north_oakland

ok this is a long story... When I first bought my car, the car had an old pioneer deck and a 12" jl sub in the back with a 300 watt alpine amp and the car sounded good. After having the car for many years I decided to upgrade the deck so I went out and bought a new pioneer deck( I cant remember the name right now, i will post it when I get home from work) and I decided to put 2 12" kicker subs in the back and my friend gave me some cheap 600watt amp to power the subs. Ever since I made this switch, music sounds terrible in my car. The bass sounds awful like the amp isn't tuned right or something. I have spent hours tuning my amp to try and get it to sound better but I just cant get the bass anywhere near ok. Some people have been telling me that it is because the amp is crap and that I should buy a better one. Also I have been told that the amp that I am using is to powerful and that I should just get a 300 or 400 watt amp. Are either of these the cause of the bad bass?

Also, with this deck you can tune everything to how you like it, and I am not use to being able to do this. I am use to just being able to adjust the bass and treb. and not every little sound.

And I will post all the info I have on what deck and subs I have when I get off work

So if anyone can give me some advice I would really appreciate it thanks

Civerus

K for a start, what brand is the amp, I notice a blatant differance in sound between a Sony Xplode amp and a Pioneer amp, let alone a Pioneer vs. a Crossfire or Polk amp. All depends on power supplies and how its built.

What size main power wire is running to the amp, at 600w, You should have at LEAST an 8gauge main, a 4gauge recommended. Also how is your electrical system handling the power, does your gauge ever peak below 12v on a hit?

I myself think Kicker's are a piece of junk, but thats a personal opinion, you wont get the sound quality of a JL going with kickers, its a high brand in quality.

The amp and power wire make the main difference, the headunit depending on which pioneer you got will make the second difference. If you went with the $100 or $120 headunits, then yes you will see junk, gotta go with a $150 or higher to actually get options.

You can skimp on engine parts, get generic brand parts. You cannot skimp on audio, you really get what you pay for and you really get the quality based on the brands you choose.

Also what size wire is going from your amp to your subs, should be a 10-12g.

One more critical thing is that it is always better to overpower than to underpower. You can ruin a sub faster underpowering it as you can overpowering.

Stick with a 600w and tune the gain down.

north_oakland

Thanks the response and the amp that is in there now is some bootleg brand amp not really sure if it even has a name lol. The power wire is a 4gauge wire and the eectrical system handles everything fine no problems. The deck was a $300 deck and before I bought the deck I read lots of good reviews about it. And the cone in the jl sub popped and I couldn't afford to buy to new jl's. My friend had the same kicker subs in his car and I thought they sounded pretty good, but he doesn't remember how many watts his amp was. I think the wire going from the amp to the subs is just normal speaker wire I bought from bestbuy. Is that ok? So you think I should stay with a 600 watt amp? Should I look for a better brand, could that be the problem?
Thanks again

Civerus

I would get some 12gauge wire for the subs, and I would go with a different amp, read the subs, tell me what wattage rms and max they list, or either one that it shows, and at what ohm if it says, dual or single voice coil?

Also if the amp is bridgeable if you can tell that is.

and for the deck, you have to be missing something, review manual.

north_oakland

ok thanks 4 your help. Ill post everything I can find later tonight.

north_oakland

ok my deck is a pioneer DEH-P5900IB and the kicker subwoofers say 150 watt RMS and 300 watt peak and 4 ohms. I hope this helps

superT

iTrader: (1)

to be honest i would say amp is to big for subs, but not to say it can't still be used and that the air space in witch the subs are in is also causing you problems. the reason i bring this up is that the before setup was one sub and had x2 the air space of what you have currently. just a general rule of thumb for a 12" sub of any brand is no less than .75 cft per driver bear minimum in a sealed box.

as far as being safer to overpower than to underpower i would have to dissagree. although under powering a sub will make them sound weak you are less likely to burn the coil. but if you over power a sub you can have a large amount of issues to deal with 1. to much power = hot coil and hot will lead to burnt coil, 2. distortion- number one killer of subs, 3. over- excurstion which is the cone assy. moving more than it was made for witch can damage anyone of the parts in the motor assy i.e.-coil,spider,cone,surround, and tensil leads

i am aware that this doesn't directly answer your question but should be useful in making choices in your attempt to get it right. so start off with the amp at 1/4 gain turn up as needed,frequency at about 1/2, and any bass boost at 0 until you get good sound with out it, then bring it in until it sounds bad and then turn it back down some. do all of this tuning at the highest volume that you listen to.

to bridge your amp with your subs put both + and both - together and put the wires in the outside matching amp terminals. by doing this you will turn your 4 ohm subs into a 2ohm setup, if the amp kicks into protection put them back to one speaker per channel

also make sure that you don't have any + or - in the wrong place because this will cause them to be out of 'phase' with one another and that will make a system sound like crap.

good luck, hope so of this helps

cdoyle

What is the RMS rating on the amp? What brand is it?
What type of box do you have the subs in? Is the box built to the specs that the subs require?

DanTeix

How is it sounding like crap? distortion through the speakers?

MikeSmith0890

One big difference is the JL is a sound quality sub. Thats why JL is made for. Kicker can sound decent but normally there jut meant for bass. If its a 600w amp, its probably 600w max meaning the subs are getting approx 100-150 apeice rms. You might look into getting a better amp. If you arent afraid of ebay try there, you can get a good price. But for a 300w rms @ 4ohm amp, check at sonicelectronix.com you can find really nice deals there and get a warranty on your amp also.

