Will it harm my sub?
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From: NOR CAL
Will it harm my sub?
I have a kicker 10" L5 with a max watt rating of 900, and I have it hooked up to a kicker 400 watt amp. its running at I believe 2 ohms, and the sub has 2 ohm voice coil. I wanted more bass and a stereo guy told me to turn the gain up, and I turned it up all the way. Sounds better, but will it harm my sub?
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From: NYC, Ct & NC
No it will not hurt your sub. What you need to do is turn up the radio to the loudest listening point your willing to hear. If the sub sounds distored or like its going to bust than you will need to cut back on the gain a little. Does you amp have a bass boost control? If so use that
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From: Nebraska
Just incase you might have missed it...
Originally Posted by Bartak1
To keep it simple...most likely.
Clipping is when an amplifier is forced to produce more power than it has the capability too. When clipped an amp can put out many times the power it is actually rated to make...tops and bottoms of the musical signal is actually 'clipped' off.
Now the reason this causes blown speakers...A speaker is rated to take a certian amount of power, and dissapate the heat it makes from that power by the back and forth movement the speaker makes. When clipped, a speaker can reach its mechanical limits (cant move back and forth any further to make it simple) but more power is being applied than the speaker is able to handle, in accordance to its cooling ability. Due to the speaker not being able to cool properly, the end result is a melted coil.
Say a speaker is rated to handle 300 watts. That speakers has the ability to effectivly cool 300 watts going through its voice coil. Now say that same speaker is given 1000 watts. The speaker is still only moving enough to cool 300 watts, yet there is 1000 watts of power going though that voice coil. The speaker has no way to dissapate that heat due to its design, so the only other place for the excess heat to go is the voice coil...which in turn melts.
Confused yet? Im not to good with words...more of a picture person myself
Clipping is when an amplifier is forced to produce more power than it has the capability too. When clipped an amp can put out many times the power it is actually rated to make...tops and bottoms of the musical signal is actually 'clipped' off.
Now the reason this causes blown speakers...A speaker is rated to take a certian amount of power, and dissapate the heat it makes from that power by the back and forth movement the speaker makes. When clipped, a speaker can reach its mechanical limits (cant move back and forth any further to make it simple) but more power is being applied than the speaker is able to handle, in accordance to its cooling ability. Due to the speaker not being able to cool properly, the end result is a melted coil.
Say a speaker is rated to handle 300 watts. That speakers has the ability to effectivly cool 300 watts going through its voice coil. Now say that same speaker is given 1000 watts. The speaker is still only moving enough to cool 300 watts, yet there is 1000 watts of power going though that voice coil. The speaker has no way to dissapate that heat due to its design, so the only other place for the excess heat to go is the voice coil...which in turn melts.
Confused yet? Im not to good with words...more of a picture person myself
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From: mobile, Al
Originally Posted by pmason718
No it will not hurt your sub. What you need to do is turn up the radio to the loudest listening point your willing to hear. If the sub sounds distored or like its going to bust than you will need to cut back on the gain a little. Does you amp have a bass boost control? If so use that
do you know what your saying?
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From: Chesterfield,Va.
Originally Posted by pmason718
No it will not hurt your sub. What you need to do is turn up the radio to the loudest listening point your willing to hear. If the sub sounds distored or like its going to bust than you will need to cut back on the gain a little. Does you amp have a bass boost control? If so use that
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From: my apartment
Originally Posted by pmason718
No it will not hurt your sub. What you need to do is turn up the radio to the loudest listening point your willing to hear. If the sub sounds distored or like its going to bust than you will need to cut back on the gain a little. Does you amp have a bass boost control? If so use that
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From: NOR CAL
Originally Posted by Impact9
75% of the headunit's total volume is about where most headunits start to clip. Unless you get a killer Kenwood like me that don't clip at max volume. Wheee!
Im almost sure the amp is tuned correctly now. Learned a few things and went and did it. Frequency is about 120. Gain is just under 1/2 and bass boost is a little over 3/4. It doesn't distort much until its at full volume, but I also can't feel the bass in my chest.
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From: Wisconsin
Not only does clipping keep the sub from moving, but by nature the clipped signal becomes DC... oh heck.. it doesn't matter.
Bartaks got the important stuff summed quite nicely. -Although there are always exceptions.
Is a sub ever loud enough?
Bartaks got the important stuff summed quite nicely. -Although there are always exceptions.
Is a sub ever loud enough?
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From: NOR CAL
Originally Posted by torqueaholic
If it doesn't "hit hard", your box tuning or box size might be incorrect for that driver. Have you checked to see if your driver is in its recommended enclosure range?
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From: Nebraska
Originally Posted by '06STX
Not until it destroyes the vehicle it's in.
Thats right
but I don't have to fix my rearview mirror anymore
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From: NYC, Ct & NC
For ya'll information I do know that I'm talking about. I hate it when someone does a little bit of stereo work and than think they are a pro. Its not going to hurt his subs at all. What we really need to know is the actually RMS of the sub and the amp and we can go from there. Please provide us with that information or some model numbers of the amp and sub and let's go from there