Noob question - Do I need an amp to power any sub I have? My CD deck has two rca outs for a sub soo.... help

 

yep

the two rca plugs run to the amp and plug into its rca jacks. and then of course the subs are hooked to the amp. also there should probably be a "remote" wire on your stereo's wiring harness that will run to the "remote" plug on the amp. (this causes the amp to automatically turn off when the car is off)

EDIT: just looked at your manual to your headunit and the remote wire is there and will be blue.

 

Yup I remember taping that off. How do I know what amp is enough to power my sub?

 

give us the specs of ur sub.... basically take the RMS wattage of ur sub and multiply it by 2 and thats the wattage amp you want

 

Never buy an amp by max wattage. Always go by RMS wattage. What sub do you have? Say its 300 watts RMS, then get an amp that can handle 300 watts RMS.

 

So you two are disagreeing though... multiply it by two or not? I don't have a sub or an amp picked out yet, but when I buy one in the future I need to know what I'm doing

 

https://www.hondacivicforum.com/m_333324/tm.htm

read the third post

 

Thank you

 

Subs should never be done by max wattage, ever, only RMS.
RMS stands for root mean square, it mor or less stands for the average of the sub output, and is generally .41 times the most that the sub can take. Professional and upper level subs do not even ever advertise the max output. You know you're getting at least somewhat of a quality sub/amp etc if they are not advertising their max output on the box. Companies that advertise max are looking for the type of people who do not understand audio, and only look at numbers.
You have to look up the sub you have for the RMS rating it has, and get a MONOBLOCK amplifier that matches the RMS output of that sub.

If you have any more questions please feel free to ask
do NOT multiply the RMS by 2

 

We REALLY need a sticky up top that simply states how to pick out subs, amps and head units. It would field alot of these questions that seem to pop up about every week.

1 click information is always easier then trying to search for stuff.