Too Much POWER

I have a white 04 4.3 4dr on 18's (225 tires) that I some how put........ 2. 15inch Kicker comp cvr's in a box, 1. digital capaciter, 1. digital distributer, 1. 1500w x1 hiphonx amp, a 450w amp for my highs, 6.5in pioneer touch screen, 1. 7.5 flip down screen, 12 disc cd changer, 2. 5 1/2 6x9 460w (in the back, and what ever the size is in the front I have 2 of those pioneer 120w) . I only run treble through the speakers for clarity. I have the level for the subs on the screen at -6 and bass -6, and the loud setting is off. The bass is extremly loud for a smaller car. I didnt know exactly how to rate my system until lastnight a Tahoe with 4 12's (keep in mind alot more air space) tried to bass me out at sonic. I took that trophy of course and sent him home with a hott amp and broken fuse's..... I just joined so give me a chance to learn how to put pictures up and I have no problem showing you guys my creation.

Navyboi

[jabartram]

well then, welcome, nice to have you here.

[alerocar01]

post up some pics and do you mean 3.4

yea 3.4... in the middle of work. Ill put up pictures asap

you can never have too much power. beat a tahoe huh,nice accomplishment,metered it yet? my cousin has two 12 kicker cvr not sure on the amp or anything but it pounds pretty good,a friend of mine runs a DD 9512 in his lincoln and i would say its prolly the loudest single 12" setup in this general area,i myself run two pbx 12's,i registered 151.6db last night on friends TL,he freaked out b/c his meter has never gone that high before,not to bad for two 12's on 1600 watt for the pair. yours sounds like a good setup though,post some pics.

[King Asoka]

sounds like a nice SPL setup.
those kickers must pound!!!
get a metre on those and let us know how much spl your producing.
and some pics would be nice!

[Ryan from Ohio]

You can never have to much power ntil you start frying subs.

The myths...

well,correct me if im wrong,it isnt power that fries subs,its distorson,if you can get a clean enough signal you can give gobs of power to subs,thats how a friend of mine is going to send around 13kw to his DD 9912,but ,my friend with the 9512 in the licoln is fixin his system tomorrow,and he's gonna be sendin around 3kw to it.im not braggin or anything but the people i know are very credible, the guy that helped build my friends lincoln and his siters car,is very tight with the owner of DD,but if anyone needs any help with a system,contact me and i can get ahold of some people and get their insight,i'm just tryin to help people out.

[GoldStar611]

distortion doesn't blow subs..its over voltage (the sub's excursion can go past its xmax rating) and over amperage (the voice coils can the too hot and *may* melt). The signal the sub see's has no effect on performance what so ever, audio excluded. It's not a good idea for an amplifier to deliver a clipping signal at any wattage, that doesn't mean there *will* be any damage though..

[Ryan from Ohio]

Originally Posted by Steck69

well,correct me if im wrong,it isnt power that fries subs,its distorson,if you can get a clean enough signal you can give gobs of power to subs,thats how a friend of mine is going to send around 13kw to his DD 9912,but ,my friend with the 9512 in the licoln is fixin his system tomorrow,and he's gonna be sendin around 3kw to it.im not braggin or anything but the people i know are very credible, the guy that helped build my friends lincoln and his siters car,is very tight with the owner of DD,but if anyone needs any help with a system,contact me and i can get ahold of some people and get their insight,i'm just tryin to help people out.

Actually thats wrong.

Theres more than one way to skin a cat and kill a sub.

The most prevelant is when the coil shorts out, and thats mainly due to it moving in a non linear motion. The voice coil will rub against the motor, and wear through the magnet wire- bam- shorted.

Then there is the point when the voice coil jumps out of the magnetic gap- its instant heat to the coil.

Clipped signals is never good. When your amp sends a clipped signal its sending straight DC to the speakers- not good.

General overpowering. Its not suc a big deal when its just a short burst. All subs have different points though, so dont get what Im about to say wrong. Some subs may have an RMS of say- 400 WRMS. But for a 3-6 second burp they MAY be able to handle upwards of 4x rated power. Its all sub dependant. At any rate, you never want to drasticaly overpower your subs in a daily situation.

Couple watts, ok- they will probably live. Few hundred, thats risky, a couple thousand- just idiotic...

i hear what your your sayin about overpowering,but i think overpowering is better than underpowering,when you overpower you can keep the gains and everything down ,but when you underpower you turn the gains up to get more bass and that sends a dirty signal most of the time,im not saying what you said is wrong or anything,but i think if you take a sub that has a rated rms of lets say 2kw you could send it 2500 watts or more of clean power longer than you could 2kw of dirty power,granted neither would be a very long period of time but i still think with cleaner power you can push it harder,thats what my friend with the lincoln is gonna do,he's takin i think somethin like two DD9918's and four DD Z1's with a crap load of battery and all the electrical upgrades so he can get a clean signal to the amp,and i tell him he's crazy b/c he wants it as his daily driver and a comp car,same thing with the guy thats gonna run the 9912 with like 13kw to it.i know some of you prolly think all that power is nuts but they want crazy loud.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Underpowering a sub wont hurt it, ever.

Its when people turn the gains all the way up and that bass boost...

You may be able to send that much power to the sub for comps and all, it can handle it. But if someone thinks they are going to do that daily on an hour car trip somehwere, well they aint to smart...

[Vinalero]

I'm totally noob on the amp - sub - watts relations. I am able to install it by wireing everything, but that's it. I have a Kenwood KAC-729s two channel stereo 150 WRMS / channel but it is bridgeable for 300 WRMS in mono for a sub. The amp is rated at 600W peak. The guy at the shop (was bout 3 years ago) told me to by a 12" cerwin vega single voice coil that was rated at 150 RMS and 300 W peak and told me it would be ok for the amp.

I kept burning the poor little sub, and I wasn't even pushing the amp at the max. Then I went to the shop and decided to change my sub for a Kenwood single voice coil (don't know the exact name though) that is rated at 300 WRMS and 1000 W peak. I though that if my sub could take higher watts than my amp, it wouldn't be a problem for him (also got a fkin deal on the sub ) I told the guy what amp I had and he told me this sub was no good for my amp, that it was too big. I bought it anyway. I have it for about one year and a half, I'm driving my amp at half its power and i'm gettin no problems.

Can it hurt the amp to have a sub too big?

[Cliff8928]

Originally Posted by Vinalero

Can it hurt the amp to have a sub too big?

Not usually. It'll just distort when the volume gets turned up.

[Ryan from Ohio]

Originally Posted by Cliff8928

Not usually. It'll just distort when the volume gets turned up.

There is no corrolation between having a high power sub and inducing "distortion" except the ever present operator error.

[Cliff8928]

Originally Posted by Ryan from Ohio

There is no corrolation between having a high power sub and inducing "distortion" except the ever present operator error.

Not even with not enough amp for the sub?

[Ryan from Ohio]

You can have any sub you want, say its rated 2000 WRMS. You can feed that puppy 100 WRMS all day LONG without problems- providing you set the amp up correctly.

The underpowering myth revolves around operator error. Underpowering a sub isnt bad, its actually better. To be honest, most subs only need about 80% of reccomended RMS to reach full output. ANyhow, the myth... THe problem is when people dont think its loud enough, so they crank the gain, the bass boost and the bass on the head unit. Basicly max out everything they can.

That will surely create a clipped signal. Your amp gets that signal and does its thing. When the sine breaks off the chart the amp sends straight DC to your speakers.

When this happens, the cone extendes to its limit- and it holds there. It also puts a LOT of heat into the coil...