Car Amps: Powering Your Way to Great Sound

Are you in the market for a new Amplifier or looking to upgrade your existing model to something better? Before you go out and grab the biggest car amplifier you can find, you should take a moment to look over this article. It has some basic tips on how to grab the perfect car audio amplifier for all of your car amp needs.

Car Amp Basics:
In the simplest terms, car amps boost the signal power that comes from your car stereo to your car audio speakers. However, as any car audio enthusiast will tell you, there are a lot more obstacles and challenges involved than simply tossing an amp into your car audio system and cranking out hundreds of decibels of sound.

Fine tuning your system to give you perfect sound can be a frustrating balancing act that could have you ripping your hair out by the roots.  If you are looking for a decent amp for your car audio system, you should pay attention to the RMS as opposed to the total wattage of your car amp. RMS stands for Route Mean Squared, and it is a measure of the constant power your amp produces.

Most amps for a car are designed for a threshold of 12-14.4 volts, the standard DC output for a car’s power system, and they are rated for their watts of total power. Often this is around 50 watts per channel, but the RMS is only about 20 watts per channel. Generally, the higher the RMS the car amp will perform.

Another important thing to look at when shopping for that new amp are the crossover and the gain levels for the car amp. Your crossovers are the things that limit the frequency range that is being amplified in your amp. Too much of any sound can be bad for your speakers, and crossovers are one thing used to help prevent damage to them. Crossovers make sure that your speakers stay in their frequency range at whatever level is used.

Gain is essentially the signal boosting part of an amp. It increases the power of the input signal coming from the stereo component of your car audio system.
You should be careful when adjusting gain levels. You can crank up the power going to your speakers, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Your signal can degrade at extremely high levels, and too much power going to a speaker can seriously damage it.

Buying Your Car Amp:
One of the main things to consider when you go to purchase a new amp for your car is that quality is the most important factor of any car audio amplifier. Discounts and aftermarket sales aside, if you skimp on a good quality amp you may come to regret it later on.

You should also pay close attention to the specs of any amp for your car before you buy it. After all, what’s the sense in dropping hundreds of dollars on a good high-end amplifier for your car if you aren’t going to use it to its full potential?
If you aren’t sure about a particular brand or style of amp, don’t hesitate to ask a salesperson. Though most of them work on commission and are paid depending on whether you buy something or not, you will find that a lot of them are car audio enthusiasts themselves, and you can get a lot of helpful information if you can get them talking about car stereo equipment instead of making a sale.

Above all else, take your time when you’re routing around for a new car amp. Pick your spots, choose wisely, and soon you’ll have the perfect amp for your car powering great sound for your car audio system.