Does anyone know what kind of power the stock s14 clarion amps are capable of putting out? I'm currently in the process of removing my aftermarket amp to regain trunk space and need to decide between amplification from my aftermarket head unit or putting the stock amp back in and connecting it to my head unit's preamp outputs(RCA jacks) by soldering RCA cables onto the adapter harnesses.

I've searched, but haven't been able to find much info about them. All I could dig up is that they're something like 25W-50W, I'm guessing total for both amps so between 6.5W or 12.5W per speaker, and that they're designed for 2-ohm speakers so those figures get cut in half with my current 4-ohm alpine speakers.

My HU is capable of something like 20W per speaker with it's internal amp, so I suppose what I'm really asking is can the factory amps even come close to that? Just figured I'd ask before I went to the trouble to attach the RCA male ends to the harness only to be rewarded with crappy sound.


Thanks for any help

 

I bypassed my rear amp. No regrets.

 

I just installled my headunit like normal with the amp still there (16y/o at the time, didnt know better haha) and it still sounded fine. It really depends what you're doing. Are you adding a low range speaker or just running the door/deck speakers? If you're not going to add a sub or another amp then I would definitely wire the factory one in. 4 6.5''s on a headunit sounds like an alarm clock radio IMO.

 

I'm just going to run the 4 6.5"s which are already installed.

Alpine SPS-1629S 6-1/2" 2-way Speaker at Crutchfield.com


My main concern is the factory amps are made for the 2-ohm factory speakers and aftermarket ones are 4-ohm. I've heard anecdotal evidence both ways in regards to the sound quality of aftermarket speakers with the factory amps which is why I was interested in finding out their actual power output.

 

Bypass it. An aftermarket head-unit puts out more watts then that thing does.

 

Yeah run jumper cables on the harness and bypass it.

 

head units only put out like 5 watts... sure, they might be rated for more, but it just doesn't happen. I used to have the formula you needed to calculate it but I can't find it right now...
I have seen some that will sustain 10, but never a head unit actually capable of putting out the 20-25 they say they can do.

Also, the stock amps have built in cross overs that you can't adjust, so that will screw your sound up if you are using an aftermarket head unit and speakers.

Your best bet is to pull all of the stock stuff out and use a new 4 channel amp.
Make sure the amp has a high pass and a low pass adjustable setting and has the ability to adjust the gain, or power levels of at least the front pair and back pair. A 4 channel, 400 watt amp, peaks at 100 per channel, and should sustain about 30-40 rms all of the time. your speakers are rated to handle 30 rms. So you might have to turn the gains down a little bit so you don't have to worry about blowing them out. As for the high and low pass. Those speakers will have a really piecing kind of sound to them for the higher frequencies, so you might want to tune some of that out, and even though they say they can do all the way down to 40 hz they are going to sound like balls anything below 100-125. Usually, your head unit can tune that out, but you can fine tune it at the amp and get a better sound.
Basically, just find somewhere that you aren't going to piss anyone off with being loud for a little bit. set the gains to the lowest they will go. Turn the volume up as high as you would ever put it. (or whatever the max on your head unit is) then slowly turn the gains up until it is as loud as you would ever want it. (this works very well if your amp matches the power ratings of your speakers. if the amp can put out more, then you gotta be careful cranking it up too high) Once you have that set, from there, adjust the high and low until it sounds the way you want it to sound.

EDIT - the amp isn't required, you can technically just use jumper wires and bypass the stock amp and call it done using just the power from the head unit. You will still get your sound and all of that, but there is a huge difference between sound quality. Just depends on what it is that you are trying to do.