Just put in a set of subs I got from a buddy of mine. 2 Orion 12's and an Orion Cobalt 200wx4 amp. They just don't seem to sound right. When they hit, they kinda buzz. Hard to explain, but if I turn down the gain it goes away, but there's not enough bass. Gets worse if I turn the LPF up too. Only have 200 watts going to each sub, not sure what model they are, but I know they're rated at 4-600 a piece. Could they be underpowered? They're in a custom box that was made specifically for them, so that should be ok. Any help is appreciated. I'm not big on stereo stuff. BTW, head unit is a Sony XPlod. Not the best, but it's been good to me. Thx.

 

did you pay for them? If you did he may not be your buddy
Vc's my be fried or damaged.

 

^that could definatly be a possiblity. also are you sure that they are hooked up at the correct ohm rating. I think one time i accidently hooked some speakers up wrong and sounded like ****.

 

one more thing.....i doubt that it is because they are under powered, my IDQs have about 200 watts per sub and are rated like 400 rms. they sound great

 

you can damage a sub by under powering it.

 

I know you can damage a sub by under powering it but i would think that it would have to be greatly under powered and tried to be run at high volumes. i dont know to much about this subject...thats just what i was thinkin...i guess the guy before him could have done that to them. dident think of that before i guess

 

are all the VCs hooked up??


sorry to hijack your post but how do you guys figure underpowering a speaker will damage it?? Thats like saying driving a race car under 100 mph will break it

 

Check for air leaks. Often they sound like buzzing

 

Acctually its true! When under powered, the sub is pushing and pulling so hard for power, it will "hyper extend" the voice coil, causing damage. As long as you keep it at a lower volume it will not damage it

I like the driving a race car question

 

haha, no. underpowering does none of the sort. a sub does not stress trying to pull the music out of the amp. it just uses what its given. the common misconception happens because someone will take a 100w rms amp with a 300w rms sub and since they think its underpowering the sub, they crank up the gain, causing the amp to clip and put out a powerful square wave. if this wave is enough to cause the sub to get too hot and exceed its thermal limits, the sub gets fried. but not cause it was underpowered.

 

Underpowering a sub CAN cause damage, but not directly. If you hook a smaller amp up to subs that like more power, and then crank the volume to compensate, it can put out distortion... which is bad.

When I first bought my 12W3's I had them bridged to a 200watt Alpine amp. So, about 100 watts per sub, when each sub was rated at 250 rms (but they'll soak up much more). After about 6 months my speakers started sounding like goo, so I brought them back for a new set. Now I have them hooked up to a JBL 1200, and haven't any of these problem with 500w going to each sub.

 

To those who said you cant i think you need more information on the subject. Its easier to do it with too little power than it is with too much.
Most of the time when a sub is damaged from too little power and high volumes its because someone didnt know what distortion sounds like and just kept on cranking it.

Also back in the day a guy i knew picked up two jbl 1000's (back then they were almost new) He didnt consider he only had a 100 wat (max) amp, He drove around with the head unit up pretty loud, within a two week period his subs just stopped working all together. When he took them out of the box the magnets were cracked

 

K here is an excellent article that if I was still in college as a IC designer I could have remembered...

http://www.clubknowledge.com/Car_Audio_FAQ/?g1081_764

It explained alot.

Hope it clears things up a little.

And yes, it almost sounds like the coils are dead to the point where performance is affected.

 

i totally understand that clipping an amp will damage the speaker. And having too little power might cause the owner to turn the gain on the amp up too much and therefor clip the signal. But thats clipping that is damaging the speaker not the fact that it is underpowered.

If the owner is smart about the setup and knows not too set his or her gains too high im pretty sure any speaker would be alright with very little power. Setting gains with an oscilliscope would work very well in this application so you could see when the wave is being clipped, but not many people have access to one.

 

Which is why the document mentions that running a speaker with less power than required will not wreak the speaker so long as the power is clean power.

The sad truth, however, is that a lot of people do not realise this. Many people will just crank the gain cause it makes things louder. Only to have the subs ultimately die and leave them scratching their heads.

Maybe because this is such a common occurance, people have begun simply saying that underpowering a sub will damage it, just to prevent it from happening all together.

 

good point...i think the same goes for breaking in subs for a certain amount of hours before you give them fully power. From my experiences, breaking in a sub doesnt do too much, they perform just as well out of the box as a year after. I think some manufacturers just said this so that people wouldnt blow their subs as soon as they got them.

 

Exactly, try to explain distortion to someone who doesnt know hardly anything about car audio. And it's surprizing how many people dont hear distortion in their systems and keep the volume cranked up.

Also a amp that puts out a small amount of power hooked to a large rms wattage sub will probably have its gains maxed out by the owner and be played at high volume efectively heatting the vc's with pure distortion.
where as a high wattage amp that could even put out MORE power rms than the sub is rated for will have its gains down and wont work hard at all to push the subs.

Alot of the time when you hear of a noobie buying a high wattage sub and burning them out they bad mouth the sub man. Even though it was their fault because they bought a blank brand 1000 watt sub and hooked it to a sony 200 watt amp wich probably put out 50 watts.

Also people dont take into account that subs resistance changes when they get hot helping a already clipping/distorting amp destroy it more.

 

see, i was right . just kidding. like i said, its not the underpowering that kills the sub, its partially the clipping. a square wave puts out much more power than a sine wave. and in that moment the amp is putting out more power than it is supposed to (causing the sub to get hot and boom, no more sub)

 

wow, busy thread.

Got it taken care of. Bridged the amp and wired the subs in paralell. Much better now. They're 500 watt subs, so I now have 400 to them. Now I need to concentrate on getting my box finished.