[darkrider01]

Originally Posted by ForgedReality

A mono amp would be what you would use for a sub, since you don't want stereo output from it in the first place. It will typically perform better than a regular system amp for your sub.

2 channel just means stereo. That's the kind of amp to use to drive your other speakers. Your car already has one of these but it could be upgraded, but I wouldn't recommend that unless you were also upgrading your speakers.

Class D type amps are the most efficient kind of amp. You probably want to go for what is often termed "Class D monoblock" for your sub(s), as it's a high efficiency mono amp that will supply the best power and signal to your sub(s).

It's generally best to buy an amp with 15-30% more power capabilities than your subs will ever require. This means finding out the peak power from the amp and subs. This way, the amp will always be able to supply enough power to the subs at all times without overdriving the amp, which will cause it to overheat and possibly take damage.

By that same token, turning up the gain on the amp has the effect of widening the difference between the peaks and valleys in the waveform, and if that becomes greater than the sub's ability to move, you can damage the subs by causing the driver to be either fully extended or fully retracted for fractions of a second, which is bad for it and is the cause for audible distortion as the sound wave clips and no audio is produced. Basically, if you turn it up too much, you can blow your sub. But the same thing can happen from an underpowered amp as well since you are overdriving the amp, and the sound will clip. Stay within the power range and you'll be fine.

Hope this helps. Sorry it's lengthy.

bah - beat me to it while I was typing mine up.....

I will say this though - I have never in my roughly 20 years of "messing with" car audio seen a speaker blown by underpowering. Usually, most people that aren't trying just to be heard, will turn it down once it starts to distort to a dangerous level. If you match amplifier RMS to speaker RMS, you will 99.9% of the time be perfectly fine. I have seen lots of blown speakers from over powering though.

All that said, it is possible to blow a speaker with an under powered amp. Clipped signals kill speakers, and often amps as well. The difference is that with an overpowering amp, you'll just blow through speakers quicker.