I still think there is a good chance that I can hurt the stock speakers.

Logan

 

or just make them distort so bad im cringing just thinking about it

 

Please do not attempt to blow your factory speakers. This is hard on the components of your deck. However, I think otto is right, you couldn't blow them even if you wanted to. You may not want to hear this, but IMHO the 52X4 rating on the front of the deck means precisely jack squat. The RMS rating is far more important. Considering it likely has a 10 amp fuse on the power wire, it under perfect conditions will never ever continuously use over about 140 watts, significantly less by the time it's outputted through the channels. The 52 watts is instantaneous peak power stored in the deck's capacitors. The catch is that they discharge, and if you sustain a high volume they can't charge back up and when the deck tries to reproduce the peak the power is not there. It distorts and sounds like crap. In order to blow a speaker you would need to cook the voice coil, which requires SUSTAINED high power, so good luck and wear earmuffs to block out the hideous crap that will emanate from your speakers if you try this. If you had 50 watts of amp power, now that is another matter. 50 watts of amp power in NOT equal to 50 watts of deck power, the amp is much bigger so it can dissipate heat better and it has much bigger components so it can work harder and longer.

As far as your system is concerned, you get what you pay for. Do yourself a favor and avoid cheap stuff. I would start with a set of decent speakers first, factory anything is notorious for poor quality. A knowledge of your budget would be helpful.

 

To be truthfull, I really was more or less jokeing about blowing the factory speakers. You right about a 10amp fuse, I know there is one on back but I couldn't tell you what it is for, probbably one of the power leads. I checked Crutchfield again, and according to their site, I have 23.5RMS wattage.

Logan

 

Hello
This letter is mainly directed at corlucci .I have a liitle trouble with how certain things may come across however unintentional. Many of the people that come to this site are very new to car/truck audio and come here to ask questions .They may be less likely to ask these questions if they think they get any feeling that someone is looking down on them.

In your letter you say that 52x4 means jack squat , actually it is the max output of the unit but it is also pretty much max distortion.Yes RMS is important but even more important is the THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) of the unit , Because unlike your statement that " you couldn't blow them if you wanted to" you could actually because high ,clean volume is less likely to blow a garbage speaker than low, distorted power is to blow a good speaker. Another thing is that not only is deck power over rated but so is the power of most amps. Again it comes back to THD.Also factory anything is not notorious for poor quality , I have never met an installer who has not tried to score the Delco deck from a customers car after an install. It's not because it is junk. A GM Delco deck probably has a better receiver than the deck you have in your truck right now. I apologize to anyone whose feelings may have been hurt by this but we are here to help not to hinder.
tonka

 

OK, I re-read the post, and you are right. It won't happen again, sorry to anyone offended.

 

Thanks Corey.
You seam to be very knowledgable and will be a great addittion to this site .I look forward to our future debates.
tonka
Jay