ok i have two eclipse SW7000. they are 4ohm dual voice coil and rated at 1300wmax and 450wrms. my amp that i will be poweing them is an arc audio foose edition FD1200.1 which is a mono amp rated at: 1ohm at 1100w, or 2 ohms at 1010w, or 4 ohms at 510w. my question is what would be the best wiring config for this setup? if i went with all parallel and got the subwoofers wired down to 1ohm they would be getting 1100 watts. would that be too much for them sicne rms would be at 900w? the manual for my amp also shows a series parellel combination that will make the subs at 2 ohm. is it a good idea to power the subs over rms? i dont want to shorten their life by doing so. and also for which ever way i decide to go, what would be a good wire size to run inside the box and outisde the box going to the amp? any input on this would be appreciated. thanks.
This topic is a very popular one. I will give a general reccomendation.
As long as you don't go below the amplifiers ohm load rating, the amp will be safe.
As far as overpowering it depends on how you view that. In other words overpowering does not have to nessesaraly mean the amp has a higher power rating then the subs. However, if it is setup improperly (gains set to high etc) and you like to really crank the volume, then you will overpower the subs and blow them. Typically if you are using an amp with way too much power you will actually hear the subs beginning to protest (knocking sound) and at that point you have a choice to correct this or deal with replacing the subs sooner or later.
From what I have learned here is basically that if you drive the amp too hard it can actually put out quite a bit more power then it's RMS rating. That is most likely what is destroying subs in most cases.
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Oh as far as wire size there is a formula to determine this but being it is a fairly short run, you probably wouldn't suffer any noticible loss between a 12ga. or a 16ga. However, I like overkill in the case of wire ga. so use at least a 12ga.
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ok. well would i be safe using the 1ohm load or is that too much over my subs rms? what is the general amount you could go over?
The 1 ohm load will be perfectly fine with your subs...just do a search on how to correctly set the gain...it has been covered numerous times.
Just because the amp is rated at 1100 watts at 1 ohms doesn't mean it will put out 1100 watts at all times at 1 ohm...depends on how you set your gain