Here is my final dilemna before installing my system. My front components and rear sub both have their own amps, but i don't have anything to power the rear speakers except the HU. While I know that isn't ideal, since the fronts have their own amp I figure those will sound real good, and the rear speakers willl still be better then OEM.

I could buy another amp, but that would be 3 amps in the car, which seems a tad excessive.

Here is the setup

Nakamichi 6 1/2 components with Nak amp
Nak 10 inch sub with Zed Audio amp
Nak rear speakers which have nothing except HU power

So do you think I should buy yet another amp or just run the HU for the rears?

 

Me personally, I would have bought an amp that could accomodate 4 speakers. I enjoy having my rear stage sound just as impressive as the front. You will hear mixed opinions though. There are those that will argue that a rear stage is not needed in the Z, as long as your front components are amplified. Do as you wish. It is ultimately up to you how loud you wish you mid/highs to be. BTW, you'd be alright with running the rears off of the HU. I'm not sure how much controlibilty you'll have though over the rear speakers. I'm assuming all of your amps will be accepting rca input directly from the passive rca outputs of the amp?

 

My setup is exactly like yours. I have my fronts and sub powered by an amp and th rears off the head unit. It sounds quite good. Nothing wrong with that setup at all.

 

+1 I have this same setup also...it sounds great. The rears dont have to be that loud because they are right behind your head.

 

Another you might wanna consider is:
How much bass are you producing. For example, my rear speakers have to be amplified because my sub is putting out so much bass that it practically drowns out my infinity kappas right now. If I didn't have the rears amplified, it be much worse, or I'd have to turn down the bass gain more.

 

The typical aftermarket headunit isn't putting out that much power. IMO, it's just as bad to underpower a speaker as it is to overpower a speaker.