no you dont need that much power !!! …
I have been in this buisness for 11 years … and all i see is overpowering
Kevin just call my cell tomarrow … we have plenty in stock amps and subs …ill hook ya up …
Thanx Derrick … 465-2820 … or the shop 877-3878
i have 2 12" kickers powered by 2 seperate amps, it seems the only thing that they are good for are rattling loose my tail lights. lol
it’s your cash do what you feel right doing. i personaly would go pure sound quality as the thump thump gets old quick. rap isn’t fun unless you have a big subwoofer lol
thats the thng, i dont wanna have my trunk rattling like the idiots who drive by my house all the time.
what are you nuts?!?!?! if anything thats not enough power and if youve been in the buisness youd know that underpowering a sub is worse than overpowering. the L5 is 600 rms. sooooo he should prolly have an amp that runs at 800 rms and then turn his gains down. cmon, you should be up on this. that way theres no clipping and he wont be starving for power. its not gonna rattle your shit either. you can adjust all kinds of stuff between the headunit and your Xovers.
I gotta side with dirty on this one… cause thats what I’ve always known… and done.
Good clean power is the only thing that will make your subs hit like they should.
if it is too much rattle, turn down the gain…
honestly, if you are looking for a little more thump, get a bazooka box and be done with it.
show me proof. Electrical engineering is like math, there is ONE right way, and aplenty of wrong ways. No grey area.
Underpowering does not hurt any voice coil ever made by man.
Starving for power?? :lol: You know what a voice coil actually is, right?
Granted you dont want the amp at 100% output all the time because it shortens the life, but underpowering will never do any harm to a speaker. Overpowering will overheat them and can fuse the coils causing them to distort and make cool cracking noises. If you run yours like mine, which is at 120 db constant cruising, then you want a little extra wattage to keep the amp nice and cool. Your not competing theres nothing to worry about. You could run it on your amp now, but your amp would get hot.
Also most AMP ratings are done when the amp is cold, fresh and at 1 frequency such as 1khz. Or whereever it performs best usually with a high distorion ratio.
My MTX amp claims to be 250 watts. Electrical testing proves it to be about 35 RMS.
Sub Watt ratings are another story and not needed for this thread.
call BDR50h, have him hook you up with a amp to made to match that sub and be done with it. Seeing that your intentions are to just have a little extra kick, None of this other bullshit is neccesary.
yeah and probably at an astronomical 17 volts too.
to whoever said underpowering never hurt and claimed i dont know what a coil is let me explain it for you… excessive distortion from an over driven amp CAN shorten the life of a subwoofer. the voice coil vibrates along the magnet structure and carries the current so that it is always moving in a plane perpindicular to the magnetic field so the force always acts on the same axis, so if that vibration becomes distorted because of overloading an amp your coils can shit out because of uneven distibution of force and power. correct???
lol…
“that vibration becomes distorted” please, explain furhter.
excessive distortion from an overdriven amp has ZILCH to do with underpowering.
Excessive distortion is not “vibration”
Excessive distortion IS SQUARE WAVE.
You know, an amplifier outputs AC. Alternating Current. When the current is beyond the limits of the PCB, then the tops of the frequency waves are “clipped off”, or it’s a clipped waveform. This is distortion.
When the over current is so severe that You’re effectivly outputing Direct current, You end up clipping off nearly the entire transitional portion of the wave form. Ending up with “square wave”.
Square wave will pop a coil in a matter of moments, enclosure dependant.
Clipped wave will also pop a coil, but not nearly as fast.
Neither of these two things will cause a coil to “vibrate” to death.
The reason that overcurrent pops coils is this: The fact that the coil will “hang” excurted for 1/8 cycle or so, causes it to lose some cooling effect. In a passband of 30-120 cycles, losing an 1/8 cycle on EVERY wave will cause ALOT of overheating if done continuously. Consequently the coil binding -or- glue, overheats and breaksdown. At this point any coil wire can break loose of the former. When this happens, the wire shorts against the ferrite, causing a DC short into the motor. No more boom boom.
What YOU are referencing is a mechanical failure. Not electrical. Mechanical failures only happen when a driver is poorly designed -or- the enclosure is poorly designed.
What is a poorly designed driver? One that has more Xmag then Xsus.
You do know those two terms, right?
Xmag is a reference for the “Power” or BL of the motor.
Xsus is a reference to the abilities of the suspension (primarily the spiders, but also to include the surround & tinsel leads)
The commonly overabused TS parameter of Xmax is derived from these specs. More importantly, most beter motors are rated for Xmax where the BL falls below 70% (iirc). Or, the lesser of the two (xsus & xmag)
Now, in the case of a severly limited suspensoin, or greatly overpowered motor - You will easily reach mechanical limits in any application with with recommended power.
