External amplifier?

[KurtL]

I have laying around the house a very nice 4-channel Alpine V12 Expert that is just collecting dust. I recently replaced the headunit with a kenwood double-din and all the speakers in my 3rd gen with low cost Pioneer speakers. Aside from the lack of bass, the system sounds pretty good. Would I really gain much by adding that amp into the system? Obviously it would be able to get more volume but there seems to be enough already.

Will i get any more bass response? I dont really want to have a big ole subwoofer taking up space in the back, and if i place the 4-channel amp under my driver seat, i'll lose the ability to place an under the seat sub unit there...

 

[jdkilroy]

Hey Kurt,

I don't know what that amp puts out but I can pretty well guarantee that using it instead of the amp in the HU will produce better sound largely due to music dynamics, a lot of power is required intermittently to reproduce it cleanly. That doesn't mean you have to crank it but it (the system) will most assuredly sound fuller and more responsive.

 

[97BlackAckCL]

It should give you better, cleaner sound and power. The only question is will it match up well with your pioneer speakers

 

[KurtL]

It should give you better, cleaner sound and power. The only question is will it match up well with your pioneer speakers

Don't see why not. The 6-1/2"s are 40W/250W and the 5-1/4"s are 35W/220W, and the MVR-405 is a 40Wx4 RMS. I think the birth sheet actually showed 47.6Wx4 at 12V. Seems to me like they are an excellent match.

Another question... Am i better off using the amp's high pass filter or using the one on the receiver which is a Kenwood DDX-419?

 

[jdkilroy]

Unless you have separate speaker components; woofer + separate mid and/or tweet then I would turn all filters off; send the speakers what you got and let them reproduce what they can. If you have coaxial speakers then there should be a built in crossover that will take care of deciding which frequencies pass. That said, if your speakers indicate that they can only reproduce >800 Hz then you might set your HU to filter everything below 800 rather than send it to the amp. Hope that helps.