douggie

I have a question. Do HUs make a lot of difference when you're just using it as a source (using a separate amp to drive all speakers and sub)?

mazdaspeedwest

Personally i never look at an HU's power rating, i could care less. But there are units out there without internal power, pretty rare though. If your running outboard amps, then just look at the features you'll need and pay no attention to internal power.

but it doses't make much of a difference, as with the mid/higher end units, they know your going to be using outboard amps anyway, so they beefeed up the pre out voltage and don't really put much effort into the power section.

kc5zom

Like Onehawaiian said they are like wells. I like to think of them as really fast batteries though. They charge themselves when voltage is applied and compensate the power they charged up when you need it. So when your system is doing light work it is charging itself up and maintaining charge but when you hit a big thump it gives up some of its power so that the electricity powering that thump doesn't crap out and leave you with a thwimp (hows everybody like that Mario Brothers reference there?).