I have my 2 rl-p 15s in 5 cubes tuned to 31 hz. I have my Orion 2500d at 4 ohms giving them around 600 watts apiece. If I turn the gain up a little more than it is, the cone makes kinda like a pinging noise when it hits real hard. I measured my voltage and it stays around 13.5 so I dont think its clipping. Am I simply pushing them too hard or is it possibly clipping or what? I backed off on the gain and the noise went away but the output went down. Are aluminum cones known to make a noise when they are playing this loud, or what? It only makes the noise when I stick my head pretty close. The noise isnt a big deal but I just figured I was pushing them too hard so I backed off. Thanks

clipping it.

Yea it sounds like you are likely clipping your amplifier. The RL-p should not be making any pinging noises unless they are receiving a distorted signal or are being overdriven and hitting the backplate of the T-yolk. You may also want to give your drivers a thorough visual inspection to ensure that all parts are still properly glued together as there is always the off-chance that some seperation could occur.

If you are really dying for more output, you can wire 'em up for 1ohm operation (each seeing 1250wrms). If you do wire to 1ohm though, you'll need to be even more cautious with that gain adjustment so keep that in mind! You could also consider raising your tuning up to 34 Hz for a tiny bit more output over the most commonly played musical frequencies.

Be gentle

Alright thanks, Ill keep the gain where it is. Is it likely that I already caused some damage to the subs? I think Im going to try to wire them to 1 ohm and drop the gain down.

I turned the gain down even more and the subs play clean, but they do not move very much at all. Im running a stock alt and batt so I figure that is probably why it clips so easy. I mean, its probably not even as loud as when I had one of these in my friends car with 500 watts going to it. I think Im gonna take them out later today, look at them, and rewire them if nothing is wrong with them.

oh yeah, and it only makes the noise on low notes

hey i have a similiar question. when i push my rl-p to the max, it makes like this BBBRRRpp noise when it reaches maximum excursion, and thats when i know not to turn it up any louder. im thinking this is the cone hitting the basket or something along those lines??? or what could be that noise. i know my dads 10w3 used to do that all the time once i think about it. but he had that little thing wangin to the max. i wonder how unhealthy it is.

tez224, if you only had your gain up for a short while when you were experiencing the noise problem then you're probably in the clear. That is to say, if it sounds fine now, you didn't beat 'em up too bad!

MrSwiss, indeed you are probably hearing a combination of the noise created when the coil starts to hit the backplate in addition to the quick moving stress on the suspension (soft parts including the surround and spiders). It's obviously not advised, but if you crank it up in that range for only a short while everything should still work just fine as long as you aren't pushing it so hard that you end up tearing and bending things.

also you might want to check the cone itself. one of my cones hit the spider were the tinsel lead is woven in, it didn't dent it or any thing...you can just see a shiny little dot were it smacked once or twice.

Wow you must've really juiced that sucka!

Wow you must've really juiced that sucka!

x2 - that's a lot of movement.

I wired them up to 1 ohm and reset my gains and man do these things wang. I really need an alt. though because my gain is only up like 1/3 or it'll clip.

Gain position has nothing to do with voltage available and more to do with input matching... my Brutus is matching at around 1/4 of its full gain.

Wow you must've really juiced that sucka!

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i think thats when i had them in my box tuned ~40Hz