Or, in the case of a poorly designed or built enclosure, You will hit mechanical limits of a suspension quite easily. If You’re running an Adire Brahma 12" in a 2.0ft 4th order ported with a resonance of 80hz… but feeding it 35hz @ 800wrms (actual wrms with a clamp & ammeter), then the suspension is going to unload and the “bottomless” driver will bottom out with enough abuse. The coil former can either flat out “bottom” on the backplate of the motor. OR the SPIDER can reach it’s physical (mechanical) limits. At these limits, the spider cannot maintain linear control. Therefore it (it IS the main centering force) cannot keep the coil centered on the pole piece. The whole soft assembly will rock and short the coi against the pole piece or ferrite, causing coil rub, and eventually a short (coil to ferrite).
But these kinds of failures are mainly due to ignorance. A decent (or better) enclosure can be made for $40 - $80, but if no one takes the least bit of time to make sure that the dampening & tuning is right, then they are wasting alot of driver capability. In other words, they would REALLY have to fuck it up to reach xsus under anything less the Mecca / dBDrag usage.
In anycase, underpowering a driver WILL NOT break it.
If you still dont get that, think about this: If Underpowering a driver is bad for it, what happens EVERYTIME you turn the volume down from the Gain Pot set point?
Answer: The coil gets less current & voltage. EVERYTIME. Boy, better never turn that knon down.
Oh, and forgive me any typos / omissions, this is what I remember from my heavyier audio & competing dayzzzzz.
No offense Dirty, but You should absolutely do some reading. Then, get Your hands on a few different motors and see what they can do. And, If You havent yet, disassemble a well built driver, then rebuild / recone it.
Feel free to hit me up, I have a feeling that I could learn You a few things. Ask Your boi Jim @ Underground.
-Nick
k… now I agree with both of you…
I guess overpowering… is bad, but stressing the amp is just as bad right?
I was thinking back to my Pyle days… where I had a 1200watt amp (MAX @ 14volts) and 2 400rms sony subs… the amp got cooked… probably cause it was pyle… and probably cause it was like 200 watts RMS @ 12volts.
What about the 12v vs 14v argument? Doesn’t the alt in the car charge @ 14volts…
or is it cause the power feed is coming from a 12v battery and not the 14v alt?
If You are USING AN ANY AMPLIFER AND CRANK THE GAIN POT ALL THE WAY UP, IT WILL CLIP.
So, If You use a 100 wrms amplifier, and try to get 800wrms out of it, Yes, You’ll clip the signal to shit and eventually hurt the coil.
Is this what You guys are referring to?
Cause, that sure as hell is not what underpowering a speaker is.
ok i know i have alot to learn thats wh im going to mobile dynamics in the fall.
i didnt have time to read your post cuz my g/f is here and were leaving all i noticed is this
If you still dont get that, think about this: If Underpowering a driver is bad for it, what happens EVERYTIME you turn the volume down from the Gain Pot set point?
were not talking about turning things down, thats fine, when you have the gains cranked on an amp that does 100 watts rms and the subwoofer is looking for 200 rms then what?? where is it getting the other 100 rms, it cant so it trying to pull more power from the amp then the amp can feed it. were talking about overloading an under rated amp. i gtg i do enjoy this convo tho.
what does derrick know every system i have seem him install has sounded perfect…and Dirty i have been around systems longer than u have been out of diapers…i also know that u dont need 600 watts…i have an old MTX Terminator that if u run it at 1 ohm will blow anything that todays 600 watt amps will toss at it
uh now that i just posted and saw your response i believe we are on the same page lol… maybe not? i dunno but i gtg.
i quit. lol
you guys gotta get a DMM and play around. then do some reading. then do a whole lot more testing. then compete with Your own pocket money.
edit-but get with me if you wanna talk tech shit. id offer to show You setups, but all i have left these days are pics & shit. last thing i had was 158.x legal. :gotme:
you know what, whatever. im out. im not arguing this. the man needs an amp and sub combo. Buick, fuck anything i said it doesnt really matter anyways, go to a reputable shop and get what they tell you to get, ignore the bulshit on how it works and the dynamics of it and buy it, if it breaks its under warranty who fuckin cares how or why it breaks. /endthread
EDIT:i have a multimeter and its my friennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd. and i do all my competing out of my own pocket. kthx bye
yea - sorry about the offtopic shit.
BuickGN - go to any reputable shop, they’ll tell You what You need for what You want. You dont even have to buy there.
I KNOW Rainbow is good with audio… I used to use them all the time back when they were on Kenmore. Same guys running the show.
" mobile dynamics" dont waste your time or the outlandish amount of money
Sound offs are dead around here … and lots-O-bass is gay … SQ is great but nobody around here gets into that anymore … I wish there was a demand for it again cause that is my favorite part of car audio …
IMO any clown can shake the windows on a house … just add these parts (shitty monster SUV,sloppy 15’s,crap ass 1000d’s …crank up your 50 cent and move to the hood)
you young children probably dont even realize that the Cerwin Stroker was built for SQ
You must be getting old D… YOUR SHOP sold me on the Cerwin stroker. This was before I learned anything about mobile electronics or audio.
Stroker 18D4 booooooooy - ugliest driver I ever owned. like, hmm, 9 years ago. Still had that bitch till a ~3 years ago.
Alright, really, im done here. Wifey’s home. :whip: