Hi all As per my other post i picked up a sub but not sure of amp to run it

is a 12" sub a/d/s 312rs.2 dual voice coil

on the back of the sub it says

dual 4ohm voice coil recommended amplifier rms power range 40watts - 300watts each coil

Does this mean i need a 600watt amp to run this one sub ?

any info welcomed

cheers

beaker

 

Not as simple as that i'm afraid.

You need to find out at what configuration it's 4ohm.

dual voice coil means you have two drivers in one. They can be wired in series or in parallel. I am guessing that 4ohm is when they are in series; if this is the case, running the coils in parallel will give you 2ohm.

Make sense so far?

Right, moving on.

Speakers power can be measured at peak or average (called RMS). You need to find the RMS figure of the sub, then find an amplifier that can run at that rating. Peak power is what's quoted on cheapo items to make them sound better than they actually are.

For example: 200w r.m.s 400w peak at 2 ohms.

Therefore, buy an amp that has - say 250w rms, 500w peak @ 2ohms. Obviously plugging at 2kw amp into it will blow the sub to bits. Getting a 20w amp will be too quiet.

Amps run better when not pushed to the max and you can sometimes get a bit more out of the sub due to tolerances etc.

The wiring of the sub to give you series or parallel should have come with it in the instruction manual.

Hope this helps

 

Hi Scoooooby thank you for the feedback confirming what my research has found out ... i have found out that running the DVC sub from 4ohms in parallel makes it 2ohm load . as you said above . so am looking at the Alpine ALPINE MRP-M500 - Monoblock sub that runs 500rms at 2ohms as you said better be under than on the limit . have been trying to find out the best way to set gain on the amp also . and everyone seems to have different ways to do this .

cheers for the feedback again mate

beaker

 

No probs made, any time. Glad to make all this useless knowledge helpful to someone. 5 years getting an electronics degree wasn't a complete waste of time after all!

The less work amps have to do the better. Therefore the more powerful the input signal, the lower the gain required on the amp and the better the sound quality. I think this is why head units always go far louder than any sane person can actually listen to.

Set the input gain on the head unit to -say 95% of full gain, then adjust the gain on the amp until the balance is to your taste.

Best to stick in your most bass-heavy song to test it as the sub will fart like it's just had a vindaloo if you set it up to something like Roxette, then put in The Chemical Brothers!

What I did was set the head unit gain to 13 (out of 15) set the volume to 20 (goes up to 35 I think) with Galvanize by Chemical Brothers playing, then increase the gain until the sub starts to fart, then pull it down a bit. I then matched the 4-channel gain so it all sounds sweet. Subs require a wear-in period though, what farts today, will not be what farts two weeks later. It's a gradual process of upping the power. If you cheat and wack it at full gain out of the box, the sub will pop. Have seen it done and the owner was not a happy bunny. Best not do this at 7am on a sunday though as the neighbours 'might' get a bit upset.

You do realise this is only the start, you will get a capacitor and 4-channel before the year is out! It's a slippery slope..............

 

Ya might want to set ya bass on ya headunit to flat(0) before ya set anything up gainwise so you`ve got scope either way for tracks with less bass/more for adjustment either way if listening to different sorts of music-will also if getting a decent amp want setting up once uve set the crossover point on the amp(can "generally" be between 80 and 120hz depending on the size of the sub though this is variable from some headunits on the sub output anyway)

Would also depend on the set up as to what i`d set the preout level to before setting up, i always like to have scope with both the fader and bass level to adjust rather than set it up at its max only to have no adjustment from your head unit for more power via either the bass control(if got-it not all headunits have bass/treble these days lol) fader or sub level on headunit(assuming theres no seperate amp level control)

Like you`ve mentioned different ppls got different ways of setting things up-just thought i`d share mine.

 

Cheers loads for the feed back Guys ... yeah definite find an empty industrial unit for 30 mins rather than appering on neighbours from hell lol