Thread: Too much amp power for stock speakers?

Well lets see,,,. 100Watts RMS per channel going into speakers rated for 15watts RMS yeah, might not be a good thing. Yes there are ways of shunting the outputs (my Kenwood amp ahs level adjsting pots on it that work nicely for what yo wanna do They cut back the input level, an thus the utput levels. I plan on making an i2c or SPI or 1-wire network and use digital pots so I can ajust these on the fly from the driver's seat. But thats a someday project)

Originally Posted by black06stang

I am planning on replacing my stock shaker 500 headunit in my 2006 mustang with a 7 inch monitor. I plan on hooking the monitor to the laptop through a VGA cable. I want to hook the laptop up to an aftermarket amp and connrct the amp to my stock speakers. I spoke to a person at crutchfield, and they told me that this would not work because the aftermarket amp would blow the stock speakers. Is there any way to prevent this from happening? If not, is there any way to hook my laptop to the stock speakers?

The 500 in "Shaker 500" is for watts, no? Now granted that number has to be at least a little exaggerated, I think the stock speakers in the shaker 500 system might be rated for a little more than 17watts rms each. Either way, as long as you don't crank it up louder than what you got out of the stock head unit you should be OK.

Just a note, the signals to the 2 subwoofers in the doors are low-level signals (pre-out), that is, each subwoofer has its own separate amp. These amps are located in the kick panels if I am not mistaken.

Good Luck.

I agree with walky_talky20, if you go any louder you'll cause clipping (the top of an AC signal is "clipped off" and you get a DC signal) which is bad because the speaker doesnt move and it will cause overheating in the voice coil

So much bad information out there!!!!

I am running my stock speakers on a 50 watts per channel RMS amplifier and they are fine. I ran them for the last 10 months on a 100 watt rms amp and they did just fine.

The trick is to keep them out of distortion. As long as you set your gains properly (It is not a volume control! Thats what the volume knob/PC Volume controls are for) you will be fine.

Get yourself a decent 50 watts by 4 amplifier. Set the gains properly (search for info on how to do it on this forum) and dont expect huge output. Keep them out of clip range and just be careful.

You will also need to look into pre level inputs on the door subs. The amplifier will not power them. you will need to use the stock amp.