buying subwoofer, speaker terminology?

 im buying some subs,  i dont know anything bout speakers. my question is what does peak power mean? and continous power?

Peak power is what the Speaker can handle for very short bursts without breaking the speaker, continous power is what it can handle the entire time its playing, you want to mach your amp power to the continous power and you'll be all good.

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Nothing last's like the temporary.

ok so if i bought 2 subs both wit 1000 watts each of continous power, so i would to have buy an 2000 watts amp?

rdorris84 wrote:

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ok so if i bought 2 subs both wit 1000 watts each of continous power, so i would to have buy an 2000 watts amp?

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No, it means you could use any amp you want to use UP TO 1000 watts per speaker.  What subwoofers are you considering that are rated at 1000 watts continuous?

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DYohn, can you set me straight? i am a little confused now that i read this thread. i always thought that you could have an amp that had a much higher power rating than your speakers and thought that was actually better. let me explain.

it seems that other than physical damage to a speaker because of being played past its physical limits, most, and i say most because not all, but most damage to a voice coil is caused due to distortion from the amp which happens most of the time when it runs out of headroom. i have seen tons of woofers that were destroyed by guys with little cheap amps rated at much less than the woofer who thought they would just turn up the gains and the resulting distortion caused a failure. i always thought that if your amp was rated with more power that the driver just turn down the gain on the amp and adjust the amp as needed and you still have plenty of clean power without reaching the end of the amps headroom. meaning clearer sound and less damaging distortion. after all its not like your gonna(well, at least not me) turn things up until they are maxed out. i always thought of it like having a Ferrari that can easily go 160mph but you can only drive it half that speed because of the road you are on at that moment. or a 18 foot colapseable ladder to get on your 15 foot roof. ive always followed this rule and it has never let me down yet all these years and quite a few serious home audio enthusiasts I know use this school of thought as well. my question to all of you out there who know(because apparently i dont), is this wrong thinking? have I been thinking wrong all these years?

The difference is if you know what you're doing or not.  My answer to the OP was based on dispelling the myth that you must use an amplifier that matches the continuous rating of your speakers.  You do not have to do that, and you are safest if you choose an amp rated less than your speaker's maxes and then set it up properly so it does not clip.

Distortion by itself does not harm speakers.  Only too much power harms speakers.  Heat is the enemy of loudspeaker voice coils.  The reason some people blow their speakers with under-rated amps is because once the amp goes into clipping, it is difficult to know how much power it will deliver to the voice coil and often it will exceed their thermal rating.  It is easier to overdrive small amplifiers because people  often want more than they can produce.  Using a small amp is fine as long as it is set up correctly and the user does not overdrive it.  Once you know what it sounds like, it is fairly easy to hear when an amp clips and turn the volume down.

In speakers with small voice coils like tweeters, high frequency distortion is bad but again not because of the distortion itself, because of the very high power levels that can be behind that distortion, and which you may not be able to hear.  Using larger amplifiers allows you to drive the speaker to its max levels without fear of over driving the amp into clipping.  But again, it's all about knowing what you're doing, as if your amp is capable of over driving your speakers within it's normal operating range, you can fry a voice coil and never know there was any issue because you would never hear any clipping.

Depending on the application and the user, using larger amps than a loudspeaker's rating is a good thing because it give you head room - you can operate at the max levels of the speakers with room to go on the amp, and the amp is not likely to clip during transients.  But it is also normal to use amps that are rated at less than the loudspeaker's ratings in order to protect the speaker from thermal damage.  It's all about knowing what you're doing, and choosing the right tools for the right task.

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good. thanks. i will continue to live by the school of thought i always have then. i have never damaged a speaker or overheated an amplifier and i get much better sound quality in any install i do like this. way better sound.

its not my place to tell you that you are right or wrong after all ive only been doing this for 5 years  and i assume that you have  more experience than me, but the rule that i have allways gone by is to go with an amp that is no more than about 200watts within matching the coutinus powers of the woofer. the reason that I say that is that i have seen too many customers come in and get a big amp and some cheap subs and have it installed. I would tune the amp to match the subs and also let the kid know that they need to brake in the subs before they turned it up too loud so the subs wont blow. and it would never fail that the kid would be back within the week because the subs blew when they let their buddie that said they knew what they were doing turn up the amp and when i check it the  gain, subsonic, frequiency, and bass boost are maxed out. but if its for your personal use and you know how to tune an amp corectly than haveing an amp that is bigger than you need shouldnt bee a problem

98neonr/t wrote:

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its not my place to tell you that you are right or wrong after all ive only been doing this for 5 years  and i assume that you have  more experience than me, but the rule that i have allways gone by is to go with an amp that is no more than about 200watts within matching the coutinus powers of the woofer. the reason that I say that is that i have seen too many customers come in and get a big amp and some cheap subs and have it installed. I would tune the amp to match the subs and also let the kid know that they need to brake in the subs before they turned it up too loud so the subs wont blow. and it would never fail that the kid would be back within the week because the subs blew when they let their buddie that said they knew what they were doing turn up the amp and when i check it the  gain, subsonic, frequiency, and bass boost are maxed out. but if its for your personal use and you know how to tune an amp corectly than haveing an amp that is bigger than you need shouldnt bee a problem

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That is why many installers mark where they set the gain on the amp using nail polish or something similar. Then, when a customer comes in complaining they blew their subs you can check if the settings were changed. You can point them out to the customer that they changed the setting. That can help to show that you are not responsible for their subwoofers blowing.

