I currently have the IA 10.1 amp and a 15 inch Death Penalty with dual two ohm coils. I was worried about my electrical so I ordered a 1200w amp to be safe. My stock electrical holds at 15.2v at full tilt. It spikes down to 14.9 but quickly recovers due to the smart alternator, which is rated at 150 amps. The subwoofer definitely can handle more power.

So my options would be to buy another 10.1 and strap them at 1 ohm or sell the 10.1 and buy a larger amp, DC audio 2K, or buy two other amps and strap them at 1 which would look good.

Don't want to spend too much but I know another 10.1 is 400.

Edited December 9, 20159 yr by djtomczak

Im pretty sure you can sell your IA10.1 and get a nice chunk of change and buy one bigger amp. I prefer one amp over strapping just less wires and stuff to mess with. But with you only being able to wire to 0.5ohms or 2 ohms, strapping amps may be the most cost effective in your case.

 

What is your new budget on amplifier, Im guessing $400 since your willing to get another IA10.1?

I wouldn't really want to spend more than 400 if 400 works. .5 would run fine to the 10.1 correct?

Correction!! It's dual 2 ohm. I confused my self with what each amp will see when strappd. The subwoofer is a dual 2 ohm and I have the 10.1 at 1 ohm.

Ok makes matters better, barely doubling the power probably wont net you any output to the ear but maybe the meter slightly if you are competing. If anything I would just use that money and upgrade the stock battery to an AGM battery.

So 1200 to ~2500 wouldn't be any different to the ear? As for a battery, my alternator responds very quickly but I do get very slight dimming. Would a battery solve that?

Could be but it wont be leaps and bounds louder though, maybe not enough to justify the extra money spent.

 

What all electrical upgades have you done to the car? Big 3 at least?

 

If you do get a bigger amp then Im pretty sure you will end up needing to add two batteries, one under the hood and one in the trunk. Your car's alternator is made to supply the vehicle with power and leave you a little bit left over for accessories but not a 1200 watt or 2500 watt system. So you are going to be spending more than 400 on upgrades period. To what maybe gain a db or two, that might or might not be audible.

Strapping the amps at 1ohm both amps would be seeing .5ohm a nice strain on current electrical.

If you were to take this route

If you strap, you will need to beef the electrical for sure.

I think I would need better electrical to get a larger amplifier after seeing your responses.  

Now to the next issue, I need a signal processor.  The factory amp is crossed over and mixes bass to the fronts, while feeding some midbass back to the subwoofer.  I've been putting the sloppy bass off as just being a 15", but I know it wasn't this bad when I had an 18.  My car uses a canbus system to control volume.  From the front comes the canbus signal, as well as flat untouched left and right audio into the amp.  My options would be to take the flat signal wired to a volume control for the subs, or a signal processor.

For option 1, how would I wire it up? The signal coming into the amp is low level, so would I just wire those into RCAs and plug them into a PAC-LC1 which I already have?

Option 2 being a DSP, looking online I can't seem to get the same information from two different units.  Some say they rebuild bass, some say they sum the signals, etc.  

 

Option 1 is cheaper as I have everything I need, if it works, but I would have to control the bass all the time.  Option 2 would give me level control normally, but costs more.