sound system, upgrading

I'm trying to focus on the amp selection now and many options and terms have come up, some I feel I should know but I'm still confused. *what is the amp classes? I get AB,AB/D,BR,D,FD for options *What's an minimum impedance unbridged? I get .5,1,2,4 for options *This is something I think I should know but nevertheless I got confused what's the purpose and difference of 2,4,5, and mono channel amps? which one do u think I should aim for? *Also I saw bass boost and fan cooled options.. are these recommended? I mean I will be driving at times for 15 hours straight, so idk if a fan is a gd idea. Alpine MRP-F300 http://www.crutchfield.com/p_500MRPF300/Alpine-MRP-F300.html?tp=115      this was recommended by 100 people who gave 5 star ratings

alright we are making progress. for starters, that amp is not really for sub woofers. that it a 4 channel amp that is meant to drive regular speakers. you really dont have to worry about amp classes, all that speaks for is the design of the amp. you will want to shoot for a MONO amp that is class D for your sub woofer. nowadays the majority of bass amps will be class D because they are more efficient. you should not need a fan but they dont hurt either, i tend to stay away from amps with fans because the fan can be noisy if you install it in the main cabin of your car and the fact that the amp has a fan can also mean that they didnt build in a good enough heat sink. take online review with a giant grain of salt because many of them are people who are paid to post good reviews of anything and everything. the impedance is just another way to describe the ohm rating of the amp but the minimum impedance unbridged is also something you dont have to worry about with a true MONO bass amp. but, every amp has a minimum impedance, bass amps will usually not work with anything lower than 1 ohm. this is why i pointed you towards a dual 2 ohm sub woofer so that you can get the most power out of a typical amp that is 1 ohm stable. the sub you chose looks fine but the box you chose is a bit too small for that sub. it states that the box has .73 cubic feet of airspace inside and that sub is designed to sound best from .8 cubic feet up to 3 cubic feet. now this difference isnt that big a deal, you could still buy that box and be perfectly fine but im not sure how that sub would sound in such a small box. from my experience kicker subs tend to sound better in bigger boxes. the sub/box relationship is one of the hardest things to predict because there are so many variables that you have to account for. sealed box vs. ported box, what you chose is a sealed box. it is totally sealed from the outside air. a ported box has an opening built into the box that is built to a certain size and length. this opening is called a port and it is used to create a peak in volume at a certain frequency which if designed correctly will make the bass sound louder than if you just had the sealed box. the drawback of a ported box is that they are usually a good bit bigger than a sealed box for any given sub woofer. so at least with the sub/box you are going down the right road, i would just look for a box that is just a tad bit bigger than the one you found. and since you now have most of the info that you need to start buying stuff i will give you one big piece of advice when it comes to anything dealing with car audio, you usually get what you pay for. if you find an amp that seems too good to be true, it usually is. for example, if you find an amp that is hundreds of dollars less than other amps with the same rated power then something is definitely wrong with that picture. that money being saved has to come from somewhere, usually comes from using low quality parts to make the amp or the amp does not actually put out the amount of power that it says. you dont have to buy the most expensive stuff either im just warning you to beware of equipment that is way too cheap. a car is one of the worst places for anything electronic because of the wild temperature swings and constant vibration, so buying equipment that is low quality will almost always be nothing but headaches for you. for a 600 watt mono amp i would shoot for nothing cheaper than about $150 now, one more thing that we left out of the conversation so far, the wiring kit. if you plan to add more amps in the future or just get a more powerful amp, then i would buy bigger wire than what you need. for a 600 watt amp you will need at least a true 8 gauge wiring kit. and just like i said above, you will get what you pay for especially with wire. sometimes they will package wire as a certain gauge but when you look at it it will be mostly jacket with less actual wire inside. so beware of cheap wire. i would suggest brands like tsunami, stinger, knukonceptz.com wire, and thats all that comes to mind right now. knukonceptz wire is a nice web site because they have different options for wire, you can get pure copper which is the best or aluminum wire which isnt ideal but it gets the job done. and you can buy it by the foot so you only have to buy what you need. they also sell full wire kits.

okay Oh my god so been using crutchfield.com for my shopping outlines cause of its good user choice interface. but i put in for 300-700 watt range, mono amp, D class, impendance at 1 and the cheapest amp out of that is 200 dollars... i mean i expected to pay about that mush but thats the "cheap" amp with it being 650 watts, and i usually get something in the middle of gd and bad equipment... http://www.crutchfield.com/g_120/All-Car-Amplifiers.html?nvpair=FFRMS_Power%40%40Channel%7c%5brank7%5d+351+-+750+watts&nvpair=YCAmplifier_Class%7cD&nvpair=AG_Number_of_Channels%7cFFMono_Subwoofer&nvpair=YCMinimum_Impedance_Unbridged%7c1 the thing that made the price jump from 130 to 200 is impendance minimum at 1.... y is this so important that price goes up,up,up???? and still not caring about size... but then should i go with sealed box for better quality?

well, there are cheaper amps out there, crutchfield is not the only place to buy audio but their interface is one of the best for selecting what you want. every amp on that page on your link is a good amp, the cheapest amp is a middle of the line amp compared to other amps. judging from the size of the fuses in that amp it also should give you more power than the rated 650 watts, that amp should be closer to 800 watts at 1 ohm. why does 1 ohm stable make the price go up? many reasons, one is popularity, two is versatility, three is built quality. for an amp to be 1 ohm stable at those power levels it needs to be made of more heavy duty parts to handle the amount of current passing through the amp without overheating. $200 is really what an amp like that should cost, if it was any cheaper then i would question the build quality. i do think you should go with a sealed box because they are easier to match up with a sub. sealed boxes are not as sensitive to being matched exactly with the sub woofer, ported boxes are much harder to match and the results of a poorly matched ported box get actually blow your sub. a sealed box has to be way way off target to cause damage to your sub. if space is not an issue then i would look for a sealed box with about 1.3 cubic feet of internal airspace.

soundsystem the only way im finding 1.3 volume space for an enclosure is if it's a ported one... if its sealed and 1.3 then im not finding it (probably not looking hard enough). do u have a link for this? ive chosen the 200 dollar amp and have decided to keep the bass i choose before so this enclosure (the key element) is it past a wiring kit

yea that would figure. usually the average 10 would be happy in such a small sealed box but like i said kicker subs tend to sound better with a bit more airspace than the average sub. its all good, you dont have to have the 1.3 cubic feet exactly. go ahead and buy the box that you found originally and you will have to go to the store before you install it and buy a bag of polyfill pillow stuffing. you are going to stuff pillow stuffing inside the box and then mount the sub woofer in the box. this is a little trick we use to make the sub sound like it is in a bigger box then what it really is. that amp recommends using 4 gauge power and ground wire, so buy a 4 gauge amp kit.