Hello all. I have a 2003 Subaru Forester, and I have recently upgraded my factory stereo, but I am having a bit of a problem, and I hope you guys can help.
I have a Pioneer head unit powering the small speakers in my rear doors. I also have a Subaru accessory underseat sub installed, which has a power rating of 120W max (not sure of the RMS, probably around half). I am driving my front speakers (6.5" Pioneers, run in parallel with some Subaru accessory tweeters) with a cheap ESA amp (2x76W RMS into 2 ohms) I got at Circuit City awhile back. The amp has served me well until now.
The problem I'm having is that at high volume, the amp cuts in and out when any kind of low bass note (kick drum, etc) is being played. It does not get hot at all. The power light on the amp dims each time this happens. If I unplug the underseat sub, all is well again. At first I thought maybe my alternator was just not able to keep up, but at 90A I would think it would be fine for a relatively small system such as this.
So, do you folks have any suggestions? Maybe a better amp for the door speakers? I was actually thinking that I might just ditch the ESA and hook up my front speakers to the head unit, but before I do I want to see what you all think. Thanks for any input.