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What to do...

93 x_SPORT

Well-Known Member
Joined
October 29, 2001
Messages
309
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City, State
GARRETT, IN
Year, Model & Trim Level
2001 Eddie Bauer V8 AWD
Here's the deal...About a year ago I bought a 12" Kicker comp VR to replace my two blown 15" Kicker comp VR's(melted the magnet to the coil???). At the time I didn't have the money to replace my 15's and I already had a single sub 12" box. Well, yesterday the 12 blew. Sooooo...I'm not sure what is next.

My amp is a Kicker ZR360. It was putting out just under 700 watts with the 2 15's. If I ran it for like 30 mins.(on the way to school), it would shut down, cuz it would get too hot.

I can afford to replace the 15's now, I still have the box.

Or I could go cheap again and buy another 12.

Or I could buy to 12's and a new box for about the same price as 2 15's.

Or I could buy a 12" eclipse titanium subwoofer, does my amp have enough power though? plus it's more $$$$

Or maybe a 12" L7 and new box???

Who knows...you guys let me know what think...i'm leaning towards kicker, but am up for suggestions. Maybe even 10's???

THANKS!
 



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see about getting JL Audio... just my prefference....
 






i think you need a new amp. 30 minutes and it shuts down! i can run my amps all day with no problem.
if your amp went in to thermal protect a few times already, it 's probably beyond repair. how did you have the amp wired. my guess is that you had it wired @ a lower impedance then it is capable of.

fiqure out how much money you have to buy a whole new amp/sub setup. and make sure you get subs with the correct impedance.
 






Originally posted by leenjen
i think you need a new amp. 30 minutes and it shuts down! i can run my amps all day with no problem.
if your amp went in to thermal protect a few times already, it 's probably beyond repair. how did you have the amp wired. my guess is that you had it wired @ a lower impedance then it is capable of.

He is right though.... you might wanna consider another amp.. i have ran mine for hours on trips and stuff (spring break) ALL day and never shut down.
 






I had the subs wired in parallel and bridged mono. They are 4ohm i think so bridged and parrallel would make it 2ohm...right? LOL...I don't know too much about this stuff if ya can't tell, I had it all installed by the pro's(so they say). A new amp is prolly too much money right now...I didn't have any problems with it when I had my one 12"(4ohm) hooked up it is also bridged mono. I should have probably had a capacitor too. I tend to turn it up too loud sometimes creating distortion which doesn't help the over heating either. What JL subs are good...do I have enough amp to push 2 12" W7's? Thanks alot guys
 






Also when it shut down it was in the trunk of my '68 cougar(can you say....HOOOTTTT!) and it was mostly on hot days...now it is all in my ex.
 






i believe your amp is only stable to 4 ohms mono. not 2 ohms. hopefully that didnt do too much damage to your amp internally (but chances are that it did). you might have to replace your amp soon. i've seen amps catch fire after going through what happened to yours. example: my friend ran his Orion HCCA 12" sub @ 1 ohm mono. his amp was only stable to 4 ohms. after it kept shutting off, he wired it to 4 ohms mono. the amp's output was never the same. and he got about a year out of it before it literally burned up. it was mounted in his trunk and it burned the carpet on the left side. he was lucky he smelled the smoke.


anyway. JLW3's are awesome. go check them out.:)
 






Originally posted by leenjen
i believe your amp is only stable to 4 ohms mono. not 2 ohms. hopefully that didnt do too much damage to your amp internally (but chances are that it did). you might have to replace your amp soon. i've seen amps catch fire after going through what happened to yours. example: my friend ran his Orion HCCA 12" sub @ 1 ohm mono. his amp was only stable to 4 ohms. after it kept shutting off, he wired it to 4 ohms mono. the amp's output was never the same. and he got about a year out of it before it literally burned up. it was mounted in his trunk and it burned the carpet on the left side. he was lucky he smelled the smoke.


anyway. JLW3's are awesome. go check them out.:)


We just toasted 2 mmats class D's running 4 RF 12's... Literally up in smoke. driving down the road, truck filled with smoke, slammed on brakes off the side of the road.... it was pretty sweeet. We called them and they said they had a bad "batch" of amps and are replacing them for free.....

Who cares, but funny story

Yes go with JL's... i could go for hours on JL's, but your best bet would be W3's.. If you have a grand to spend on 1 woofer and a grand to spend for the amp to push it, go with one 13in W7. dont want to use alot of power, go with 12 in W0. www.jlaudio.com
 






I'm pretty sure that the amp is 2ohm stable...here's what it says in the instructions, "For bridged mono systems, an input is required to both input connectors and the speaker load of no less that 2 ohms is connected to the left+ and right-." Did i calculate the impedence correctly? It would be 2 ohms if I had (2), 4 ohm subs in parrallel right?

