sub lost half the power

Hey guys. I have a little problem.

I'm driving today, and it seemed that my bass went down a bit. I got out, looked at the sub.. and I noticed they were both working. I have 2 JL 15W3v2's. Looking at it more closely, I noticed that the subs both work, but the volume dropped to about half on one of them!. I took out the bad sub, inspected it.. and nothing at all seemed to be wrong with it. To eliminate the wiring in the car, I hooked up my good sub to the wiring of the bad one, and it works fine. So, at least I pinpointed it to the sub, and not the amp, or car.. etc.

What can this be???. I've never heard of a sub still working, but losing half it's power, but mine did. What can this be?. Help!

Send it in for warranty work because it's probobly partially blown like said above. ^^

Do you know how to set the gain on your amp properly? If not then do a search on this site to learn how to set them properly to keep your amp from clipping, and possibly blowing your subs.

wow I never knew a sub can be partially blown.

How would it be partially blown if i'm only sending about 400 watts to it?.

not enough power can wreck a sub just as easily as to much power, with less power a person is more willing to turn things up higher  and running things beyond where they should be and in turn creating more distortion.

someone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

stang351w wrote:

---

not enough power can wreck a sub just as easily as to much power, with less power a person is more willing to turn things up higher  and running things beyond where they should be and in turn creating more distortion.

someone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

---

I think your correct, but.. when I say 400, I mean RMS. I turn up my gains when i'm at shows and stuff, but I never had a problem like this before. Never. And I got these last year too.

stang351w wrote:

---

not enough power can wreck a sub just as easily as to much power, with less power a person is more willing to turn things up higher  and running things beyond where they should be and in turn creating more distortion.

someone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

---

I think your correct, but.. when I say 400, I mean RMS. I turn up my gains when i'm at shows and stuff, but I never had a problem like this before. Never. And I got these last year too.

stang] wrote:

---

ot enough power can wreck a sub just as easily as to much power, with less power a person is more willing to turn things up higher and running things beyond where they should be and in turn creating more distortion.

someone feel free to correct me if i'm wrong

---

I think you are wrong, Poormanq45. But I'll let someone who is a little more knowledgable than me explain why (considering that I think I am right, which may or may not be true )

nyguy4u, set the gains properly, as this sounds like what your problem is. You should never have to fool with the gains if you have them set correctly and your subs will should be fine after that.

Amps are like engines, sure they go past redline, but nothing good comes of it. Where is DYohn with the answer......

nyguy, Have you checked the connection and/or impedence of both voice coils on the sub in question?

04MDX4SQ wrote:

---

Amps are like engines, sure they go past redline, but nothing good comes of it. Where is DYohn with the answer......

nyguy, Have you checked the connection and/or impedence of both voice coils on the sub in question?

---

thanks for the reply guys.

Yep, checked everything. I took it to my shop where I bought it. These subs are D4's. So, even though my amp isn't 2 ohn stable, he told me to wire it in 2 ohms, turn the gain down on my amp a good amount, and use my Audio Control Matrix to adjust the gain. I did that, and the other speakers sounded great.. but the one in question still didn't sound good.

So, I took it back to him, and said.. nope.. still doesn't work. So, he said maybe one of the voice coils seized, and he is gonna send it out being I bought it less then a year, and he said more then likely JL will just send another. So, we'll see. He's the manager there, and he's a really cool guy. He always helps me out. He installed a Viper alarm/starter for me, and didn't even charge for labor back in the day.

I'm not too knowledgable with all this stuff, so let me ask you guys a question. Originally, I had a wire go from the +, to the -, on the other side of the speaker. And, the + of the amp to the remaining + on the sub, and the same for the -. He said I should do it differently. He said to wire it in 2ohn, so he told me to take 2 short wires.. and on the speaker, run the - to the -, and the + to the +, and take the + and - from the amp, and run them to the + and the - on the sub. I think he said it's called a parralell set up?. Again, these are D4's, and my amp is not 2 ohn stable when bridged. He said that's ok, just turn the gain down on the amp, use the matrix for gain controls, and it will sound alot better. Does that sound right?.

Paradigm wrote:

---

I think you are wrong, Poormanq45. But I'll let someone who is a little more knowledgable than me explain why (considering that I think I am right, which may or may not be true )

nyguy4u, set the gains properly, as this sounds like what your problem is. You should never have to fool with the gains if you have them set correctly and your subs will should be fine after that.

---

Distortion dosn't kill speakers until you feed around the RMS rateing of the sub distortion.  Its a good combination of the 2 that kills a sub/speaker.  Iv been able to run 2400 wrms through an alpine type-r daily for about 4 months without problems, just don't play it over 20 min or heat problems will occur melting the vc.

Your speakers life is in the hands of the man with his fingers on the volume control knob.