I just have a few questions for you guys. I recently purchased a 12'' Alpine Type-r and constructed a box today, exactly 1 cubic feet just like Alpine recommends. Anyways, I hooked it up and I am VERY pleased with it! I am running it off of my Rockford 360a2 amp, the speaker is dual 2 ohm voice coils, and I have it wired to 4 ohms. Now the rms rating on the speaker is 300 watts, and my amp puts out an underrated 360 watts at 4 ohms. Now my question is this, I only have the gain up 1/4 of the way because Im going easy on it to break it in, but just with the gain up that little bit, the speaker is really pounding and moving quite a bit. Once I get it all broken in and such Ill probably turn the gain up to about half and leave it there, do you guys think this speaker will be able to handle that? I just want to make sure that its going to be able to handle the power that Im giving to it without any problems, I dont want to blow it or anything, I dont have any money to buy another one with, so I want to make sure nothing happens to it. How much power have you guys ran to yours? Do you think Ill have any trouble with this setup? My headunit is a JVC kd sh77, and it has 4volt outputs on it. I just want to be sure thats all, Im the type of person that is constantly paranoid about this stuff, and Im always worried if Im going to ruin something, or popping the trunk and making sure its not distorting and stuff, so any help would be really appreciated. Thanks ALOT guys!

 

My Pioneer 1000W amp was hooked up to my 12" Type-R wired at 2 ohms for months, and I gave her hell. She took it like a champ. I wouldn't worry.

The Type-R is a great sub, especially for what they can be had for! (I got mine for 99 bucks)

Beautiful first-gen, by the way.

 

Well Ive only got the gain up 1/4 and its pounding good, I was reading over on caraudio forum and they are telling me about clipping and over powering it and this and that and they've got me so paranoid about hurting it, Im afraid to turn it up any more. It pounds really good though, Im very impressed with it and I paid $111 for it shipped brand new, $33 for box building materials, and it sounds really nice, great bass and sq. Oh thanks for the compliment, she's not as beautiful as she looks...yet. Once I get some decent income and such I plan to tear it all apart, gut the interior, and Id like to do a frame off on it. I want to build the motor but still keep it numbers matching, but I have such a hard time finding parts for a pontiac 350, well TECHNICALLY a 354. Its got 63,000 original miles on it, so I dont want to take away from its value. Thanks again.

 

any other opinions? Come on I know there is more of you out there. Anyone running a simular setup? Right now my amp is at 1/4 and it is pounding the hell out of that thing, Im afraid to push it anymore.

 

you can turn it up but go slowly till you hear distortion then turn it back down a lil.. try this website... http://www.bcae1.com

 

Do NOT listen to the above about setting the gains!!!!!!

If you are so paranoid, then set the gains correctly.
with a multimeter.
Here is a link to JL's tutorial. http://www.jlaudio.com/tutorials/index.html#
Look around on the net you will find other tutorials for setting the gains correctly with a multimeter and using Ohm's law to figure out the setting

 

Check this thread over at SD
http://forum.sounddomain.com/ubb/ult...c;f=2;t=030419

 

the jl tutorial only works if you know how much voltage to look for with your amp.. which is diff from the JL amps.....

what i did is turn the volume on the Headunit to 3/4 of your total listening level.

turn the eq flat and all bass enhancements off.

start with low bass boost, low gain. turn the gain up slowly untill you get the output you would like, and then start turning the bass boost up to what you like.\

if you hear distortion you are prolly clipping the amp and better turn you stuff down

 

Again, do not listen to above post concerning the setting of the gain control.

Go to the link I furnished from SD, and set it with a DMM

 

Ignore that post over on SD unless you like "a little bit of clipping". I would prefer not to have clipping at all, but that just me. There are to many problems with that post to start correcting. Set gains that way, no set gains this way..........

 

If you set the gains with a DMM at 75% volume with a 0db tone, what is the problem? or you can set the gain at 50% volume, or at 20% volume----- You just have to realize what the gains were set at before you start cranking on the volume ****.

i understand the absolute best way is with an O'scope but for someone that is paranoid about blowing eqipment, it is still better than "set by ear method"

My Alpine 9831 started to clip any signal through it at anything above 60% volume on the headunit-- not enough to matter or even hear but my gains were set with the HU volume at 20 (57%) and everyone comments on how clear the sound is compared to more powerful setups that were set by ear. The only down side is the volume is increased/decreased dramatically by only turning the volume **** one click.
Or the coments could be from the fact that I am a JL ***** and only use their eqipment

 

The problem is that what that post over on SD is telling you is to set the gains based off of the power output of the amp as measured with a DMM. You CAN'T measure output power with ANY accuracy with a DMM. It also assumes that the power your amp says it puts out is anywhere near what the amp will really put out. A lot of amps put out much less then they say they will, at RMS or peak. But back to measuring power with a DMM and why there way gives you numbers that mean nothing.
1: Unless you’re using a true RMS meter, anything voltage reading at other then 60Hz will be wrong. You’re run of the mill DMM is NOT a true RMS meter and will show, typically lower, voltage the farther you get from 60Hz.
2: They have you using 4 ohms as your speaker impedance. 4 ohms is the speaker DC resistance, NOT the impedance of the speaker. You see, as the frequency goes up, so does the impedance of the speaker. This is of course with an impedance spike at the resonant frequency of the speaker, and if in a ported box a second spike at the boxes resonant frequency. So the math will be wrong there because you’re not taking this curve into account.
3: Like I said, most amps don’t putout what they say they do, going by RMS or peak, they just don’t do what they say.
So you’re using an incorrect voltage reading, and running the math with an incorrect value for the impedance of the speaker. Whatever number you come up with this way will mean nothing. And get you nowhere in respect to your amps power rating.
Like Bob mentioned, that JL tutorial would work for their amps, probably not you’re amp. Their number are based off of the amps rail voltage. Rail voltage is voltage supplied to the output stage and can be anywhere between +/- 20Vdc to +/- 60Vdc. Note that is + and – Vdc. With out knowing what the rail voltage is, this method would mot work ether. And rail voltage is not give as a specification by the manufacture in most, if not all the cases (unless you know where to look).