stereo ??? Monsoon

[Amy]

What kind of stereo do I have? I know it "says" Monsoon" on my 'dash/stereo', but what does that mean-really?! It doesn't seem like the 500 watt that is (dis)claimed? How can I tell for sure... ?

[Dave-S]

Amy........judging from your sig picture it looks like you have a 2002 Camaro SS. The Monsoon was standard in that car and your owners manual should give you all the information and specs on it. I like my Monsoon but a lot of people don't like them and upgrade to something different.

[Amy]

I do, and that's what I thought; but, I thought I was supposed to have 8 speakers too, and only count 6(?)

I also thought the Monsoon, had some type of equalizer...?

Also read that it's supposed to be 500 watts-not sure what that means, but shouldn't it be REALLY loud?

Hope all of this doesn't sound TOO dumb

All that aside, seems to work/sound great...

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

Each door speaker has has a tweater and a midrange, effectively making it 2 speakers. The rear-seat speakers act as sub-woofers and the rear speakers are just 4" fillers.

You can find some good info at ls1tech.com. There's a sticky at the Stereo forum that explains a lot. Personally I liked my 250W, 7 speaker Bose system in my 96 better. It had less distortion, but I'm not a big audiophile so it doesn't matter that much to me..

[Amy]

Ahhhh, that explains it...

I'd checked my book again...said 8 spkrs...looked into my car...counted only 8, etc. Thanks for explaining this

I'll have to take a gander over at the ls1tech.com and read up on this...take care-

[CocaColaEatsPie]

With Stereo's there are two different messures of power. There is RMS, which is continual power, and there is Peak which is how much power it can put out for a split second. When they say 500 Watt's they mean that is just saying that all the peak power for each speaker added up equals 500 watts. If you had 500 watts RMS to one large speaker, then it would be loud.

[Amy]

Put in some Alice Cooper greatest hits, maybe not my all time favorite cd, but it's what I had in my car...anyway, cranked it up and have to say, I don't know that I'd want/need it to be any louder.

In fact, that lil "mute" button on my steering wheel came in rather handy when I pulled up to a stoplight, and on the corner parking lot of McGuire's auto sat a cop. BTW-they just passed some ordinance about loud music here, and it came in rather handy. I usually either mute or way turn down music at lights anyway.

Thanks for the explain/clarification