fi btl blown?

My friend has an FI BTL 18" fully loaded in about a 7-8 foot cube box being pushed by a Hifonics 2600 watt amp. It stopped working about a week ago, and he's had it working great (and pounding tits) for 2-3ish months. We checked out why it wasn't working and the terminal cup melted and the insulation around the stripped end of the wires on outside of the terminal cup were also burnt. We got a new terminal cup, and after a few days that also melted. Then we took the terminal cup out and checked the sub out and the wires going from the terminal cup INSIDE to the subs actual terminals were melted and there were burnt spots on the voice coils.

What the hell has happened to this sub. It looks like we accidentally threw a cigarette in the port and it exploded inside the sub (joke). Help me out guys so we don't mess up another 500 dollar sub lol.

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Sasquatch...
We know your legend's real...

Well, it's a 2000 watt speaker, and you overpowered it.  Was the amp also clipping?  Plus, what was the tuning frequency of the enclosure and did you use a subsonic filter?

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But I thought BTLs could pretty much handle anything. When you say its a 2000 watt speaker do you mean it peaks at 2000 or RMS? Talk about a huge mistake in reading the description of the product if we thought the 2000 watts was RMS..

I may sound stupid but I honestly don't know what a subsonic filter is. And the amp had no troubles as far as clipping as I knew. As far as the tuning goes I honestly don't know. My friend did the box to spec on the RE website. Probably not super accurate, but we're novices here.

Thanks for the quick reply. :)

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Sasquatch...
We know your legend's real...

Even if it is rated for 2000wrms, you said that you were feeding it 2600rms, which may explain your problem.

Thermally the BTL can handle more than 2000 watts...if the power is clean.

My guess is that there was clipping. 2600 watts should be nothing for the BTL if you know what you are doing

Either a clipped signal or an incorrect enclosure.  In any case, the speaker got fried.

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was the box ported? if not the sub more then likely burned up without any means of cooling . also you say "fully loaded" did you perhaps get the competition style woofer that has the voice coils designed only for short blips at a time?  The BTL can handle more then there rated power but only for the amont of time they are designed for.

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89' 240sx
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porting a box does not improve power handling that substantially to fry the coils

It was ported to spec.  2600 watts of Hifonics power.  I just don't see what could have gone wrong. 

I know Hifonics isn't the best company for what you call "clean watts", but it seemed like a good choice. 

Back to the subject,  I over powered it?

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Sasquatch...
We know your legend's real...

ARE you using a subsonic filter set to the tuning frequency of the box???

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2013 Kia Rio -90a alternator
DDX470HD GTO14001 GTO1014D (x3)
Big3 in 1/0G
1/0G to GTO14001

Yes.  Tuned to the specifications.

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Sasquatch...
We know your legend's real...

mcben789 wrote:

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I may sound stupid but I honestly don't know what a subsonic filter is. And the amp had no troubles as far as clipping as I knew. As far as the tuning goes I honestly don't know. My friend did the box to spec on the RE website.

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This is why I ask.

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2013 Kia Rio -90a alternator
DDX470HD GTO14001 GTO1014D (x3)
Big3 in 1/0G
1/0G to GTO14001

Well that makes me feel really stupid, but is it not the knob with the different frequencies?

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Sasquatch...
We know your legend's real...

What is the model # of the HiFonics amp being used (so I can see if it has a subsonic filter)? What is the box tuned to (if you don't know, please provide the link to RE's site that states this)?

But, yes, it's a knob with different frequencies... It'll either be called a subsonic OR an infrasonic filter. It needs to be set to right below the tuning frequency of the enclosure.

Are you using the low-pass filter on the amp, or do you have a separate active filter BEFORE the amp that cuts the midrange and treble frequencies? The reason I ask is if the amp doesn't have a subsonic filter, you can actually use the amps' high-pass filter as a subsonic filter (as long as the amp is recieving a low-pass signal already AND the high-pass filter on the amp goes down to below the tuning frequency of the enclosure -which is iffy).

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2013 Kia Rio -90a alternator
DDX470HD GTO14001 GTO1014D (x3)
Big3 in 1/0G
1/0G to GTO14001

Hifonics Amp

Box calculator (the link to the site doesn't have the Fi BTL's specs put in it).

I'm not really positive what we had the knobs on the amp tuned to, and we had the remote bass level knob hooked up too. Also we had no crossover/filter besides the one on the amp.

Mainly I just want to know what we did wrong and how I can get it right the next time. I don't want to mess up another expensive speaker like that.

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Sasquatch...
We know your legend's real...