98neonr/t wrote:

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I would tune the amp to match the subs and also let the kid know that they need to brake in the subs before they turned it up too loud so the subs wont blow.

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You don't need to worry about breaking in your subs when they are right out of the box. You will not be in any risk of blowing your subs if all the settings are correct. You can turn it up full blast without doing any damage.

Speaker break-in is only necessary if you want to change some of the T/S parameters of your sub. It is not necessary to keep your subs from blowing. Some people do this because they say it improves the sound of your sub(s).

If you do break in your sub basically all you need to do is push your driver near it's Xmax value. The link below describes it better...

https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp?tid=73120&PN=1&tpn=2#post

yeah its true ive seen plenty of people blow subs (mostly kicker) with tiny little amps. and its true that its never really one thing that blows a sub, its a combination of power,(too much or too little)build quality of the sub, your own musical tastes X knowing what you are doing. even enclosure volume can come into play, if you have a sub in such a small box then it can destroy your sub mechanically through stress on the cone (especially in square woofers. the same can be true with boxes that are waaaay too big. lack of back preasure combined with too much power or gain and the cone will act stupid and might damage the coil. but like they said if you know what can go wrong and why it makes all the difference whe trying not to blow a sub


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It is impossible for too little power to blow a sub. Period.  Like I said before, low power amps driven into clipping might blow some subs by overpowering them.

We've been over this all before:  https://www.the12volt.com/installbay/forum_posts.asp~TID~74226~PN~1

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I have never blown a speaker from providing it with "too much amplifier". Too much power? Of course, but this is where judicious use of the "level matching control" (i.e. gain control - an inaccurate label, at best) comes into play.

I am running WELL over 600 watts to each door in my car (340+ to the bass (adire Audio 6.8, rated 200 watts RMS), 172w to the mid (Vifa carbon fiber mid, rated 10 watts. Yes, 10 watts!), and 172w to the tweeter (JL Silk domes, rated 80 watts peak)), and I can tell you that I never hear any thought of stress. This is because of the careful tuning I did with the system as I was installing it.

DYohn is right. It takes a long time to be able to hear distress in electronics, and even longer still to be able to discern which device (speaker, amplifier or signal source, in this case) is the offender. Lacking this experience, the link provided by DYohn is a very informative one, and one that should be read thoroughly.

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

Distortion kills subs, if you have less power you will try to turn it up more driving it into distortion and killing your sub.

I run 11,000 watts to 2 5000 watt subs (maximum) and Ive never had a problem!

Gti 15's they are 800 RMS and i feed them 2600 RMS each, with 3 batteries and a 20 Farad cap

never had a problem

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Have you ever seen an Acura with them butterfly doors???

audiovibe-mike wrote:

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Distortion kills subs, if you have less power you will try to turn it up more driving it into distortion and killing your sub.

I run 11,000 watts to 2 5000 watt subs (maximum) and Ive never had a problem!

Gti 15's they are 800 RMS and i feed them 2600 RMS each, with 3 batteries and a 20 Farad cap

never had a problem

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audiovibe-mike, im gonna call you on this one. first, if you go back and read DYohn's responses you will see that its NOT distortion that will cause the damage, bur rather heat. second, you are not running that much power through those speakers(no matter how much you believe you are). if you were they would not still be working. now, you may have an amplifier that is rated with more power than the subs you have connected to it are rated, and if that is the case you obviously have it adjusted correctly and do not run more power to them than they are rated at. like i said earlier.....if you did......they would burn up. David, whats your verdict???

Good "call"... I'm with you as well.

audiovibe-mike wrote:

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Distortion kills subs, if you have less power you will try to turn it up more driving it into distortion and killing your sub.

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Wrong answer. Power kills subs, not distortion. Read the thread linked to by DYohn...

audiovibe-mike wrote:

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I run 11,000 watts to 2 5000 watt subs (maximum) and Ive never had a problem!

