Alright about a month ago I got a kenwood double din installed... And about a week ago my sub started acting funny.... It would hit then randomly hit then just stopped hitting all together... Im currently broke so Im not able to take it to anyone till the 15th... Anyone know whats up? The amp still works and I have audio through my speakers...

 

Sounds like what happened to me. I had a poineer head unit that got stolen and when I replaced it with a different one my sub acted funny too. It would just sit there and hit at the most random times and when i would really crank it up it would put off a foul smell. After a month of that it finally just died all together.

 

That makes me nervous to replace my head unit

 

Haha dont be my was ancient though so an upgrade is in order... When I get the money....


I also got that foul smell when turned up to loud before... I belive thats the smell of your amp burning ( stand to be corrected)

But offroadin what did you do... Just replace it?

 

It was the voice coil burning I think. Cuz it was coming from inside the sub box. And I havent replaced it yet. I think the overall problem was that the Sub was only rated for 800w and I had a 500w amp hooked into it. Still doesnt make alot of sense, but when I do get around to replacing it im gonna go for 1000w+ just to be safe.

 

so u were underpowering ur sub? thats not going to hurt ur sub. what sub did u have and what amp?

 

It was an older kicker compVR 12" and a kenwood (i think) 500w bridgeable amp

 

what was the rms on the amp. the cvr is 400rms. i have 2 12s sitting in my room.

 

I have no idea, lol. I just know how to wire it up and install it. i dont pay attention to specs. just something that makes a good thump

 

well i wouldnt over power a cvr, they arnt the best. if ur looking to get another sub, look into DC

 

sounds like you drove you amp into clipping... and it took its toll. when your amp clips it can send out much more electrical current then any of its ratings. basicly its like hooking the sub directly to the battery when the amp clips. thats no good because the coil heats up and the thin insulation on the wire burns off and causes the wire to short circuit the amp. this would cause the amps protection circuit to kick in.

replacing the headunit and not readjusting your amps gains to match is likely the cause.

 

this

 

Im going to disagree with you on this, underpowering a Sub is what kills them more often than not. its very hard to kill a sub with too strong of an amp (within reason) as the RMS is where it sits 90% of the time, and you hardly ever (unless competing) ever reach peak amp output. (this is also according to sub, enclosure and amp)

you want to avoid anything that sounds like distortion, which is usually the cause for any speaker to burn, which is a sign your pushing too much "noise" through the setup. "noise" is basically that, it is pure noise and not sound.
and yes, if you replace your HU, you had better reset everything to zero and adjust from there.

 

and im giong to disagree with u because underpowering a sub will not hurt the sub, clipping will though.

 

Under powering your subs is the most common reason for subwoofer failure

 

anybody that kills a sub by underpowering it needs to get out of car audio. i had a 15" RE SX which is rated at 1000rms but can take upto 1500 and i had it on like 750 with NO problems. so either the installer is a moron or the products he is using are garbage.

underpowering will not kill a sub

 

Absolutely it will. If you were to power that 1000W rms sub with a 300W rms amp your gonna do some damage. The voice coils need enough power to function properly

 

it MIGHT if it was like a POS jensen or pyle or something

but i still highly doubt it will

 

"Underpowering" a sub, causing it to blow is just a rumor that is false. People who don't know what they're talking about with car audio but try and act like they do make me laugh. The only time I could see someone think that they blew a sub due to "underpowering" would be if you took a sub with like 900w RMS and hooked it up to a 300w RMS amp and turned up the gain/bass boost all the way or something. It would clip horrible and blow the sub.

 

thank you

 

Which is exactly what I said. If your amp cannot power your sub properly your gonna do damage. I see waytoo many people just turn up the bass and mess with their amps thinkingits ok cause the subs cab handle it

 

clipping is only "1" way of killing a sub by underpowering it.
but the main cause is basically your voice coils will melt due to overheating trying to compensate for not enough draw to hit the sounds your trying to get out of it.
you will blow a sub 5 times faster by not having enough juice than by having too much juice, within reason
(if your trying to power a 250 peak sub with a 1500 rms amp, guess what....)
at the same time, if your trying to power a 1500w rms sub with a 250w peak amp and get decent sound from it, your going to melt your voice coil/coils, and no, it wont take very long to accomplish this task. it could happen the first time you try to turn the volume up for more than 3-4 minutes.
and yes, Ive seen this happen.

 

You have no idea what you're talking about lol.

Read up a little bit
Too Little Power Blowing Speakers

 

mine blew by having the amp settings to high. when i had my old amp my settings were low, so im with korey on this one. not once did i blow a sub with the settings low, or underpowered like said.

 

I dont ?
cool, Im glad that I also must be blind too
since Ive actually seen it happen...
but whatever, I am not going to bother trying to convince the ignorant.