How much RMS power for amp for front components + 1 sub?

[sonick]

I have a set of MTX components up front, and a 10" SVC MTX sub in the trunk, running off of a "300w max" Pioneer GM-4000f.

I am feeling there's not much headroom in power when I crank it, when I push it, it doesn't distort but just feels hesitant.

I may want to upgrade the sub to a DVC as well in future, but I want to have an amp that will support it first.

How many RMS Watts should I be looking at? I don't want to be spending too much, just the mainstream brands (e.g. pioneer, kenwood, etc.) and not the real high end car audio niche brands that some installers keep trying to push on me (Audison, etc.)

Thanks!

[KenC]

50 for the fronts and 200 for the sub. Get a 50x4 and bridge 3&4 to the sub.

What's your amp at now?

[sonick]

Thanks for the straight forward answer. Current amp is 45x4 RMS.

In my current setup, it's 45 nominal watts for the fronts and 125 nominal watts for the sub (bridged at 4ohms), according to the manual.

[StereoInstaller1]

If you want to go DVC, (which is NOT a performance upgrade, BTW) you will need to use a separate amp for the bass.

IF you did a DVC woof, you might as well do a class A/B or just Class B mono amp, intended for a 2 ohm mono load, as most DVC woofs are 4ohm/coil, thus 2 ohm in paralell.

IF you did a decent 3 way crossover (MTX LS3, Coustic XM3, whatever) you could re-wire your front speakers to act bi-amp and your whole system tri-amp and then you would be using all of that GM4000F on your fronts...then you would have headroom galore.

I ran basically that same setup with an Audiocontrol 6XS, a puny Kicker "Impulse" 4 channel, and even punier Kicker Impulse 2 channel for the rear, then a monster Power 500 Fosgate on a single 12 in my car for a couple years...that was pretty dramatic, I tells ya!

GL.
Luke

[sonick]

Thanks Luke, didn't realize DVC would not be an improvement; if that's the case I don't mind sticking with SVC (but a better one in future) for simplicity's sake.

The crossover setup is way over my head, lol. And I do want to keep it to a single amp.

Would something like this be sufficient:

Max Output: 800w
Rated output (+B = 14.4V)

Normal:
(4 ohm 20Hz-20kHz, 0.08 % THD) 70 W x 4
(2 ohm 1kHz, 0.08 % THD) 100 W x 4

Bridged: (4 ohm 1kHz 0.8% THD) 200 W x 4

[StereoInstaller1]

Gl on finding an SVC woofer with "better" power handling. If you want an actually burly sub, you will likely have to do DVC 2ohm/coil, in series.

As far as "power" goes, you will take more strain off your amp by developing a more efficient speaker setup.

Keep in mind that power is a logarithmic thing, so to get 3db more headroom you need to double your power, so that 70 WPC amp should do it.

I still say you would be far better served with the 2nd amp and a crossover...mad clarity with a pair of dirt cheap amps!