Do I need a two or four channel amp???

Question

I am pretty new to car audio although I know a little about electronics. In my car my head unit has a rca (red and white) output aswell as the normal four speaker wires. I have four speakers (two front and two rear).

Firstly do I need a four channel amp to get amplified sound from all four speakers or can you just double up on each of the terminals on the two channel?

Secondly how does the remote feature work on an amp and what does it do?

Answer 1

Remote sends a power signal to turn your amp on.

Your stereo should have a blue remote out wire.

Power (red) should be connected to a constant power source, i.e battery.  Ensure you connect a high amp fuse between your battery and amp.  Or you could also connect your amp through an already fused out via the fuse panel.

The remote will turn off the amp ( and prevent battery drain ) when the stereo is off.  Likewise it will turn on the amp when needed.  Technically your could "jump" the power and remote to have an always on amp.  This will seriously damage your battery in a couple of months and I wouldn't recommend it for anything beyond testing connections.

As to do you need 2 or 4 channel.  Well CDs only send a signal out to left and right channels.  So in essence you only need a two channel amp to hear everything.

Plug your RCAs into your amp.  Connect your right side speakers to the right and left side speakers to the left.  Crank up the stereo!

Good luck and enjoy, I'm old (36) and still crank the music!

Answer 2

A four channel amp would be best for powering four speakers. The previous post is not correct, CDs can and do send separate signals to all four channels. You would need a deck with both front and rear RCA outputs to separate front and rear channels but i see you only have one set. I would still use a four channel amp so you do not have to use more than one speaker per channel and in case you upgrade your deck.

The "remote" on your amp is where the amp gets the signal from the deck to turn on & off. Aftermarket head units have a "remote turn on" wire that is blue with a white line, it sends a 12volt + signal to the "remote" terminal on the amp which turns the amp on.

Yes if you have a subwoofer you can use your small speakers for just mids&highs. Don't give up on your xplodes yet, you do not need special speakers for just mids&highs your amp will solve that issue. One of the biggest gains in sound quality come from the addition of a subwoofer because it allows you to remove the bass load from the smaller speakers so they can reproduce mids&highs without interference from low frequencies. High pass filters(HPF) allow you to do this, most amps have them built in and some head units do to. Make sure the amp you buy has a HPF.Those xplodes or any small speaker will sound much better once the bass has been removed with a HPF. On the subwoofer side you are going to want a low pass filter(LPF) to remove the mids&highs from your subwoofer.