help me! i know very little about car audio but really want to learn :)

[m1lky]

I would say that the jl above is a good sub. Would run well on your amp too (haunt heard it though).

I would happily put a 300rms sub on 400rms. But then I'm always very conservative on the gains.

Do you plan to build or buy a box? Will you run sealed or ported? How much room do you want to give up in your boot?

 

[sam.]

yeah the above sub is also available on soundmaster and its power specs would mean i have 100rms at 2 ohms worth of head room cos i really dont want to risk blowing my sub. will 400rms at 2 ohms give good kick aswell as fill my car with clean bass??
i plan on getting a box custom made, the builder recomends ported but i have read that a sealed box gives better sound quality? my boot is pretty big, i dont mind sacrificing too much of the space but i dont want a huge box. just an average sized box built to match my sub.

 

[m1lky]

400 will give you plenty of kick. Especially in a ported box. Sq is very subjective, depends what your after and what you like.

100rms of headroom will be fine. Your amp would only reach it's rated power if you were playing a sine wave anyway. Don't use loud or bass boost as these are a good way to kill the sub by causing the amp to clip.

 

[sam.]

ok cool, so that single 2ohm 12" JL sub is a good fit for my amp then?
well im a mutt wen it comes to music haha. i listen to all kinda of music from heavy rock, dance, electronic, hip/hop, rap and anything with nice bass tones to show off the sub would you recomend ported or sealed? and whats clipping? i havnt heard of this term before?
ok thanks, il make sure to never have bass boost, or loud turned on via the headunit or the ipod. thanks for that.

 

[m1lky]

I think that sub would be decent. But I haunt heard it.

If you have the space go ported. Ported boxes are more efficient and you'll get more 'boom' for your power (if that's what your after).

Clipping is when the amp hits it's rails and can no longer reproduce the sound correctly.

Lets assume for simplicity your playing a sine wave. Your amplifier will then amplify the magnitude of the input signal. However your amp has finite rails so if you try to amplify it too far (by having the gains too high) the signal hits the voltage of the power rails before the full sine wave has been reproduced. So the top and bottom are truncated off and in an extreme case it begins to resemble a square wave.

If you use bass boost or loud etc this significantly increases the magnitude of the input signal at certain frequencies. So with a gain that would normally be fine you can get clipping at these frequencies. But because it's only at some frequencies it's hard to hear and can damage the sub.

 

[sam.]

ok so cliping is when you push your amp to hard and **** happens pretty much thanks for that info. im leaning toward a ported box cos i really want to make the most out of the sub. so playing this sub at 2 ohms 400rms will be fine cos its rated at 100-500rms single 2 ohms. i found this page from the JL Audio site and it has the sub im looking at getting and it even gives you a scale at the bottom of the page which tells you the optimum rms of each sub. and my amp output fits in there perfectly. take a look: JL Audio 12W3v3 Subwoofers - Car Audio Subwoofers

 

[m1lky]

Pretty much just driving it too hard but the mechanism it happens by helps to understand it.

That should be a very nice sub. Just build a ported box to their recommended size and you'll be on the money.

 

[sam.]

awesome! thanks for all the help. cant wait to get my sound system finished

 

[dthrw]

This might sound like a stupid question but i cant get the door panels (so i can put new speakers in there) off a ve omega Ive undone the 2 screws under the bottom of the door panel, the silver screw in the door handle and the 2 screws under the arm rest i just don't want to force anything and end up breaking the clips or something like that seeing as the cars basically new.

 

[sam.]

sorry mate cant help you out. you are best starting your own thread in the audio section.