Anyone know the power output of the stock headunit in 2nd gens?

I just bought an alpine CDE 9881 (45W), and was wondering what the output of the factory unit was so that i could get an idea of how big of a power boost im getting.

my truck is an '07, if that helps narrow it down

 

Probably 20 watts max. 10 watts continuous.

Your Alpine is 45 watts max. Probably about 20 watts continuous.

On head units they are kind of misleading about the wattage ratings. They will measure what it puts out for a split second at high volume, and then that's the number they go with. But most of the time your "45 watt Alpine" is actually putting out less than 20 watts per channel. All manufacturers do this.

They do the same thing with cheap outboard amplifiers. If your amp says it's a 1000 watt amp, but it only cost $250, then your amp is probably not a real 1000 watt amp. It probably puts out more like 500 continuous watts.

The numbers you really want to look at is the Continuous watts (aka RMS).

 

You can convert peak to RMS. Multiply the peak * 0.707.

So on a 20 watt per channel peak system, the RMS would be 14.14 Watts RMS.
On a 45 Watt watt per channel peak system, the RMS would be 31.815 RMS.

Another term I've seen is Music power. It's half of peak. You'd then take the RMS of that.
20 watts peak system is 10 watts music power with 7.07 watts RMS.
45 watts peak = 22.5 watts music power = 15.9 watts RMS.

I've seen some head units rated with what appears to be music power rms (which is 1/2 peak * .707). For example, this Alpine is rated 50 watts peak, 18 watts RMS. (50 peak /2 for music power = 25; 25 * .707 = 17.675 RMS).