i need help deciding on an amp.....i recently purchased to Cerwin Vega 12D4 VEGA model subs from a friend of mine. these subs require a vented enclosure with 2.2ft³ (including the basket and port) my enclosure has exactly 2.23ft&#179 per sub. my question is what amp will perform the best with my subs....i am looking for the most bass possible but i am not willing to sacrifice sound quality to get it. oh yeah, these are dual voice coil subs that handle 400Wrms. the voice coils are 3" in diameter and have a freqeuency response of 20-500Hz. some additional info that may or may not be helpful: Free-Air resonance- 21Hz Total Q- 0.27 Mechanical Q- 6.31 Electrical Q- 0.283 Compliance Volume- 4.87ft³ Max. Excursion- 1.50" i was wanting to push something in the area of about 350 watts rms to each sub. any suggestions or info that you can offer would be greatly appreciated. thanks in advacne to anyone who posts. peace, menace

There are a ton of high quality amps out there. Kicker, Rockford, Diamond, PPI, Orion, and dozens of others all have high quality stuff. In terms of power output, that depends on your budget. Buy the most powerful one you can afford (within reason of course). I don't mean that a $500 10,000,000 Krako amp is a better deal than a $500 100 watt amp. Within the confines of QUALITY stuff, buy the best you can afford. The Vega subs are super efficient, so even with a somewhat modest amp you're going to get a lot of output. I'd probably look into some of the new class D offerings. 500+ real watts from a class D amp will make your subs slam, and won't wreak havoc on your car's charging system.

I have a orion xtreme 900.2 that I am very happy with. 900x1 RMS at 4 ohms. Moves my subs pretty good. Just a thought but go for quality vs. quanity. My last system was two orion 225 HCCA's rated at 2 x 25 and they sounded much better that my friends million watt junk amps.

I would recomend looking into the JBL powervalve series, they can be had for a fair price on ebay
300.1 = $129-$139
600.1 = $175-$185
1200.1 = $258-$268
all are class D mono amps, so they should be efficient

first, i want to say thank you for the info guys....i really appreciate your input.

second, i have changed my mind about my box design. i am considering the option of building a dual reflex bandpass enclosure for these subs. i have come up with the following parameters for the enclosure:

Rear
enclosure volume- 1.80ft³ (net) + 0.13ft³ (driver displacement)
port diameter- 4.0"
port length- 17.57"
port displacement- 0.13ft³
total box volume- 2.06ft³

Front
enclosure volume- 0.70ft³ (net)
port diameter- 4.0"
port length- 7.87"
port displacement- .06ft³
total box volume- .76ft³

Overall Box Volume- 2.81ft³ (per sub)

any thoughts on this design and benefits/ losses that might be seen as compared to a standard ported enclosure are greatly welcome. thanks in advance for any and all thoughts/ suggestions and, again, thank you for the help so far.

peace,
menace

almost 3 cubic feet per sub. Plus, because of the 33 chambers, you're going to have a sh!tload of wood taking up space. Including wood (i.e. total external dimensions), you'll be pushing 4 cubic feet per sub. That's 8 cubic feet for a pair of subs. I think that's just about exactly what the entire rear hatch area has for space right up to the roof.

I'd strongly reccomend that you reconsider your bandpass idea. Stuffing 8 cubic feet into that rear area is going to require some substantial design & construction skill, and bandpass boxes are extremely unforgiving to screw ups.