Underpowering a Sub

[PaNsyBoy8]

I was talkin to some guy at Circuit City today, and he told me that i shouldn't underpower a sub because it would make it sound really bad and that its really bad for the sub itself. Is this true? I just got a audiobahn sub (got a good deal on it) but i don't wanna drop a massive amount of money on a 800Watt Class D Amp.

 

[Ns1]

yes


if you underpower your sub and try to play it too hard you WILL destroy your sub

 

[aphex]

<< yes


if you underpower your sub and try to play it too hard you WILL destroy your sub >>



Yep, i agree.

 

[thomsbrain]

can someone explain why though? isn't 100 watts 100 watts no matter where it comes from?

 

[glen]

I disagree.

Ask most people, and they will tell you the bigger the sub, the more power you need.
They are mistaken.

Well, they will typically HANDLE more power, but they certainly don't need it.
Driver efficiency goes up as the size goes up.

 

[Ns1]

wth that wasn't even part of the question

if you try to play your sub too loudly with too little power you'll drive your sub into clipping

clipping = nono

you can run fine with wahtever watts you have, you just can't play it as loud as you'd like to.

 

[PaNsyBoy8]

I believe it supports upto 800 RMS, what's the lowest amount of power I can use to power this thing?

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

<< I disagree.

Ask most people, and they will tell you the bigger the sub, the more power you need.
They are mistaken.

Well, they will typically HANDLE more power, but they certainly don't need it.
Driver efficiency goes up as the size goes up. >>



Those nuclear subs need quite a lot of power.

 

[glen]

<< I believe it supports upto 800 RMS, what's the lowest amount of power I can use to power this thing? >>


very little
1/100th of a watt
5 watts on my system will make your ears bleed.
It uses six 12", without the sub woofer (four 15")

 

[Ns1]

<< I believe it supports upto 800 RMS, what's the lowest amount of power I can use to power this thing? >>



well let's put it this way, with whatever amp you hook it up to, once it starts getting distorted, you're playing ti too loud ^_^


how cheap can you be? you can get a jbl1200.1 for 250 bucks from www.ikesound.com

 

[PaNsyBoy8]

<<

<< I believe it supports upto 800 RMS, what's the lowest amount of power I can use to power this thing? >>



well let's put it this way, with whatever amp you hook it up to, once it starts getting distorted, you're playing ti too loud ^_^


how cheap can you be? you can get a jbl1200.1 for 250 bucks from www.ikesound.com >>




I'm not trying to be cheap, i figure if i'm gonna get an amp, i'm gonna go with what's good, i wasn't too sure about the quality of JBL's amps, i was thinking about gettin a class d MTX amp. i was at Circuit city today and the guy just got an open box in and was asking 399 for it. it was running around 750 watt continious, but to run the amp, i'd also have to drop another hundred bucks on a 1 farad cap. much more than i want to spend and much louder than i really want it to be.

 

[glen]

I run two JL 12's in my car with a 50watt amp.
It is plenty.

 

[Ns1]

jbl amps are recommended by alot of people over at caraudioforum.com, for the price/wattage it just can't be beat

btw- audiobahn tends to overrate their equipment, so you probably won't need that much wattage ^_^

 

[PaNsyBoy8]

<< jbl amps are recommended by alot of people over at caraudioforum.com, for the price/wattage it just can't be beat

btw- audiobahn tends to overrate their equipment, so you probably won't need that much wattage ^_^ >>




Awesome, that's exactly what I wanted to hear =), do you think think the bp600.1 will be fine then, i read reviews on the sub and ppl where saying how it ran fine on 600 Watts. On the specs they have info for 4 ohm and 2 ohm output, how do u switch it, my friend was telling me how there's a certain way to wire the sub and the amp?

 

[Ns1]

well what's your sub?

if it's a 4ohm dvc, and the amp is 600 watts @ 2 ohms, you write it in parallel to show a 2 ohm load on the amp ^_^

it comes on the directions with the amp hehehe


oh yeha, the jbl600.1 is probably underrated

the 1200.1 really puts out 1400 watts ^_^

 

[PaNsyBoy8]

<< well what's your sub? >>




I have the audiobahn alum10x with a qlogic box, that I need to shave down a little so that the sub will drop in (any recomendations for this? i was thining a corse file)