how many channels are good?? i'm a total noob at this audio stuff and never cared for much about it. multi-channel or 2 channel? i just want a good sub, and some good tweeters. this ain't gonna be for show, i just want it to sound good.

if your going to amp your sub and your highs you should get 2 amps. 1-4 channel amp for the highs/mids 1-2 channel amp for the sub(or a mono amp)

1 channel powers one speaker. It depends on how many speakers you plan on powering.

so like if i have 4 speakers, 2 tweeters, and one sub, you recommend i get a sperate one for the sub and a multichannel one for the unit, speakers, and tweets?

Well, the tweeters are most likely connect be connected with the front speakers right? So thats a 4 channel and you need one for the sub. There are some 5 channel amps out there, if you need simplicity. I have one 2-channel and one mono sub(1 channel) sub amp. I run no back speakers cause they just make it sound worse.

if you are not going to go crazy with the amps, i would recomend one of two actions (i am assuming that the two tweets and two of the speakers are components sets)

1- get a FIVE channel amp (one ch. for each speaker plus a dedicated sub ch.)

2- get a Four channel amp (use the two front stereo channels for the interior speakers and bridge the rear for a more powerful sub channel)

with number two you NEED to know what kind of Ohmz the amp can take and what the speakers use. the interior speakers will need to be wired in series and/or parallel depending on the amp you choose. you should know about watts and Ohmz for number one too (or any amp set up), but it is not as necessary.

if you are not going to go crazy with the amps, i would recomend one of two actions (i am assuming that the two tweets and two of the speakers are components sets)

1- get a FIVE channel amp (one ch. for each speaker plus a dedicated sub ch.)

2- get a Four channel amp (use the two front stereo channels for the interior speakers and bridge the rear for a more powerful sub channel)

with number two you NEED to know what kind of Ohmz the amp can take and what the speakers use. the interior speakers will need to be wired in series and/or parallel depending on the amp you choose. you should know about watts and Ohmz for number one too (or any amp set up), but it is not as necessary.

Also note with option 2 you dont have the option of fading front/rear.

very true. also with the four channel amp both front and rear channels need to have crossovers, high pass for the interior speakers and low pass for the sub.

I have 8 speakers total, 4 tweeter and 4 mids as component sets, so they came with crossover which you connect all the speakers to and and amp connects to the crossovers. For a pair of subs you can use a 1 channel, 2 channel or 4 channel amp, depending on what ohm loads the amp can handle, what ohm the speakers are, and how you wire the speakers to the amp. In all scenarios, the smartest thing to do IMHO, is to buy amps that are capable of powering your speakers at least at the RMS wattage required for their ohm load. Doing so, you won't have to crank up the gain on your amps to properly power the speakers and you won't drive your amp so hard that it cuts out or simply gets ruined. If car stereo components were regulated like home stereo is, you wouldn't have all this B.S. of underrated and overrated amps. And that changes over time. Rockford Fosgate used to be top of the line for amps and subs, then they went mass market and started making head units and selling through Best Buy because they had a reputation they built up and decided that they'd ruin that rep by making and selling stuff that was below par to what they had that built them that reputation in the first place. It sucks but it happens all the time in various different types of products. If car audio were regulated, you'd simply know, speaker A is 8 ohms and needs 100w RMS, and amp B produces 100w RMS at 8 ohms per channel.