I recently had a bit of education on car audio when I discovered a broken amp in my Mustang Mach 460 system. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing... now I am contemplating if it would be worth enhancing the system in my '68 El Camino along similiar lines.

I have a pretty basic JVC head unit which claims 30W peak/19W nominal for each of 4 channels. This is hooked up to Pioneer speakers: little 4" coax in the dash and 6x9 3-way in a panel behind the bench seat. It works ok but I suspect it could be better :cool:

What I am thinking about doing is to modify the 6x9s to seperate the mid/high from the low. Then drive the mid/high as it is now from the head unit (perhaps with a high-pass filter) and drive the low from an added amplifier with low-pass filter. I am guessing that a basic 2-channel amplifier of around 200W would get the job done.

Would this be worthwhile? I am not trying to win awards here and have more of a bang for the buck emphasis. So what would be a good choice in amps? Particular brands to avoid? Other thoughts and suggestions?

I built a custom box for my trunk in my '67. The little shelf that is behind the seat and forward in the trunk area makes a cool place for a box and you can still use your trunk for a trunk :) I have a pair of Rockford Fosgate 10" woofers and two amps. One amp drives the woffers and the other is for all the other speakers in the car. The amps are mounted and wired one the back side towards the trunk area for easy acsess. This whole deal is concealed with a divider board I made and is covered in black carpet. It is all pretty slick and I did it myself. Now it is NOT the best stereo out there but it is enough to Rock some Van Halen, Aerosmith, Rush and ZZtop. You get the point.

Good Luck :D

This is not unlike the Mach 460 setup in the Mustang... the key part is a plastic box that bolts up onto the rear deck. It has two small speakers and two 6x8s plus two amps. One amp drives the 6x8s in the front of the doors and the other the 6x8s in the rear. The head unit drives all four small mid/high speakers. That was what got me to thinking about this.

Why dont you just run the fronts off of the head unit, and the rear 6 x 9's from an amp...There must be RCA outputs for an amp, right? I wouldnt worry about trying to seperate the signal, just amplify the whole rear channel...it wouldnt hurt to do what you suggested, but it's a lot easier to just run the amp. Just my opinion. As far as amps, I use Precision Power and JL Audio....there are many good brands, so everyone you ask will tell you something different. But like anything else, you get what you pay for. Stay away from the amps that advertise 200 watts and cost $89.00. There is a lot of good looking junk out there. John