need some subwoofer help

[matt89]

i bought brand 2 new rockford p1s and what i thought to be a 600watt amp. turns out best buy lied to me. my amp is really only 200watts. so now every once and a while my system sounds crappy. i dont know if i should get a new battery or amp.

[JPolito830]

Cant you take them back since they lied to you...I would get a new amp before a battery if returning them doesnt work out.

[supraghost]

Your first mistake was buying any audio equipment from a place like best buy.

but anyway, now we gotta fix the mistake. did you install it?

you really need to explain more. what do you mean it sounds "crappy"? because the power output and use of the battery workin inversely to your problem:

more powerful amp, need better battery

less powerful amp, the battery should not be a problem.

the amp is probably rated at 200watts rms and 600max. depending on the brand this could be plenty of power.

what size subs?

if it is a good brand amp, you really wont need much power for them to sound good. in fact, low power low distortion amps are often preferred for a SQ setup.


so. what size subs? what amp (brand and model)? who wired it? and what do you mean it sounds "crappy"?

[matt89]

well there are 12s. its a rockford p2002 amp. my mom works at verizon wireless so one of the technicans wired it. it sounds like the subs are hitting in the car but its really my 4inch speakers and on a good day they sound really nice. i think thats because my ground is on a painted piece of metal but i have no clue

[supraghost]

yeah sand that metal down and see what happens.

def not your battery, and that amp has enough power that you will def tell a differents from your 5.25's

[240sxDann]

dont forget, amps need "tuned" also for it to sound good and hit right. Dont just turn everything all the way up or they will sound like trash.

[matt89]

Originally Posted by 240sxDann

dont forget, amps need "tuned" also for it to sound good and hit right. Dont just turn everything all the way up or they will sound like trash.

define "tuned" for me im lost

[240sxDann]

All the little screws on it for highs and lows. I'll be honest I dont know how to get them to sound good, I just know they need to be set right. lol

[Erik]

tuning an amp is adjusting its gain (power output), LowPass (amount of bass coming through), mids (amount of middle range noise), and highs (higher frequencies) coming through the amp. Some amps only have a low and a high, some, not many, have low, low-mids, mids, high-mids, highs. Each equalizer setting needs to be adjusted rather than just thrown at its full potential. you will strain your sub a lot by doing that. I would not recommend running it at full gain at first, but build up so that way your easing into a lot of power. I never run full gain, mines around 2/3.

before tuning your amp, what kind of box do you have? sealed, ported or bandpass?

[matt89]

its a sealed box

[Erik]

a sealed box typically will provide a good boom but not as much in the octave range. Basically, what i like mine at for my sealed box, is more low end pass than high end. My amp only has a low and high with a crossover filter. I use a mid crossover filter which filters out very low end and very high end frequencies. As for the tuners themselves, i would say turn up your low end a more significant amount (maybe 3/4s or 2/3s the way up) and maybe only a quarter turn on the high end.

[P_856]

the rockford p2002 is a good amp do you kno if the guy that installed it "bridged" it or not because if you run it at 2 ohms instead of the normal 4 it should produce more power

[Erik]

Originally Posted by P_856

the rockford p2002 is a good amp do you kno if the guy that installed it "bridged" it or not because if you run it at 2 ohms instead of the normal 4 it should produce more power

Assuming that you didnt know how to tune an amp or what it meant to tune, im going to make the assumption that you dont know what "bridging" is. Follow the speaker cable from the terminals on the box to the amp. You will see on the terminals on the amp, it will be arranged as +-+- (ect. ect. depending on how many channels.) If you have the positive of one sub to the first positive, and the negative to the negative in the second set of connectors, it is bridged. Doing that, the amp draws more power to each woofer by running 2ohms rather that 4. If you are bridging the subs, i would highly recommend to run the gain a little lower unless your positive the woofers can handle the power.

Thanks P_856, i forgot to mention that

[redline]

Originally Posted by letsRACE

Assuming that you didnt know how to tune an amp or what it meant to tune, im going to make the assumption that you dont know what "bridging" is. Follow the speaker cable from the terminals on the box to the amp. You will see on the terminals on the amp, it will be arranged as +-+- (ect. ect. depending on how many channels.) If you have the positive of one sub to the first positive, and the negative to the negative in the second set of connectors, it is bridged. Doing that, the amp draws more power to each woofer by running 2ohms rather that 4. If you are bridging the subs, i would highly recommend to run the gain a little lower unless your positive the woofers can handle the power.

