Ok, I just got 2 infinity referance 1242's and a jbl gto600.1 amp. Speakers are dual 4 ohm voice coil, 300w rms, so 150w per coil. Amp is mono 580w rms at 2ohm and 425rms at 4ohm. I planned on running a 2 ohm load but after thinking about it, dont see how I could. Any suggestions on the best way to hook this up. I know a decent amount about stereos, just thought to ask your opinions on this. Help will be appreciated. Thanks

 

With two d4 woofers, you are limited to the following options:

1) 1 ohm overall load
2) 4 ohm overall load
3) 16 ohm overall load

unless you drop down to one woofer..

but I can't imagine a decent amp not being able to drop to one ohm... interesting...

 

Ya, my dad told me the same thing. Said he doesnt see why my amp wouldnt handle a 1ohm load. That just seems scary to me. Will it drastically reduce my amp life? I do play my music pretty loud. Thanks for the reply.

 

it depends on the rating of the amp...

if it's a cheapo amp, you will hear distortion, and it will overheat...

if it's designed for it, then it should be fine...

 

Does the amp state the min ohm rating on it, most do.
That's a single channel, GTO600.1?
Any quality mono amp should handle 1ohm. There are PPI's and Pheonix Gold's that are stable to a rediculously low ohm rating (like .25ohm or .5, something like that)

 

I havent recieved the amp just yet, so cant look at it. But ya it is single. Should have it by sat. Hooked up my subs to a previous amp I had to test them out. Mistake, only a 240 max alpine amp, hit hard, but didnt think about the load i was running to it at the time, so blew the power supply on that amp. Only a 4ohm amp and I had it to 1ohm. Just wanted to make sure the amp I'm getting will handle the 1ohm load with no problems down the road.

 

Good thing the Alpine can be repaired (usually).
The Alpine could have driven your speakers had you configured them correctly as scrapmaker said...
If you hooked the pos amp to pos of coil 1, neg of coil 1 to pos of coil two, neg of coil two to amp, and did this twice (once for each speaker).
Then if you hooked the pos together and neg together would make 4ohm.
Anytime you hook two spkrs in parrellel (pos together/neg together) you divide the ohms by two and multiply the watts of the output by two, but then you create twice as much heat (why the alpine blew)
If you hook two coils/speakers in series (pos of amp to pos of 1st coil, neg of first coil to pos of 2nd coil, neg of 2nd coil to neg of amp) you multiply the ohmx2(but divide the power and heat by two). If you had wired the speakers in series with itself (two coils) then wired the two speakers in parrellel, you would have obtained the 4ohm stability the alpine could handle. Each speaker would have been sent 120w of current! At 1ohm, each speaker would have been recieving 480w, which basically is like a dead short on the amp (touching the pos and neg together while audio is running through the amp!)
Sorry for the long explaination, but if you already knew this maybe it will help someone else.

 

I would hook it up with the new amplifier as a 4 ohm load and listen to it. If you are happy with the sound at that point, I would leave it that way. If the amplifier is NOT rated for 1ohm load, its not rated for a reason. Likely the amp will run hot (especially at high output level) and the life of the amplifer will suffer for sure. It seems people make a contest out of who is running the lowest impedance. If you have the thousands of dollars to do the system rite, go for it. But if you are on a budget like most of us, you are better off playing the safe route.

 

better safe then sorry!

 

Your amp will be working harder at a 1 ohm load thus it getting hot.
As long as your set your gain down some not at full gain or full bass boost you should be fine.
I have done this with a couple of amps before and it worked fine.
Hook it up in 4 ohm load for a while then when that sounds like crap to you try 1 ohm load.

 

you got more options then what was said and i woudlnt worry about putting power to those subs they pound and will take it in my car i got one of those subs and 2 jl 12w1v2s (im in the process of swapping over to all infinity) i got all my subs wired to a 1.33 ohm load on a diamond d6 1500.1 amp the 2 jls are 8 ohm and the infinity is wired at 2 i wouldnt really worry about running your amp at 1 ohm just turn the gain down at first. if the amp is brand new give it time to break in (just like you do with subs) i cant seem to find anything about the most ohms you can run to it. the 1200w amp is the same thing says 2ohm the lowest. im assuming you will be fine if you mess with the gain and other setting. go over to the12volt.com and ask around ther im sure someone over there will have a better answer for you

 

You really don't want to run much lower than what the manufacturer recommends.

 

When I was a teenager I fried many amps before I learned how the lower you take the ohms, the closer you are getting to shorting out the output section of the amp!
Why don't you see how long the amp will run while touching the pos and neg outputs?!

 

I've been running them at 4ohms. They sound decent, but I dont get any good sound on the low end, probably below 40 hz. Also it seems the the speakers cant handle the amp as I have to turn down the bass sometimes(gain is only half way)(425rms runnin from the amp to 300 rms per speaker) But I have yet to tune the amp, so this may fix my problems.

 

Ummnn does this help?from http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/wo...igurations.asp

Option 2 (series/parallel) = 4 ohm load
Voice coils wired in series, speakers wired in parallel
Recommended Amplifier: Stable at 4, 2, or 1 ohm mono

 

I'm already running them at a 4 ohm load. Thanks for the input though.