im having a little problem with my amp. right now i have a sundown saz-2000d hooked up to two 18" dc xl's at .5 ohms until i can afford a better amp and get more batteries to support the extra power. but so far the amp is doing alright except at times the amp will go into protect only when i turn it up. it doesnt happen all the time and whenever it happens its random, meaning it sometimes will go into protect the moment the bass hits when turned up or sometimes after a whole song has played through full tilt. right now my electrical is a 250 amp alt with the big 3 done in 1/0 gauge wire and an xs power d3400 under the hood with a d3100d in the back all with 1/0 gauge wire. i also do understand that running at .5 voids the warranty. i just wanna see if i can try and figure it out and see if there is any other reason why than the ohm load being at .5 ohms. i have a feeling it is because its wired down to .5 ohms but im not sure. it does however run fine with no problems at normal listening levels though.

.5 OHMS IS NOT SUPPORTED 100% WHY WON'T ANYONE LISTEN!

FUCK

You realize you're pulling huge amounts of current!

Your electrical is not big enough to support .5 ohms.

If you look at a data sheet you can see that as a transistor gets hot it has a lower current rating... running an amp at a lower impedance increases the current passing through the transistors, heating them up, and progressively lowering their ability to handle the current until something fails.

Dropping an amp to 1/2 ohm doubles the output current (up until the amp just can't put out more at least) and makes everything less efficient so the power supply in turn draws more current, often times inducing more voltage drop which calls for MORE current to maintain the same output level - again, turning into a cycle if it continues until something fails.

Many amps are robust enough to handle this pretty well - but the more you push the amp and the more clipping that goes on you get closer to realizing the impedance chart I posted above for a square wave which can drop down VERY low. That sort of thing can destroy even a very robust amplifier design when you are already running at 1/2 or less of the rated impedance load.

It all started with SPL competition... where you play ONE sine wave at a known impedance so you can get away with a really low nominal load. That is all well and good, but music is not a single sine wave - you do not know what the impedance curve can do and it CAN drop below the nominal load, unlike "common knowledge" on the forums may tell you.

Fo show. What he said

Hmm yeah i figured it was because of that just wanted some more opinions from smarter people. I guess ill change it to two ohms then. thanks for the detailed response. by the way how big of an electrical would i need to support .5 ohms? i'm not going to keep it at .5 ohms because my new amp(s) will be run at 2 ohms. just curious