When a car stereo system is running properly, the signal will go from the head unit, out to the subwoofer and amplifiers, and then into the speakers. However, when it goes to the amplifiers, there are two different stages that occur which have an impact on the quality of the car stereo system.

In the amplifier stage, you will have the preamplifier section, and the power amplification section. We have talked about the amplifier in detail in another part of this website, but here we will go over the one of the two stages that make up the amplifier stage.

When the signal gets to the amplifier stage, it is routed to the power amplifier by the preamplifier. This then boosts the signal into the range that we can hear it, and sends that single to the speakers.

When you think of the amplifier, think of it as a big shot of steroids. Various power amplifiers will differ in quality, but they all do the same. When the weak signal gets to them, they jack it up with power so that we can hear it, and so that the overall sound level increases far beyond what the original system used to do.

Everything with your car stereo system will be thought of in watts. The higher the wattage, the higher the sound. Therefore, your power amplifier will increase the wattage of the car stereo system so you can get a better sound. Most car stereo systems have very basic amplifiers that do not do much but get the sound to what we can hear.

However, for many that is simply no good and they need an added hit of power for their car stereo system. So, they will get a large amplifier that receives the signal from the preamplifier and increases the wattage massively. That then translates into the louder sound heard on the speakers.

Power amplifiers are very important in basic and custom car stereo systems because it allows people to hear what is coming through the speakers and it allows car owners to increase their pride in their car stereo system with the amplifier that dwarfs all others.

As for the car’s preamplifier, we will get into that in another article on the website.