Hi, I have a o5 G coupe and would like to put a single 10 in the car. The car comes with the factory upgraded bose sound system, but I want a little more umph in the bass. A buddy of mine hooked me up with a an Alpine Type R pushing 1500watts max and 500watts rms. Now I have no idea about soundsystems are anything of the sort, I was wondering what kind of amp should I run to this sub. I am going to keep the factory headunit in for now, but eventully will change it out for a indash screen. Also is it difficult to add a sub to the factory system? I dont intend to to do this myself, as I;m going to a shop to get it down.
Any input would be great.
Thanks

 

There's a DIY for adding a sub to factory bose system and it's not all that difficult, although I haven't attempted it.

What amp is it that you have right now? I don't mean to sound like a jerk, but that amp is probably crap based on those two specs. Hardly ever see an amp rated at 1/3 of its max power (not a good form of measurement but generally you see them at 1/2 or no max even listed).

You don't need to look at max wattage at all either, because it doesn't matter, that's the "if lightning strikes" power you would see and if you were running a very healthy electrical with no voltage drop and on 100% efficiency, thus pretty much impossible. RMS is what you need to look at and the voltage it is rated at, the lower the voltage, say 12.5v, the better. If you have 2 amps, one doing 500 @ 12V and another that does 500 @ 14.4V, your amp at 12V puts out more power, because at 14.4, it's doing more than 500w.

Anyhow, that should be a sufficient amount but if you're looking to upgrade the amplifier, it really depends on the box that is built as far as how much that sub can handle. It must be built properly and well. Those subs can handle 1,000w rms if done right, but I wouldn't recommend it for someone that is not an audio guru (that goes to many shops no matter how many certificates and whatnot that they have). I'd say 750-800w is plenty and 500w is sufficient.