Why do my aftermarket speakers, labeled 400 watts, sound like they have 40 watts?

Question

My new speakers are labeled 400 watts but sound worse than the stock 40 watt speakers?

Is it because of my aftermarket cd player that says it has a maximum watt power of 45 watts? <---(Cause I know thats a sucky cd player.) I have a new deck i'm waiting to put in but i want to know if it's the speakers or the the cd player thats in my car now thats causing the bad speaker quality*

*Doesn't hit at all.

Answer 1

you need an amp.

firstly there are two ways people market &#039;power of audio&quot;

1 RMS value

2 Peak

your speakers would be 400w peak, just means they can handle that amount every now and then

RMS is what they&#039;ll operate at consistently. (simply put)

your deck will be the same story,

anyway, there&#039;s to much of a gap between the powers, the deck can&#039;t generate enough to move the speakers properly, that&#039;s why it&#039;ll sound tinny and rubish. get a 300ish watt amp then you&#039;ll notice the difference.

if you want to run the speakers with an amp, get some lower rated speakers, lik 150w then they&#039;ll sound better than your old stock ones. bigger isn&#039;t necessarily better, you just gotta match you watts closer, ps always have speakers that can handle a little more than you want to put thru them

eg 100w amp 250w speakers 200w amp 350-400&#039;s

hope that helps

Answer 2

It could be something wrong with the wiring or you just bought some really bad speakers =/ And do u have an amp? xD

Answer 3

You need to put some wattage behind the ratings.  This means an amp or two - the 45 watt rating on an inexpensive head unit will be woefully inadequate and will make even the best speakers sound aweful.  

If your speakers are rated 400 watts RMS, find an amp that&#039;s close to that rating (it&#039;s important to know the difference between RMS and max rating, this will determine what amp to get).  If you have a variable system, meaning some speakers are, say, rated at 150 watts along with your 400 watts, other components will be necessary.  If this is a sub, you can usually find multichannel amps that include a mono channel output for subs.

If amps are out of the question, you&#039;d actually be better off getting smaller speakers that are closer to the head unit&#039;s rating, they&#039;ll sound a LOT better.  Most likely the new unit will not reach the 400 watt capacity so you&#039;re looking at an amp again.

Go into any car stereo store and have them compare a basic head unit with no amp, then have them turn on the amp, you&#039;ll notice a huge difference.

Answer 4

in car audio all you care about is RMS wattage (continuous) not peak and/or max wattage- they mean nothing

with most aftermarket speakers they require more wattage than the radio can push out so it overworks the radios internal amplifier and causes it to be distorted- at lower volumes you will see a higher level of sound quality but its when you start to turn the volume up towards halfway and higher it will sound worse and worse

for best results you will need to put an external amp on the speakers for them to be powered correctly and have them play in their sweet spot, or you could get some speakers that do require more than 30watts RMS (most radios can only put out about 25watts RMS)

look for speakers with a high sensitivity (close to 90dB or higher) because a speaker with a sensitivity rating that&#039;s 3 dB higher than another speaker&#039;s only needs half as much power to deliver the same amount of sound.

Answer 5

Your speaker is rated at 400 watt max (but your CD player is only 45 watts).  

That like a gallon container and you are only putting in a cup of sound.  The speaker can only produce the POWER that the amp puts out.

Good Luck...

Answer 6

your cd player cannot put out the power to match your speakers. Get some amps along with your new deck.

Answer 7

Yes you are correct.  The 400 watt is called Max Power Rated ( which means when donkeys fly and lightning strikes at the same time)

The rating to look for is hidden and called &quot; Rated Power, or Nominal Power, or RMS Power&quot;

Generally, a coaxial mounted speaker has an RMS of 40-60 watts.  Also your radio&#039;s 45x4 is about 18 watts RMS.

So if you are looking for some power from your system, you need a 50x4 RMS highs amp (minimum)