Amps under seats
 

Hey all:
I was wondering if anyone had any experience placing a 4 channel amp under a power seat in a 190e (passenger side as drivers side has the cruise control and alarm boxes and there is no room there). Will the amp get enough air flow to keep it cool? What about under the rear seat, will it flow enough there? Finally, I am looking at new head units, and was wondering if 2v preouts for the front and rear speaker channels is sufficient or if there is a noticeable difference if I step up to 4v. Where would I hear the difference? Thanks very much in advance.

I've seen people mount amps under the rear seats of W124's. I wonder if they would fit and get enough cooling under w201 rear seats?

Don

Placing the amp under a seat really depends on the size of the amp. Genrally its not a great idea. Mounting the amp in the trunk somewhere would be by far the best, but theres really not any easy way to mount it in the trunk since in most mercedes theres no wood to mount it in. In my 300E I made a board to replace the carpet panel that covers my gastank to mount the amp on. If you want to mount it under the seat i would choose an amp with a built in cooling fan or large heatsinks, like Audiobahn or Rockford fosgate.

...or you could buy a small cooling fan or two.

Yea, computer fans are great because they run on 12v, and you can get them in many sizes

Most Amps have thermal overload protection and will cut out automatically when temperatures get too high.

The front drivers seat may be a good location as long as it doesn't get in the way of seat movement. Air can move freely from front to back. Make sure your amp isn't too close to the set bottom, this can act as a restriction.

Mounting under the rear seat really depends how hard you plan on working the amp. For example if your running the amp at or near it's maximum output you will heat it up much faster and it will cut out. Same thing applies if the amp is mounted upside down, the amp will heat far faster and cut out. Fans can help but your still restricting how much air there is to cool the amp. Regarding types of fans.......Pancake fans are ok but the long cagelike fans (similar to what you would find in heating/cooling systems but smaller) are more efficient, less noise and move more cfm.

I've had problems with EMF from the electric seat motors, heaters, etc., putting some noise into the system when amps were mounted uder seats. Obviously, there's also the heat factor. I would advise against it. You could drop a plywood board into your trunk, use four sheetmetal screws in the corners to mount the board. Then, just screw down your amps, etc., to the board using sheetmetal screws. Easy.