fosgate components with a stock HU

[RayLCC]

I'm thinking of getting a couple pairs of Rockford Fosgate Power T1682S speakers for my doors. My question is: will they sound good with my stock HU? They seem to be the best 6x8 Rockford makes, but they have a pretty high power level. I thought this would give me the option of adding an amp later if I wanted to, but I'm worried they might sound bad if hooked up to my power-anemic head unit. I'm not sure if my explorer came with a stock amp for the door speakers and even if It does I can't imagine it being a 200w rms amp. I just have the single cd player with no sub. Thanks for the help.

 

[410Fortune]

its a good upgrade but it wont sound very good with your stock headunit, be very loud.
TRhe head unit is the most important part of an audio system
the problem with pushing powerfull speakers with little power is it can cause distortion and eventually the speaker will be damaged.

Now your 99 head unit may have enough power but you should check.
It will also be okay for a while until you can upgrade the head unit.

What is the RMS rating of the speakers?
What is the power rating of the stock deck/amp?

 

[RayLCC]

Here's specs off od cardomain:
Features
Hard Anodized Aluminum Parabolic Cone
Vented Die-Cast Aluminum Basket
Aluminum Voice Coil Former
Foamed Rubber Surround
Progressive Spider with Embedded Tinsel Leads
Neodymium Midbass and Tweeter Magnets
Hard Anodized Aluminum Inverted Dome Tweeter
Outboard 12 & 24 dB / Octave Crossover
Active Tweeter Protection
Cast Aluminum Crossover Housing
Cast Aluminum Outer Concealing Ring
#Component Speaker System Specifications
Size: 6 x 8
Sensitivity: 89 dB
Frequency Response: 55-22,000 Hz
Recommended RMS Power: 100W
Peak Power Handling: 200W
Impedance: 4 ohms
Shipping Weight: 9 lbs
Warranty: 1#year
I was hoping to end up with kinda a "sleeper" system. Speakers in stock locations but amplified and a q-logic stealth box with as much power as I could put to it but run by the stock HU. I'm not sure if this is possible. I've always just bought HU's with pre-outs so I'm not sure how I would go about hooking amps to a stock HU. (maybe line level inputs from the stock speaker wires? Do amps still have those?) If not I can replace the Hu, but I was hoping to keep it, for looks in nothing else.

 

[410Fortune]

those speakers want 100 W RMS, with the stock deck/amp they will be quiet and distort, eventually damaging the speakers.

Your best bet is to mathc the speakers to the amp, meaning find out how many watts the stock amp is rated at and look for speakers in that ranger RMS, this is called component matching and without doing this it will never sound good.

 

[Creager]

hes right, the stock headunit has like a 4 watt output?

an aftermarket one will have like 25 watt output

beware, when they say 25(watt)x4(speakers) they dont meant 100 watts overall, they mean 25 watts divided by 4 speakers... so its like 6.25 watts a speaker

 

[jeff96]

no they don't. 25x4 means just that. 100 watts total. Read the manual. And most say something like 50x4 and put out 25rms per channel if your lucky. But thats plenty for regular speakers as our ears are very sensitive to normal and high frequencies. But why subs require so much power becuase we are'nt sensitive to lower ones.

 

[RayLCC]

I was afraid of that. Ok Time for a HU replacement. I'm so disappointed that I have to get new toys!!! Can't you tell?

 

[Fish Man]

heh new h/u's are fun...its just the $$ that isnt too fun careful with that system, one thing will lead to another till you have a totally new system with 15 speakers...i mean ive heard that can happen...

 

[expo5.0]

the range of power that those speakers will 'work' with goes down as far as the stock hu.

i'll admit they will sound much better with an aftermarket hu, but even giving them 4 watts rms of clean power (don't turn it up until your stock amp clips) will make them sound decent. You don't HAVE to get a hu before you get the speakers. However, once you upgrade one you won't be able to help yourself from upgradig the other