Am I over Powering ?

[billystorms24 1]

Hi guys i'm brand new here so take it easy on me. i would like some help. i bought a 15 inch alpine type r dual 4 ohm coils. I got a custum box made for it link is here http://www.soundsolutionsaudio.com/forum/i...showtopic=19049 it came out great. what i want to know is if i put 1500 watts rms on it am i over powering it, i know it says its 750 rms but i heard these subs take a beating and are under-rated. i have 1 alpine amp right now that is 750 rms @ 4 ohm and i was going to get another one of the same exact amp, and hook 1 to each 4 ohm coil its a v12 something mono block i forget the model number. please help me out i dont wanna burn the voice coils up thanks a lot guys,

Billy

Edited July 1, 2008 by The Storms

[djjdnap 78]

i would say yes..

however, if u turn the gains down enough u shouldn't have any problem

its what the business world likes to call overhead, lol

---

ucan do the old play by ear rooutine

turn the hu all the way up..

then set the gain on the sub, so that the sub is sounding nice, not popping or sounding distorted..

the reaon i say set ur hu all the way up is because most people never turn it all the way up giving u even more chance to not screw up.

[billystorms24 1]

alright sounds good thanks for the help if anybody else has input also id appreciate it thanks guys

[hayes55987 0]

yeah, set those gains conservative like they said and you will be fine! They can take a beating and if you're smart no worries at all. Plus leaves good from for overhead and if you ever decide to upgrade.

Good luck!

[shizzzon 461]

Well, if you do this, i'd highly advise you have the amps setup properly! Tuned by ear will kill your sub. You will need it tuned via o-scope.

Now, even then, you have 2 things to watch for-

1 - smell. Since this is a used sub, even AFTER the amps are setup, watch for a smell, a burn smell. If you ever smell this, turn down immediately as this will let you know that your amp combo is too much at that volume level.

2 - mechanical movement. If the sub tends to be moving more, well, that's a given... But, if it tends to be moving way too much than what it's rated for, that's a major problem as well. The best way to test this out is by playing test tones starting the volume off at half and working your way up to the maximum unclipped level it was setup at with the o-scope. IF you can't never get the stereo up to that level without the sub moving too much, then either it's too much power or your box is too large for the power at hand, or your crossover(s) need to be adjusted for a more narrow range.

[billystorms24 1]

thanks a lot for helping guys, very good well the type r 15 is brand new the amp was used on my 12 in type r. i did have that burning smell with the 12 haha but i never had a problem with that sub i just immediately turned it down. i tried the sub today with the single 750 rms sounded pretty good but i can see room for improvement. thanks again guys

Billy

[billystorms24 1]

i went on realmofexcursion.com and i saw a guy hooked up 1600 rms to it and it was pounding so i guess im good

thanks for the help

[KU40 173]

Yes, you will be overpowering it. And take that 1600 on ROE with a grain of salt. I can put a 10,000 watt amp on my XR tweeters and have them last forever. It's all about actual power output, not capability.

[billystorms24 1]

well i heard by many people they are under powered and they take a beating i dunno what to believe

[KU40 173]

people say those things for hype. Truth is, put an amp on it, play it as loud as possible without it blowing up or sounding bad, and just go with it.

[007 0]

let me ask you this, can you bridge your amp down to 2 ohms? Then you can run your sub in parallel and probably get closer to 1400 watts from you amp. otherwise you have to run it at 8 ohms and get a lot less.

[billystorms24 1]

no I can't bridge it to 2 ohm its a mono amp. I'm just gonna put the 2 amps on it and see what happens

[KU40 173]

is that amp stable to 2 ohms by itself? Nearly all monoblocks are stable at a load under 4 ohms.

[billystorms24 1]

yes its 2 ohm stable 1ohm no

[theabunai 3]

people say those things for hype. Truth is, put an amp on it, play it as loud as possible without it blowing up or sounding bad, and just go with it.

Come again ????

[billystorms24 1]

yea i was confused about that comment to sounds like he says i should put the two and just blast it....thats what i got from it hahah

[KU40 173]

people say those things for hype. Truth is, put an amp on it, play it as loud as possible without it blowing up or sounding bad, and just go with it.

Come again ????

what's wrong with what I said? If you understand english you'll realize all I said was to play it as loud as possible with whatever amp you have without the speaker blowing, thus getting the most out of it. What part of that is bad?

[theabunai 3]

what's wrong with what I said? If you understand english you'll realize all I said was to play it as loud as possible with whatever amp you have without the speaker blowing, thus getting the most out of it. What part of that is bad?

LOL Ok I understand now

[KU40 173]

no worries.

I just get tired of people saying "Man, I put a 2,000 watt amp on this 500 watt RMS sub and it took it! This sub is so underrated!" Well, the truth is, unless you metered the actual output on the amp you would have no idea if you're actually putting out 2000 or even 500 watts to the sub. A specific coil and motor design can only take a certain amount of power. Sure manufacturers may be a bit conservative with their power ratings, but it's to decrease the number of blown speakers they get back. Not to mention that power handling is not only thermally limited, but mechanically as well (which this forum has been discussing quite a bit lately, including you on that other thread) and that most of the time with music you aren't seeing even close to RMS power from the amp.

So, hence my comment about just putting an amp on the sub and playing it to it's full potential in the enclosure within all limits. ha.

To the OP, why not just sell the alpine amp and get one that is optimized for 2 ohms? That would be so much easier to set up and implement, not to mention the space saving from having one amp over 2.

Edited July 9, 2008 by KU40

[billystorms24 1]

nah i like this amp its got a lot of power and doesnt consume all the power out of my battery its very efficient. i wanna have two amps cause i got my box made to have that i have 2 terminals 1 for each coil i know that has nothing to do with how i set it up but i liked the idea of having 2. and as you go lower in ohms mean 4-2-1ohm the distortion rate goes higher im gonna stick with 4 ohms ( i used to dj so i know about speakers somewhat)

Billy