what size car amplifier should I use if I have 2 dual 4ohm subwoofers rated at 600rms power?
I am running 2 JVC Arsenal CS-AW7240 subs. They are rated at 600 watts rms. What amplifier would be a good choice for these subs.
with two 4ohm DVC subs depending on how they are wired you can end up with impedances at the amp or 1 or 4ohms and the lower the final impedance the lower the sound quality but the easier/cheaper it is to power
most CEA-compliant branded amp are not stable below 2ohms so 1ohm setups would have the amp run hot, sound distorted and more than likely it would stay in protection mode so if you do decide to go with the 1ohm setup make sure the amp you choose is stable below 2ohms
here is a wiring diagram http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/woofer_configurations.asp?Q=2&I=42#results
the amp/amps needed should have about 1200watts RMS total @ your desired final impedance and also be CEA-compliant like your subs
when it comes to car audio nine times out of ten you get what you pay for- and you need to look for CEA-compliant brands which means that the amps have been tested and produce or exceed the advertised RMS wattage with minimum distortion (distortion is the main cause of speaker damage over time)
here are the top CEA-compliant brands
Alpine
Blaupunkt
Cerwin-Vega
Clarion
Eclipse
Infinity
JBL
JL Audio
JVC
Kenwood
Kicker
MTX
Orion
Pioneer
Polk Audio
PPI
Rockford Fosgate
Sony
If you send too much power to your sub, you risk damaging it. The cone of the speaker and the mechanical parts that make it move may break under the stress. Surprisingly, too little power can also damage your subwoofer — in fact, it’s actually more common than damage caused by overpowering.
When the volume is turned up and the amp doesn’t have enough power, the signal becomes distorted, or "clipped." This distorted signal can cause parts of the speaker to overheat, warp and melt. Not good!
You don’t have to match speaker and amp wattages exactly. An amp with a higher output than the speaker’s rating won’t necessarily damage the speaker — just turn the amp down a bit if you hear distortion from the sub and don’t run the speaker at extremely loud volumes for lengthy periods. Likewise, you’ll be OK with a lower powered amp if you keep the volume down and don’t feed a distorted signal to the sub
you will send the amp into clipping
Clipping
Clipping occurs when an amplifier is asked to deliver more current to a speaker than the amp is capable of doing. When an amplifier clips, it literally cuts off the tops and bottoms of the musical waveforms that it’s trying to reproduce, thus the term. This introduces a huge amount of distortion into the output signal. Clipping can be heard as a crunching sound on musical peaks.
that causes distorted sound which will damage your subs
look for one that puts out 1000 - 1200 watts RMS.
you choose the brand.
check sonicelctronix.com for some of the best prices you can find
References :
with two 4ohm DVC subs depending on how they are wired you can end up with impedances at the amp or 1 or 4ohms and the lower the final impedance the lower the sound quality but the easier/cheaper it is to power
most CEA-compliant branded amp are not stable below 2ohms so 1ohm setups would have the amp run hot, sound distorted and more than likely it would stay in protection mode so if you do decide to go with the 1ohm setup make sure the amp you choose is stable below 2ohms
here is a wiring diagram http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/woofer_configurations.asp?Q=2&I=42#results
the amp/amps needed should have about 1200watts RMS total @ your desired final impedance and also be CEA-compliant like your subs
when it comes to car audio nine times out of ten you get what you pay for- and you need to look for CEA-compliant brands which means that the amps have been tested and produce or exceed the advertised RMS wattage with minimum distortion (distortion is the main cause of speaker damage over time)
here are the top CEA-compliant brands
Alpine
Blaupunkt
Cerwin-Vega
Clarion
Eclipse
Infinity
JBL
JL Audio
JVC
Kenwood
Kicker
MTX
Orion
Pioneer
Polk Audio
PPI
Rockford Fosgate
Sony
If you send too much power to your sub, you risk damaging it. The cone of the speaker and the mechanical parts that make it move may break under the stress. Surprisingly, too little power can also damage your subwoofer — in fact, it’s actually more common than damage caused by overpowering.
When the volume is turned up and the amp doesn’t have enough power, the signal becomes distorted, or "clipped." This distorted signal can cause parts of the speaker to overheat, warp and melt. Not good!
You don’t have to match speaker and amp wattages exactly. An amp with a higher output than the speaker’s rating won’t necessarily damage the speaker — just turn the amp down a bit if you hear distortion from the sub and don’t run the speaker at extremely loud volumes for lengthy periods. Likewise, you’ll be OK with a lower powered amp if you keep the volume down and don’t feed a distorted signal to the sub
you will send the amp into clipping
Clipping
Clipping occurs when an amplifier is asked to deliver more current to a speaker than the amp is capable of doing. When an amplifier clips, it literally cuts off the tops and bottoms of the musical waveforms that it’s trying to reproduce, thus the term. This introduces a huge amount of distortion into the output signal. Clipping can be heard as a crunching sound on musical peaks.
that causes distorted sound which will damage your subs
References :
You’d want 1000-1200w rms optimally. But subs like that should perform well with anywhere from 300-700w each.
One good option would be the audioque aq1200d. It’s 250 shipped from audioque.com It is a good mix of quality and affordability.
References :