I recently went from one Type S 12 powered by an OLD Power Acoustik 200 watt amp to two of the same Type S 12s powered with an 800 watt Audiobahn A8000V. They both don't hit half as hard as the one did with that old PA amp. Do I need to upgrade my alternator and get a capacitor so that it can get more power or something?
I have a 94 Explorer with a stock alt(I believe 95 amps) and a run of the mill battery. I'm running 4 gauge wire, so it can carry enough current for the amp.
I believe I wired them to a proper 2 ohm load, and I thought I set the gain to an alright setting. The box is just a sealed box off of ebay. It's the same box though, I was just running only one sub off of the smaller amp.
I'm going to try the subwoofertools.com instructions now, I think my dad has a digital multimeter I can borrow.
I used the calculator on subwoofertools.com and set it for 600 watts, and the sound quality is great. But with my Power Acoustik amp I could feel the bass in my chest with certain notes. With this one it's just loud, and doesn't seem to be as deep.
The Power Acoustik amp didn't have filters at all, so all I set on it was the gain. My Audiobahn I'm not sure what my low pass is at, but I'll try 80. I've been running it with subsonic on and at a little over 20. I figured since my subs frequency response is 25 Hz - 1000 Hz, it would be better for it. Am I wrong? I've got my bass boost at about 5 dB out of 18.
Just out of curiousity, why should my low pass be at 80?
my low pass is looowwwwww lol, What kind of head unit do you have? Did it loose power and loose its settings? If you have a good HU you can make pretty much any amp sound alright.. you should check your ohms again to on a multi meter... does the amp get real hot?
I have a bottom of the line Pioneer head unit. It's the DEH-1800. When I try to boost the bass much with the equalizer on it, it seems to get distorted pretty quick.
The amp doesn't seem to get hot at all, but it sounds like a good idea to check my ohms. Do I just touch the multimeter contacts to the speaker wires while it's running? I'm also going to check and see if one of them is out of phase tonight. I swear I hooked them up perfectly to 2 ohms, but I'm willing to try anything to get these subs pounding.
Oh yea, I was also wondering if it mattered what frequency I use to set the gain. I played a 30 Hz tone on repeat and adjusted the gain until I had 34.6 AC Volts coming out of the speaker outputs, which is supposed to give me 600 watts at 2 ohms.
I would do it to somwhat waht your box is tuned to... you should maybe try somwhere from 40-55hz your choice.. when you test the subs, DO NOT PUT THE MULTIMETER on the speaker terminals until they are disconnected or you will have a completely wrong reading, also make sure you have the wires correct, if one wire is backwards your polarity isnt right and it makes the subs have more distortion and about half of there powerhandling.. What model subs are they? Also i havnt had that HU but i dont think i have heard much about it either, you may want to upgrade to a better HU.. unless it is a good headunit.. is it premier?
^^^^ i had wires wrong once... the Vol knob was full and the thing was barely moving air... i changed the wires and set them correctly... everything was fine
How do I meter the Ohms with the subs disconnected? I disconnected them when I set the gain, but I don't see how the multimeter could read the subs Ohms with no current. They are Alpine Type S SWS-1222Ds, and the HU isn't a Premier, just plain old Pioneer.
Well u have them disconnected because with the amp connected it trys to read it to when it dosnt have a true ohm load.. its more of the source so it will give you a wide range, the subs you want disconnected when u do it so u get your nominal load, the average it holds, when the sub moves of course it changes for split seconds and goes back, its like pushing on a sub or measuring the ohm load with the sub sitting on the cone\combing it just dosnt work. also you should probally double check your wiring inside the box to, that the + from the speakers are truly going to the + terminal in the speaker box.
Ugh, I just got done double checking my connections. When I turned my truck on I heard some slammin bass, so I turned around smiling. That didn't last long, cuz I saw only one sub was going. I don't know what's wrong now, but the problem before was a super sh!tty connection from the speaker wire to one of the terminals inside my box.
Thanks for all the help guys, and sorry for wasting your time since it just ended up being a bad job connecting the terminals on my part. I never double checked my wiring before I hooked up this new amp cuz I was so excited, and it bit me in the @$$. Hopefully tommorow I'll find why only one sub is going.
Woo Hoo! One of the jumpers looked a little bent up and worn out, so I replaced it last night. Well I guess the one I replaced it with was actually bad. I tried to meter the Ohms of the one with the new jumper and it didn't even have an Ohm load. I can feel the bass in every hair of my body with every note, these Alpines slam as hard as I had hoped. :-D
