I'm in the process of a system upgrade and am hitting road blocks. I need some help understanding a few terms please. When an deck or reciever says say, 200watts, 100watts per channel. Does that mean each channel represents a speaker it can channel its power to?

In the case of a car stereo thats 200 watts, does that mean max 50 watts per speaker?

More questions to come, I just gotta go right now... at work.

 

The watts listed is total watts. A 200w, 4 channel deck is 50w per speaker. Be careful with those ratings. 200w is peak wattage which is nefarious at best.

Best advice for picking a deck is to ignore the wattage listed and go for the best technical quality you can afford.

 

Look for what the deck is putting out as a minimum to each channel and match that to the minimum of your speakers. I buy almost all of my gear online from Crutchfield since I have only had bad luck with the box stores in my area.

Quality components and connectors are the key to an awesome audio system that never distorts at any volume level.

 

the numbers you want to pay attention to are "RMS" - in simplest terms, this is the average power (it gets a lot more technical than this, but for everyday use, we'll stick with this definition). you'll always have companies padding their numbers, so as long as you're close on both ends (speakers to source output) you have nothing to worry about. if there are specific parts you're looking at, post 'em up; someone can help you out

 

Thanks for the info so far. Someone suggested I post up my projected system components for combatability comments, so here it is. I have another post up with similar links but this is a more updated list.
Currently the plan is to get this stuff, see how it sounds. If it turns out to to be satisfactory, then I will get an amp with 5 channels, and just 1 8" woofer for the rear, and run all the speakers to their maximum.

Will this deck play a CD that has a ton of MP3's burned on it, or will it only play them through the usb port via an Ipod or MP3 player?

Deck:

http://www.buy.com/prod/pioneer-deh-...215636708.html

Dash:

http://www.buy.com/prod/pioneer-ts-a...203922233.html

Sail Panel:

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Pioneer+...=1218056225571

 

http://www.carstereo.com/help/Articles.cfm

Theres a start..Little fast track here. JBl amps are made or designed by crown...Crown amps are amoung the very best solid states ever built. Now here's a link to reconditioned JBl amps that are under a full warranty... little side note.... amps are like engines not to much more than power generators..but a few like jbl use the right components..

http://stores.ebay.com/Harman-Audio/...=p4634.c0.m322


Keep a eye out for the GTO series...true 4 channel amps 100 per side for maybe 120 ..great amps and nice pricing.

 

the bpx series are crown amps, the gto are straight class a/b amps(deliver power but a bit inefficient)

 

JBL GTO amps are great value for the money. Solid amps that perform very well.

The GTO504 is a great amp to power the front and rear speakers.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...BL+GTO504.html

Have a look at this article. While you're reading remind yourself that this World Champion car had $250-$300 JBL GTO amps and $130 JBL GTO subs....not too bad.


http://caraudiomag.com/articles/sq-champ-lexus-es300