Thanks P_856, i forgot to mention that

That depends, Does he have SVC's or DVC's speakers? I would only assume they are SVC and a 2 channel amp. If this is the case I would run them as stated above and run the speakers in Parellel (Bridged at the amp and run jumpers to the second speaker) This will give you a 2 OHM load. If you have DVC's run them on each channel separatly and jump the voice coils in parellel. Good luck.

[supraghost]

Originally Posted by letsRACE

a sealed box typically will provide a good boom but not as much in the octave range. Basically, what i like mine at for my sealed box, is more low end pass than high end. My amp only has a low and high with a crossover filter. I use a mid crossover filter which filters out very low end and very high end frequencies. As for the tuners themselves, i would say turn up your low end a more significant amount (maybe 3/4s or 2/3s the way up) and maybe only a quarter turn on the high end.

really its impossible to tune a system without hearing it.... but those^^ are good guidelines.


in general, you can set your HU at 3/4 volume and turn your gain up until it is loud enough (without overpowering the rest of the system) but stop before you hear distortion in the subs.

tune your high's and lows by ear, where your house speakers stop creating frequencies, your subs should start i.e. your sub will play the low to low mid stuff and your components will play the mid to high stuff (depending on sub and component capabilities). but having your sub play the full range of frequencies is very inefficient and causes a huge loss of sq.

[redline]

Originally Posted by supraghost

really its impossible to tune a system without hearing it.... but those^^ are good guidelines.


in general, you can set your HU at 3/4 volume and turn your gain up until it is loud enough (without overpowering the rest of the system) but stop before you hear distortion in the subs.

tune your high's and lows by ear, where your house speakers stop creating frequencies, your subs should start i.e. your sub will play the low to low mid stuff and your components will play the mid to high stuff (depending on sub and component capabilities). but having your sub play the full range of frequencies is very inefficient and causes a huge loss of sq.

With 12's I would always set the low-pass crossover to 20-80hz, anything over that and it could cause destortion and ultimately over time destroy your woofers.

[Mookinator]

Originally Posted by redline

With 12's I would always set the low-pass crossover to 20-80hz, anything over that and it could cause destortion and ultimately over time destroy your woofers.

do you mean high pass? a low pass filter will only allow frequencies from 0-20hz through.

with his amp, i'd set the high pass filter at 20Hz, to keep from overheating the drivers, and the low pass filter at 100hz or to match what the high pass filter for the mid/woofer drivers is set at.

~Mike

[Mookinator]

those rockford P1's are only rated for 150w RMS.
the rockford p2002 amp is rated for
50W x 2 @ 4-Ohms RMS
100W x 2 @ 2-Ohms RMS
200W x 1 @ 4-Ohms bridged RMS

running the amp in bridged mode with the speakers in parrellel will give you plenty of clean power before distortion. and it'll be the drivers breaking up before the amp starts clipping.

~Mike

[DPancoast]

This thread is A+. Nothing like good quality tech talk. I miss working at world wide stereo now haha...

[redline]

Originally Posted by Mookinator

do you mean high pass? a low pass filter will only allow frequencies from 0-20hz through.

with his amp, i'd set the high pass filter at 20Hz, to keep from overheating the drivers, and the low pass filter at 100hz or to match what the high pass filter for the mid/woofer drivers is set at.

~Mike

In terms, I was talking about the highest HZ setting you want. On Xtant amps (pre-MTX buyout, I still say are the best made)that is done with a chip and is set to 20-80hz due to anything lower than 20hz the human ear cannot pick up and anything over that will eventually kill the 12 inch speaker or effect sound quality. I either did this with a chip or a seperate crossover. So maybe this has changed in the years I haven't been doing it or our terminology is off.

Edit: I see what your saying now, I am off to these cheap built in crossovers today, they really won't give you the kind of flexability to tune a system. But for a regular setup I am sure they do just fine. I used to do installs for Wee-Bee Audio like 10 years ago.