is this good or bad to do...ive heard that it wont hurt it, and ive also heard after a while it will screw up the subs?
it will be fine if you are happy with the sound your getting out of them with the amp at 75-85% gain and bass boost and no bass boost on the deck. also running the deck at a decent sound level. damage comes when you are not happy with the sound at those levels and crank the amp up the whole way and the bass on the deck all the way. this will cause damage to your amp if not blow it. from experience its better to spend the extra money to match or get close the rms than go cheap and end up blowing the amp and have to spend more money anyway.
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94 Pontiac Sunbird 3.1 V6
alpine deck
audiobahn 3.5 fronts w/ tweeters
audiobahn 6.5 rears w/ tweeters
* sold rest of system to save up towards new car. $3000 spent on it.
Sure, run em under RMS. Don’t run the amp to clipping. If you think you need more volume out of the subs, get a bigger amp. There is no danger to your amp as long as you run it in a stable configuration (if its 4 ohm stable bridged, don’t run it at 2 ohm-duh!). You might be doing yourself injustice by running the subs far below the RMS rating, but if your within say 75% of the RMS, then I would not be compelled to run out and find one that matches it, your probably getting a good bit of maximum out of them. Meaning if your speakers are rated at 300 watts, 300 x .75 = 225. If your running at 225 or better, you would probably not notice a huge bump in volume or clarity by running out to get a 300 watt amp. Though, all things being equal, it would not be fair to compare the wattage coming from a Audiovox amp to that of any highend amp.
can't stress it enough - set the gains correctly! Then there is absolutly no danger (just don't go below the subs minimum - usually 5 - 25 watts)
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You'd better get me out of this lord... or else you'll have me to deal with. -- Hunter S. Thompson "F.A.L.I.L.V."