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Again.. Wrong answer. What you MEANT to say was this: I have 11000 watts of amplifer CAPACITY (shyah, right...) connected to two 5000 watt subs... Not to mention that only 1000 watts more than the drivers are rated for, is less than a 10% RMS overpower situation. I'm FAAAAR less than impressed. Try a 1700% RMS overpower capability, and not blow your driver, THEN come back and brag about never blowing a driver. (See my previous post regarding running a 170 watt amplifier to 10 watt mids...)

audiovibe-mike wrote:

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Gti 15's they are 800 RMS and i feed them 2600 RMS each, with 3 batteries and a 20 Farad cap never had a problem

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Nope... Another bad call. You CANNOT power ANY driver with more than it's RMS capability in an RMS situation without blowing said driver. Your amplifier may have 2600 watts ON TAP (another "shyah, right" fits here...), but you are never feeding more than 800 watts continuous to the woofer... The laws of physics dictate this to be true. If you belive that the laws of physics cease to exist in your trunk, or if you think your amp makes that much power, and you really believe that you are cranking your amp, connected to 800 watt woofers, and you are not blowing those woofers, you need to do a bit more research into what a quality amplifer can actually do.

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

agreed ham...11,000 watts and ONLY three batteries??? that cap isn't doing squat either...Unless you have dual 250-300 amp alternators you can't charge squat with the system turned on.

Its number 4 acura 99 3.2tl on cardomain check it out. silver with lambo doors.

If your saying that my amps dont produce those amounts of power i agree, like i said its no crown. but thats what the ratings are. I have lots of pics and trophys. I run the two amps strapped at 1.5ohms, for 11,000 watts. max. in a perfect world i know, but those are the ratings.  I dont see why you have such a hard time believing it.

The proof is in the pics. 

p.s. i am new here and dont wanna stir doodie up, if you know what i mean. Ive been installing for 4 years, im 22. i know im not an expert or nearly as knowledgeable as some of you guys, but i joined cuz i love cars and 12 volts :)

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Have you ever seen an Acura with them butterfly doors???

https://www.cardomain.com/ride/2984412 there it is.

hey guys can i edit posts on here or no?  thanks.

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Have you ever seen an Acura with them butterfly doors???

When you get to 100 posts - "standard" member.

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It all reminds me of something that Molière once said to Guy de Maupassant at a café in Vienna: "That's nice. You should write it down."

The proof is in the pics. 

I like that...... it's like believing everything you read....

Your car "looks" good!

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lol "max watts"...still noob status

you are probably getting 2000 watts rms out of those amps.   No where near 11,000 watts.

Around here the regulars are actually pretty knowledgeable...max/peak watts mean nothing my friend...so if you want to flaunt how much power you have on tap talk real wattage.

Your Power Acoustik amps are rated at 1700 watts, and that is a stretch.  The amp contains 5 X 30-amp fuses, right?  That allows it to draw a max of 150 amps.  Assuming you have the alternator capacity to maintain 14.4 volts, @ 150 amps that is equivalent to 2160 watts.  Since the amp is class A/B, that makes it no more than 60% efficient, which means it could theoretically output 1296 watts.  Strap two together and you double that.  And since it's Power Acoustik, it's probably at about 15% distortion.

Just keeping it real.  Do you have the electrical system required to supply 300 amps at 14.4 volts?  Batteries alone won't cut it.

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Ive run the same subs with a shredder. Is that real watts. Never had a problem then either.

anyways i'm not gonna drag this on. thanks for the replies I learn something every day on here.

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Have you ever seen an Acura with them butterfly doors???

Power Acoustik rates it 1700 at 4, 2500 at 2 and 3200 at 1, thats where i got my figures from. ya i know there all way over rated but the only thing i see that says 1700 is at 4ohms. and it says right here its a d class. they have an a/b class with the same shroud but not the one i have. i know comparing P.A. to say a JBL or what have you is like comparing an apple to an orange, but i was only stating the ratings on the box. also im not trying to "flaunt my power". i was just tryin to post on the topic with a real world example. again not trying to be a dick or whatever

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Have you ever seen an Acura with them butterfly doors???

OK, my mistake.  If it's a Class D, then it might be up to 80% efficient, which means 1728 watts @ 14.4V X 150A.  That would be with ANY loading, and right before the amp fuses blew.  That is a real world example for ya.  So how are you powering those bad boys?

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Jus with what i said. the last comp i was in they wouldn't even let me turn my car on. I only had 1 amp then tho.

honestly this car is driven like 3 months out of the year, maybe 4 if the canadian weather is good.

Listen I know you guys are right about alot of this doodie, like i said im no expert. Ive been installing for 4 years, after 6 months i was running the shop by myself, (the owner has another job). no one to help me with anything, everything ive learned has  been me, by myself in a garage. oh the owners here on saturdays and holidays but thats it.  When i have a problem I have to figure it out by myself, ( tech lines are fun, internet is helpful)

so i totally respect all of your opinions and just look forward to being a part of the community.

and i know it is a stretch to say my batteries are all charging properly, but if i take even one out its a night and day difference.

again thanks for all responses, good and bad

p.s if i could i would put another shredder in (phd2) but they are hard to find nowadays, and mine was stolen.

i loved that amp,

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Have you ever seen an Acura with them butterfly doors???

sorry if I came off offensive in any way...I'm not bashing you or anything...the PA amps that I love are the older PS-520 and PS-820...very reliable amps.