Thanks again!:D
 






yeah, i just checked. your amp is stable to 2 ohms mono. but i dont know why it was overheating. the amps are designed for operating in cars where the temps can get really hot.
 






Maybe there was something wrong with the subs that caused it...i mean shoot, i melted the things. You can't even push them in and out...they are FROZE. Who knows though??? Maybe the installers didn't ground it good enough? Could it be from lack of power(no cap)? I know whenever it would shut off though, I was running it pretty hard for 30-45 mins. straight. The heat sinks were so hot you couldn't even come close to touchin them...lol. OUCH!

hmmm...do I need one w3 or two?
 






Please... get something unique JL is a good brand but highly overrated especially after the release of the W7. They are so over popularized. you need something unique. The amp isnt the problem really its your OHM load is to high and im assuming your Bass gains on the actual amp are up as high as they go on some old ass subs (kicker comps) the subs are just not capable of that much power thats why they melted. I had the same problem. Also i would go with 12's over tens or 15's they have the best range for whatver music a person listens to. Another thing to consider is a new amp. Also what gauge of wiring did the installer give you.
 






So do you think it will be safe to run two 4ohm 12inchers in parallel? You don't think I should go with kicker comp vr's? The only thing is, I can get them for only $100 each. I need to spend more money on my cougar and less on my stereo, so I don't want to go all out just yet. I just want a "temporary fix"...even if it only lasts another year.

$200 - 2 12" kicker comp vr's
$ 60 - Bandpass box...or should i get a sealed box??
$ 60 - 1 farad cap. - lightning audio
$320
+ 80 - shipping
$400 - a decent system for cheap

I know...it's a bad way to do things(temporary fix), but I really want to get my new motor in my cougar and get that thing fuel injected...then theres the coil over front suspension and the all wheel disc brakes, plus sometime soon I want to get a newer X...it all adds up and bass is important but not the most important.
 






the gain on your amp should never be turned up all the way. make sure that isnt your problem.
a capacitor isnt going to give you any more power. it might help if the lights dim during deep bass hits.
i can run my system with the volume way up (too loud to sit inside) for a couple hours and my amp might feel a little warm.

anyway. i really think you will need a new amp. if it only shut down once (or twice) you could get it repaired. but now i doubt that will help.

if you go for the system that you listed, get a sealed or ported box. bandpass sucks.

good luck:)
 






You dont even need a cap for that system. You could get away with 16 gauge wiring i bet. a cap is COMPLETELY unnecessary. BTW Kicker Comp VR's 9 they sound like this :fart: )are worth about 140$ w/box. Bandpass will make your back window rattle an awful lot. Get ported. BETTER YET JUST KEEP YOUR FACTORY SUB IN AND NOT SPEND ANYTHING AND SAVE FOR A REAL SYSTEM.
Oops caps. :)


anyway good luck
 






First of all, my truck is a '93 and does not have the factory sub. Second...not having bass is like not even having a radio to me...I have to have something. Even if it is just my cheap @$$ kicker comp vr's. I know the wiring is atleast 8 ga. Third, I already spent $2700(counting three blown subs) on the stuff I have now...I'm not going to buy a whole new system. I'm not going to save for a new system now because I really want to get my motor built for my cougar. Also...sometime in within a year I want to buy a newer explorer so I need to get my stuff paid off so I can afford to that.
 






the lowest price i could find on a jl audio 12" w7 was 530 bucks and thats after searching for two months. and no a 700 watt amp could not hit two... the sweet spot on them is like 750, i got a jl audio 500/1 gonna be running the sub. just like naplesbill ask him if you got questions.
 






Thanks, Yeah I was checking into the w7. I didn't realize how expensive it was and how much it took to push it. It's a little bit out of my league. I just want something that pounds a little...just enough to the hairs on my head. I would need about 3 of my amp to push that sub. Speaking of which, I have a question...Can you have two amps run one sub? Do you just run speaker wire from each amp into the sub? How would this effect the ohm level? I wonder if there would be a problem with timing? Like one amp would play a little bit behind the other one? Thanks again.
 






Originally posted by 93 x_SPORT
Can you have two amps run one sub?

yes. i did this with an AWT34. the sub handles 5000 watts rms. we hooked up a 2400 watt amp to each voice coil.

make sure the subwoofer is a dual voice coil sub and that the impedance is correct on each coil.
 



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Your kidding me right?

Are you serious or are you jsut making that up to be cool... that kind of power cant just simply be bought... you sure you maybe didnt hit the nukmbers on axccident?>
 






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