[ghostinhere]

hey guys, i'm new to the forum. hope this doesnt get sent to the "you should've searched first" section.
here's my scenario: i'm looking to hook up a total of 8 speakers. 4 midbass, and 4 tweeters. two midbass/tweeters will go up front, and two midbass/tweeters wil go in the rear. the speakers are not component sets, and do not have passive crossovers. what i wanna know is how i get these speakers wired up if im using a 4 channel amp?
i've ran wires for stereo before but it only used 4 speakers. what i considered doing was using 1 channel for each midbass, and for the tweeters i thought i'd use the head unit's speaker out wires. if i did this it wouldn't be a permanent set-up, just something to get me rolling til i can buy a nice set of component speakers.

next question i have is: i'm looking at amps. thought i understood how it works, but am now realizing i really have no idea. one amp i saw(kenwood excelon KAC-X40 LINK) says it has 800 watts max power. then in the specs it says if you're running 4 ohms, it can push 70 watts into 4 channels (280 watts) and at 2 ohms it can push 100 watts into 4 channels(400 watts).. so where are the rest of the watts?!
i know a lot of this is probably very basic info, but if you could point me in the right direction i'd greatly appreciate it. didnt see anything like what i was looking for in other posts, so i apologize if it's already on here somewhere. thanks and take care

brad

 

[ghostinhere]

basically im just trying to figure out how to hook up a mid and tweeter pair in each corner of the vehicle correctly with amps and have enough power. i realize i am very uninformed here and i probably am not even asking my question correctly. so i apologize in advance! thanks

 

[TREETOP]

You'll need some type of crossover network between each mid/tweeter combo. It can be a regular 2-way passive setup or even something as simple as a small capacitor on the tweeter to keep the bass out.

 

[mjgonegm]

right, you can do this but it would really hard to sperate the freq's on one 4-channel amp. I would at least use 2x 4-channel amps. its just easier, you know the more speakers you run on an amp the more Ohm's and less power each speaker can get right.

 

[KARPE]

why do want to run 8 speakers?
why not get an extra amp?
You do know that the speakers wont be using all the watts, that rating is the ability of the channel not the constant flow.

 

[ghostinhere]

The reason I want 8 speakers is because trying to get a balanced sound. My car originally has 10 speakers and 2 subs. The front doors each have a tweeter, a midbass, and another "mid" that is imbetween the high and midbass. The rear doors have another tweeter and there's another midbass in the rear deck. I thought having two pars of 5.25" components would handle the sound better than the factory setup and it wouldn't need that imbetween mid speaker up front.
I'm planning to install an aftermarket HU and wanted to be able to have something to listen to til I can get some component speakers. The only reason I'm hesitant to use two amps is because I don't want to put too much strain on the charging system. I already have a 200 watt amp for my 10" sub. I kinda figured 3 amps would be too much. I'm still trying to figure out what would be best here. Thanks for your patience and suggestions

 

[tdiantonio]

pm sent to you regarding 8 channel set up