Printer Friendly Forum Posts - How to get the most power out of my sub

I have a Kicker CompVR 18" subwoofer and a US Acoustics 450 watt amp. The sub has a dual 4 ohm voice coil and i was wondering how could i wire it to my amp to get most power out of it?

"If you bridge it, the power will come" posted_image

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I cant wire it in parallel and bridge it cuz my amp isnt 1 ohm stable and i dont really want to bridge it wired in series cuz it will be getting lower power. Is there any other way i could wire it? Thanx for ur help tho.

If you follow the bottom diagram it will run your one 4ohm sub at 2 ohm which will give you maximum bridged power. The other diagrams show you the different parallel wiring configurations for multiple four ohm subs. Hope this info helps

If i bridged it at 2 ohms that would make it a 1 ohm load and my amp isnt 1 ohm stable. What about independent wirng? Does anyone know about that?

What type of amp do you have? is it a 2 channel or a mono block? The wiring spec that bberman1 has shown would be the best way to get the most out of any normal 2 channel or digital mono block amp that's both 2 and 1ohm stable. When you wire in a dual 4ohm voice coil sub, its just like wiring up two single voice coil 4ohm subs. Your still gonna get a 2ohm load when you wire it in a parallel configuation. The only way you would see a 1 ohm load to your amp is if you had a dual 2ohm voice coil sub. Then you would see a 1 ohm load to the amp.

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Its a 2 channel amp. So what ur saying is i can wire it in parallel and bridge it and the amp would still see 2 ohms and i would get the full 450 watts to the sub?

Thanx im really greatful for all ur help.

If the amp you have says that its 2ohm stable, then yes you can wire up the sub parallel and the amp will see only a 2 ohm load, not a 1ohm.

You could also just straight wire the sub(mean hook up on voice coil per channel) and that should have you in 4ohm stereo mode.

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Like pervitizm said on a 4 ohm dvc if you wire it in parallel you will only get a 2 ohm load (not 1 ohm). In order for your amp to see a 1 ohm load you would have to have a 2ohm dvc. So yes if you wire the way above your amp will see a 2 ohm load and put out the full 450 watts

Entirely incorrect! Bridging an amp will cause it to see half of the actual load. Or, in other words, yes paralleling two 4ohm coils creates a 2ohm load, but ANY bridged amp will perceive it as 1ohm. Which, to your US Acoustics (and many amps, actually), equates to no damping, less power, increased heat and frequent thermal shutdowns.
Just run it 4ohm stereo.

Sorry wasn’t thinking correctly St. Dark is correct. If you bridge it the load will be cut in half giving you a 1 ohm load. The best way to get the most out of your amp would be a 4ohm load. Thanks St. Dark for catching my error.

Ok, I am very green with this whole electricity, load, stuff. Let me replay what I just read. I am going to use the speakers at I want to put into my integra. I have 3qty JL 12W6's. Now unless I am incorrect if I wire the subs in parallel that should drop the resistance to 2ohms, correct? Assuming I am right on that, as long as I get an amp that is "mono" and 2ohm stable that should work like a charm, no? Now on the other side, I was looking a getting a BD1500 to push these three subs. What is the pro's opinion on that?

No if you had 3 6 ohm w6’s you would get either a 1 ohm load if you wired them parallel https://www.audiobahninc.com/tech/parallel-parallel-dual-6.gif or 4 ohms if you wired them in series- parallel https://www.audiobahninc.com/tech/series-parallel-dual-6.gif The BD1500 puts out 750 Watts X 1 @ 4 Ohms and 1500 Watts X 1 @ 2 Ohms Since you can only get a 1 or 4 ohm load out of your subs if you got the BD1500 you would only be able to run it in 4ohms getting 750 watts. Might want to look @ the JL 1000/1 which will put out 1000 watts @ 4 ohms. https://www.jlaudio.com/amps/10001.html it’s a very good amp and defiantly worth the money. If you get this amp use the Series-Parallel configuration listed above. Hope this helps

Thanks for the advices. What do you think. Will this get me to where the amp will see a 1ohm load? If I use the 1ohm/parallel wiring configuration and get a two channel amp and bridge it. What do you think of that and what kind of amp would you use then?

I just looked and I found this I dont know if there are any other manufactures out there that have something similar, if you let me know https://www.rockfordfosgate.com/ezcompare/ezcompare/model_info.asp?visitid=1414512&model=10058954 Thanks for your help, its much appreciated.

Then there is the Sound Stream Tarantula TR 1760/D, but god only knows what they are wanting for one of those. Image the widow maker model with red neon under and throughout a black car, and red neon coming out of the amp. Hold on a sec, I need to go take care of something. posted_image

The Fosgate wont work because if you have a 4 ohm load and then you bridge you end up with a 2 ohm load. I try to stay away from Sound Stream. But like I said before that JL will work well in your setup. Also you might want to look at some of Audiobah’s class D amps. They are all stable at 1 Ohm https://www.audiobahninc.com f

So if you parallel a DVC 4 ohm sub into 2ohms, then you have a 2 channel amp that's stable down to 2 ohm, then you can't run the sub in the parallel setup because in it's brigded state it will only see it as a 1 ohm load??????

WOW, you learn something new everyday I tell ya

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live & die 4 tha luv of BASS!!!!

My reasoning for the sound stream amp is they have a Tarantula that is built to put out 1760watts at 4 ohms. But I am curious why the grudge against sound stream. My email address is royweeks@hotmail.com if you choose to voice you opion I would love to hear it. When you are talking about spending that kind of money on an amp you want to get a stellar product.

Thanks again,

Roy

My only thought on the JL amp is will it be enough power? I know that amp is nothing to sneeze at but those subs are power hungry and I dont want to clip my amp and blow a speak(I just learned that. hehe). You obviously know more than me about this thing so by all means, hit me with it.

Each sub is 300 watts rms so you need a total of 900 watts. When it comes to speakers and amps you always want your speakers to be able to handle just a little more power than your amp puts out. I think 1760 watts is a little too much power for your subs. But if you want to run more power than suggested I would look at the Audiobahn A12001D it’s a very strong amp https://www.audiobahninc.com it puts out 1200 watts rms @ 1 ohm. But I would suggest the JL.

A little secret for everyone who stays up nights worrying about the correct impedance: You can run almost any amp at impedance below what it's rated to do, provided the gain is reduced to a level where the amp won't shut down.

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