Juice questions, again

My son recently purchased an Alpine SWR-1042D, 10" DVC sub, and now we need to purchase an amp. I intend to run at 2ohms to the single sub. Box dimension is designed to be (+or-) .65 cf. Quality of sound is more important than quantity. To be installed in the trunk of a '03 Grand Prix with a factory Bose stereo (not changing that). Also I intend to use speaker level inputs, mostly because of the additional pain in converting that system to RCA jacks. In my part of the world, the following amps are available that I'm interested in: Alpine:          MRP-M350       350 watts                              MRD-M605       400 watts @ 12V                                            600 watts @ 14.4V Memphis          16-MCD500      500 watts MTX          MXA4001        400 watts                  MXA6001        600 watts                  Thunder3401    400 watts                  Thunder4501    500 watts                  Thunder5601    600 watts Planet Audio     Vortex VX400D 350 watts                             Vortex VX900D 650 watts Because of where I'd like to mount it (suspended from rear deck) foot print is a consideration. The specs I am quoting are from the manufacturer's websites. They don't always say what voltage they are determining their wattages at. Questions are: What would you use? Is it critical to be very near the wattage the sub is rated at? Is there a negative in running the ground all the way back to the battery? Or, at least, the firewall? Apparently, these cars have a lot of glue and maintaining a decent ground, at the rear of the car, can be difficult. Thanks for the input. All the guys around here just buy amps, subs, and then blast away.

I just realized I hadn't put in all the imformation. All wattages are RMS. The sub is dual 4 ohm, thus the 2 ohm rating on the amps.

MTX 5601... Just typing it makes me have to adjust my pants.Tell the Snap-On guy I'm not here!

Don't know if I'd put 600 RMS to a woofer that's rated for a max of 500 RMS.

Is the Thunder (MTX) line superior to the MXA series? The footprint, I believe, is about 2" shorter which makes a difference to my desired location.

If SQ is what your looking for then get that trash out of your dash. Get a after market head unit and speakers to replace the Bose set up. That sub and anyone of those amps will not be at there best hooked up to the oem system.Big Dave

I realize that. But, one thing at a time. And, the stock system is all dual controlled through the steering wheel. I believe not a lot of head units accomadate that. 22,000 mi. a year are on the highway. How much difference can I hear at 70 mph? I want a good sounding bass, not mush, to suppliment what I can hear. Clean, crisp, sharp. I want to hear a double bass, not imagine it. I've already read moost of the Bose bashing. I'm sure there's reason for it. It's still better than some other stuff. Good enough, for now, at least.

The thunder series and the MXA series are essincially the same thing in different heat sinks. Go with whatever fits your allotted space. Also using a 600 watt amp witha  500 watt sub is perfectly fine, just make sure its set properly and you will be laughing, you can always turn an amp down.double-secret reverse-osmosis speaker-cone-induced high-level interference distortion, Its a killer

Thanks, Ravendarat. Could you clarify my mind on running the ground back to the battery? It would be a minimum of 4 gauge. I've read a lot of the discussions on grounds but I only remember one reference to that question and I don't think it was answered. Usually the recommendation is the closest reasonable location (18" or less). But how else would I assure a complete ground?