I am thinking about instaliing a Alpine headunit that has a 250 watt internal amplifier. Does that mean it will send a proportionate amount of wattage to each speaker/subwoofer that is hooked up, or can you decide which ones get the wattage. Thanks

 

Most decks these days are labeled as 45x4 or 50x4. These are ridiculous ratings though. You are more likely going to get about 15-18 watts x 4 channels. Dont hook a sub up to a deck. I know pioneer advertises that you can but dont do it. Wattage is per channel and pretty much fixed.

 

250w will probably be the max output. The rms (root mean squared) or average output will be about 125w. That will be divided by 4 channels = 31.5w per channel rms. The rms power is what you will be listening to most of the time. You can run a sub or subs off that but subs are power hungry and you won't get the full potential from the subs. You can definately run mids and highs from the deck, no need for an extra amp for them. Does this deck have an rca subout? How about built in high/low pass xovers? Is the subout adjustable? These are the important things to look for in a deck.