hooking up system, blew my old subs, dont wanna blow my new ones Options

[Snodalo]

i dont know much about sound systems, so i need some help. right now i have a hifonics amp and 2 jl 12w0. but i blew the subs, and tomorrow i am getting 2 jl 12w3v2-4ohm and i REALLY do not want to blow those, so how can i adjust the amp so the subs wont blow?

amp and subs

[Mystify.]

Ohms is the measure of resistance in a circuit. Lower ohms = less resistance = more power is able to pass through the circuit.

How did you wire up the subs? Wiring the voice coils in parallel or series will yield different ohm variations. For this amp and sub combo you're going to want to wire them in parallel, giving you a final resistance of 1 ohm (see picture below).

(2) Dual 4 Ohm subwoofers wired parallel to 1Ohm


It is VERY IMPORTANT to set your gains properly, especially since your wired down to 1Ohm and pumping out 1000W. Your subwoofers combined are recommended at 600W RMS for safe, daily use. Not setting your gains right will likely make your subwoofer "clip" and blow it if you're not careful with the volume knob. To properly set your gains, grab a DMM (Digital Multi-Meter) and follow this tutorial. For the test wave, I used a 20Hz Sine Wave recorded at -5dB. This can be found on Bass Mekanik - Audio Toolbox CD, which I got from iTunes, but I'm sure can be found other places.

You're also going to want to set your Low Pass Frequency cross over point to ~80Hz. This will filter out all of the unwanted higher frequencies and only play 0-80Hz.

EDIT: Your amp shut-off because it's a built in feature in most amps that cause a failsafe whenever too much clipping occurs and it overheats. This is caused when the gain is set too high and an excessive amount of the volume knob is turned up. The subwoofers shouldn't have sustained any major damage if you stopped it after that.

P.S. What kind of box are you using with these subs?

This post has been edited by Mystify.: Nov 14, 2006 - 7:15 PM