IMHO if you could get a decent amount of money out of those subs, sell them and buy new ones. For about $300 you can get 2 nice 10 or 12" subs with an amp if you buy from the right places. A $250 subwoofer at best buy is $120 at Woofersetc.com so just look around

IROCKET4U

Personally I would take the car to a car audio shop and have them listen to it. You could have a number of issues going on--1) You say the deck has multiple adjustments for sound--did you read the manual? 2) Are you running an amp for your regular speakers or using deck power (which typically will distort). Have you considered base blockers at least for the front speakers? 3) Your sub amp could be low quality or not adjusted correctly...4) Are your new subs dual voice coil or single? Did you wire them in series or ?
Bottom line: I would take the car to an audio shop and ask them to see what is going on. You could throw alot more money away buying another amp if thats not the problem.

And like Civerus said--you get what you pay for in audio components--the better the equipment the better the sound quality ASSUMING its installed correctly.

north_oakland

The bass sounds terrible thats what I meant by music sounds like crap. Everything else sounds good. The bass sounds like the amp isn't tuned at all, but I have spent many hours trying to tune it. My friend told me that the amp that Im using was bad he was having the same problem with it and that is why he gave it to me lol. So I figure that is the cause of my problems. But still I dont know what size amp to get. Should I go with a 300 or 400 watt amp? Or should I stick with a better brand amp that is 600 watts? I know for sure I am going with a good brand with this next amp but I just dont know how many watts to get. Thanx

DanTeix

I have a 1000 watt interfire amp powering my 2 150w rms Rockford Fosgates. Its sounds great hits harder than when I had my 500w directed in there. Now the directed is in my wifes car with he 300w rms Lanzar sub. The Interfire works great though havent had any issues.

sonicelectronix.com my friend the site it priced very fairly

I recomend getting more watts because your going to want to upgrade your subs one day and why not be prepared since your buying new. And The 150w 12's I have sounded good with the 500w to let you know.

Dan

north_oakland

Ok I just got a pioneer 760 watt amp from a friend. Do you think this is too much for my speakers and do you think this will make my music sound better?

acadburn

theres a few things you need to know

first off you can never have a amp to big ... kinda unless ur to the point were your going to blow the subs theres nothing wrong with it all you have to do is turn the amp down

to big of amp dosnt make subs sound bad EVER

being you have 2 subs i would first look into how u wired the subs make sure that they are in phase with each other

being in phase basically means that they both ether push out or in at the same time if the subs are sharing a combined chamber and there out of phase they will sound honorably TRUST

also if they are sharing a combined chamber make sure that the subs are producing the same single not in a stereo configuration cause that will mess it up also because thell be partly out of phase almost all the time

Easiest way to see if there in phase is just disconect one if the subs sound alot better with one disconected its probably out of phase

Civerus

I would wire them in parallel down to one channel, which is like said previously, the + of each speaker combined and wired to the + on the bridge, and the - of each combined and to the - on the bridge, this will give you 1 channel at a 2 ohm load, the lower the ohms the more power is drawn by the speakers, it doubles at 2.

Adjust your gain accordingly.

-srs-

I bet your sub sare wired out of phase. Unplug one of the subs. Did the sound get better?

champnesupernva

hey man, i dont know everything, but i did manage a shop for a long time and did some sick setups...
so...

its almost impossible to over power an sub. the thing that blows speakers, and makes them distort is having too LITTLE power going to them. it makes the voice coil(s) serparate over time. a big part of whats going on, is that you have a cheap amp that says it has "600w".

there are only a few companies that make true-power amps. a few of those companies are kicker, xtant, crossfire, old phoenix gold, old ppi, old orion, and really old rockford. i know i have missed a few. that one guy said kicker isnt good, but....i can show you systems where kicker has kicked some ***. its all opinion. kicker does have competition level speakers, but you pay for them.

if you've got 150 subs, for the money, i would go for a kicker zx500.1, or zx700.2. (depending on how you plan to wire it)

these are each about $250-$350 depending on shop.

they have never let me down.

thats my $.02

MikeSmith0890

I will say that kickers ZX line of amps are not bad. Especially for the price. But personally as of late.. I do not believe kickers subs are of quality. With that being said.. Rockford is still one of the best amps you can buy. Their punch series of amps is for the economy buyer.. and they still put out good power. But if you want true power.. and power that is still underrated by all means you have to look at the Power line of Rockford Amps. They are still made here in the U.S. in Arizona. The power line costs a little more, but they are either the best or one of the best out there.

As for companies that make true-power amps.. theres alot of new stuff to look at. Take a look a Diablo Audio Technologies. Their hellfire 1000.1 is rated to do 1000 at 1 ohm but most amps birthsheet at about 1400-1600 @ 1 ohm. Another to look out is Sundown Audio. They make some spectacular amps..

But as i said.. Take a look at woofersetc.com sonicelectronix.com dealercostcaraudio.com You will get FAR better prices than going to a shop and buying thru them.

And ive seen plenty of subs blown from using too much power.. Its not impossible. If you take a 1000 watt sub and run it at 1300-1500 daily it should be okay.. depending on brand. Others you take that kind of power to them and a month down the road they are just an oversized paperweight.

north_oakland

thanks 4 everyones help! I put in the new amp and bridged the wires like you guys said and now the subs sound great and I can listen to music in my car again!! thanks

DanTeix

Congrats thats all that matters. Shake some nieghbors windows