I had a 500/5. JL makes some good stuff, but their amps never really jumped out at me. I do like the staggered front / rear power, though. Pretty good amp. One interesting thing is that the sub channel is 250 watts, regardless of ohm load. With JL, you tend to pay for name, though, so unless it was the same or cheaper than another 5, or multiple amps, I probably wouldn't do it.

One down side is that if one channel bites the dust, the whole amp comes out. I lost the front right channel twice on mine (both times manufacturing defect...kind of scary), and both times had to swap in another amp, or be without music of any kind.

Just curious...why the 4 channel? I never really understand why some people do seperate front / rear amps. Unless you are just dying to fade front to rear. Think about it. You can buy a 4x50 amp, and put it on 4, 4ohm speakers, and get 50 watts to each. Or, you can do a 2x50 amp, put it on 4, 4ohm speakers, and get 50 watts to each (provided it is 2 ohm stable, and doubles power, which most good ones do). All you gain with the 4x50 is fading. I see you want to do more than that up front, with the 6 1/2 set, and the 4. As long as you do your passive crossovers right, and don't have overlapping frequencies, you can still get a 4 ohm load with this. If you don't plan on doing a true 3-way, I'd suggest not using the 4's. In fact, I'd suggest not using them period. A 4" driver doesn't add enough sound reinforcment, and putting it in the dash will give you path length problems, and poor imaging.


In fact, I don't even really understand why people do rear speakers, unless its a surround system. In a concert, the stage is in front of you, the same should be true of your car. The old IASCA term was 'front stage, rear fill'. And rear fill should be almost undetecable. I had trouble with this when I was competing, until I finally just took the rear speakers out...I started getting much better scores. Unless you really just need the extra volume from the rear speakers (which you probably don't), or you really care about the people in your back seat (which you shouldn't), I wouldn't bother with rear speakers. If you just have to have them, put some straight woofers back there...5 1/4's, 6 1/2's 8's...just no tweeters. Remember, the stage is in front of you.

Toby