Car Audio: Recommend a cheap amp (any help at all appreciated)

[Hellsmk2]

I'm not sure if this is the right forum for a thread like this. Apologies if it is not.

I'm going to build an audio system in my car, but I'm unsure of what amp to buy. I'll fill in some details about the car and what I'm after/ already have.

I drive a 1970 Morris Minor. It has had it's original radio for all that time. There are no viable points within the car to mount car speakers without wrecking the structural integrity of the car or compromising all sound quality. For that reason I've decided to use speakers from an old Pioneer home system I used to use. This compromises of a couple of satellite speakers and a fairly small sub.

The sat's are 30w each and the sub is 50w (about the size of a shuttle). They're amazing little speakers which I can mount very easily without damaging my pride and joy. However, I have no idea where to start with what amp to buy to power them. I won't be running it through an in-car stereo/CD player/ tape deck. I want an amp I can plug my portable MP3 player directly into without blowing it up! What would people suggest? I preferably want one with gain/bess/treble/volume control on it.

If it is possible to hook my mp3 player directly up to a car amp without damaging it, what amp would be ample to power the two sat's and the sub? I was thinking along the lines of 500w ish as these can be had for very cheap on a certain auction site.

Cheers for any help!

[edit] Would it even be possible to use home stereo speakers in a car system or do they need a heck of allot more power than a car could provide?[/edit]

 

[daz]

You can get a car audio amplifier, however this will only usually be the power amp stage. It will be much better if you get yourself a head unit with some pre-outs and a line input. This will provide you with your volume, bass and treble controls.

I would imagine the 500W amplifier you've seen on the bay is 500 fairytale Watts... 500W RMS is an absolutely immense amount of power, you should be looking somewhere in the region of 50W RMS to power some component speakers.

You can use home speakers in a car - problems, however include the fact that they're hard to mount anywhere decent, they are not particularly rugged and thirdly that they are generally 8 ohms, whereas car audio equipment tends to be 4 ohms.