advise on type amp needed for system?

i have a 90 Honda Crx, Pioneer DEH-150MP head unit, with built-in mosfet amp (50W x 4), rca outputs and ability to control seperate subwoofer. i have 6.5" alpine coaxials in the front doors, which are 100W RMS / 200W peak and 4 ohms.    and 6.5" pioneer coaxials in the rear stock location, which are 30W RMS and around 60-80W peak (but not sure if 2 or 4 ohm?) later, i plan on getting an 8" subwoofer in a sealed box, thats around 200W RMS / 400W peak, 4-ohm.     my first question is :   when adding an amplifier, can i still use the built-in watts from the head unit?, along with the watts from the amp?   like, would i still be able to use the built-in mosfet (50W X 4) from the pioneer head unit? added to the watts of whatever amp i get ?? second question : would i need a 4-channel amp? or 5-channel amp? in order to power the 4 speakers and single sub? i was hoping to just get one single amp to handle it all this time, so its easier to hide just one and be minimal, instead of having to have two different amps,    but if two amps is needed, then i will. i was wanting to get the amp now, and have it power the 4 coaxial speakers in the meantime, to boost them better, so i can turn them up louder than with the built-in watts from the head unit, and later on, add one 8" subwoofer, 4-ohm, around 200W rms/400W peak.        any advise on what type of amp would work for what i need, would be appreciated, thanks

You have kinda thrown a hurdle in your own way by using a radio that only has one set of pre-amp outputs. With only one pair of rca jacks you cant even fade front to rear from the radio after installing the 5 channels of amplification you want. Sure you could run your radio speaker wires into the amplifier but that is gonna hurt sound quality. Another option using the radio you have is add a dual amp balancer into the system. If you would replace it with a stereo that has 3 sets of preamps you would have alot more control over your balancing between front/rear/sub speakers. Pioneer can say 50 watts all day long because there is no law against lying about the wattage. If you look closer to the specs section of your owners manual you will see the picture I have posted where they print the more accurate CEA compliant ratings (google it to learn more) yuk

quiet rural missouri, near KC.

If your system moves you physically and not emotionally, you have wasted your money.

i did have a couple pairs of rca pre-amp outputs on the head unit i had just before this one, a pioneer deh-3900mp, but it was stolen few years back, so reason i got this new one (deh-150mp), was so i would have a stereo to listen to music again, but also i did'nt want to spend too much, and the deh-150mp had most of all the features i need, plus really similar to the older deh-3900mp, but it just has one pair of rca pre-amp outputs. basically i already had my system all dialed in perfectly before the thieves broke in and stole it, but i'm not trying to make my new system match equally to how i had it before, i am just happy with something that works good and can turn loud enough and hear the full range of sound frequencies. so i'm not going to get another head unit just to have a couple more pairs of rca pre-amp outs, i'm sure it will be good enough with the one pair, but of course its not going to be perfect. thanks for pointing out that i would'nt be able to fade from front to back, i did'nt think of that?, also, whats so bad about running the speaker wires from the radio to the amp?, worse quality or something? im trying to decide if i need to have the rear coaxial speakers or not?, cause in the past i had just fronts with a sub and sounded real good, and usually i always turned up the fader level for the front speakers about 4-5 numbers higher than the rears, cause i wanted them louder since the front is the area im sitting in. i've heard of dual amp balancers before, cause there was one on my old school clarion 7-band equilizer, and had fader to control front to rear plus seperate fader for the sub,   . . . wait a minute, i just had an idea?,   when i was thinking about my old school clarion equilizer, i just remembered it has rca input, rca outs for front and rear as well as for a sub, so if i used that would it be a solution for my head unit only having one pair of rca outs?    and just connect the rca outs from the HU into the rca input on the clarion, then use the 3 pairs of rca outs on the back of the clarion to connect rca wires into the amplifier?     i know the first thing your going to say is that its an old type of equilizer that nobody uses anymore and that its just going to cause bunch of ground noise or something, but when i had it in with my system several years ago, it worked awesome, and had no problems with it, and if i don't want the eq part of it to work, theres an eq bypass button, so it will disable the eq signal processing and just sound like it had no eq, but still have use of the rca outputs going to the amp and stuff. i think i might try using it, and to me i sort of miss being able to play around with sliders to adjust bass, treble or mids on the fly, cause some songs need more detailed adjustment which are complicated to adjust on the digital menu of the head unit, especially if a song has a lot of low end bass thats too much for the coaxials, then you can easily and quickly just turn down the slider on the very left for the low end eq so it sounds good and is'nt clipping on the coaxials. it sucks that companies exaggerate about how much watts their speakers have, i did'nt know that the real wattage was shown in the specs page, like the example you showed on that image.

if i do decide to use that clarion equilizer, then i better go and remove it from ebay, before someone buys it?, cause i just happened to put it for sale on ebay lastnight.

the clarion EQ would be a nice addition to your system. the built in amp of your pioneer has considerable more distortion than a name brand amplifier would most likely have. running speaker wires into an amp to be boosted would boost all that distorion too. so the eq makes much more sense and allows you to keep every thing on a preamp level and lets the big amplifier to do the amplifying.yuk

quiet rural missouri, near KC.

If your system moves you physically and not emotionally, you have wasted your money.

i also saw that you can add adapters that convert the speaker wire to RCA outputs,   could i use one of those type of things? and add it to make so my head unit can have a couple more pairs of rca outs for it? heres a link to a pic of the things i'm talking about: http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_40523_NVX-XFLOC4.html

wow, your up?, i was'nt expecting a reply so quickly lol, so do you know if the clarion eq has pre-amps or not? or any amplification inside of it?   btw, its a clarion 73EQ model and when i think about it, the reason i removed the eq was cause this installer at best buy convinced me that it was worthless and just caused ground loop noise problems, but i should of gone with my own instinct on if i should keep it or not, instead of listening to him. the eq also has high pass filter switch and selectable frequency modes for the subwoofer,   actually heres a link to the ad i put on ebay for it, which has pics of it and details for it: ebay ad for clarion 73EQ

the converters cant remove the distorion that the internal amp has and they usually make it worse. they shouldnt be used when you have a perfectly good rca output and a decent eq in your possesion. yes, you still need amplifiers. rca from radio to the EQ and then rca from eq to amplifiers. that will be your cleanest, most powerful sound. there would be a big difference i the quality and volume of having a REAL 50 amp pushing you speakers vs pioneer HU 50 watts. if you are serious about good sound, you should ditch using the internal amp of the radio.(unless it actually goes loud enough for you AND sounds perfectly good to you).yuk

quiet rural missouri, near KC.

If your system moves you physically and not emotionally, you have wasted your money.

there is a book called Auto Audio on ebay. 10 bucks or less usually, but priceless when you want to learn do's & don'ts of system set ups. the book has been re-issued and has two different covers but they are that same book. reading some of that book will help choose a direction with your system that you will be happy with and not end up with alot of regrets.yuk

quiet rural missouri, near KC.

If your system moves you physically and not emotionally, you have wasted your money.