hey everyone, i just bought a pioneer 12" 800w max sub today. I'm running it off my profile 400w amp, pushing 200w rms. the sub is rated for 150w rms, and i listened to it before, sounded good, i cranked it, and it sounded like crap. the sub just sounds sloppy... i have the gain and bass boost set up all the way, could this be the problem? if so, what would i set it to?

 

Yes that is exactly the problem. Turn down the bass boost all the way as it will cause the amp to run out of power very fast. The gain should be in proportion to the music. Pretty standard is to turn the deck up to 3/4 then adjust the bass to where you want it. Turning the gain up will not make it louder. It will change when the amplifier puts out its full power. With it all the way up your probalby maxing out the amp at less then half vol and then it goes into clipping while you still ask for it to go louder. This will cause it to sound horrible as well as potentially cause damage.

 

just a guess but i would think that powering over the rms could make it distort. plus if you put your amp all the way up you can have problems with the amp distorting the signal. I might be completely wrong on this but that's my guess. could just be bad wiring?

 

i think you might be right for the most part... i turned down the gain and bass boost and it sounded even worse. its 800w max, and the amp is 400w max. i used to have a pioneer 300w running an mtx and it sounded 100 times better. so back goes this sub tomorrow, probably trading in for mtx 12", which handles 200rms and 400 max, same as the amp. thanks guys.

 

oh rly? :eh:

 

well its been a hell of a night with this sub, and i decided i'm just gonna go with a 4-channel amp for all my speakers. sub just aint for me i guess

 

Yes. For every +3db boost it will require twice the power of the amplifier. A + 6 db increase will require 4x the power. That is why i say that bass boost will cause amps to run out of steam really quickly.

 

just making sure you werent saying that the amp was storing power or something like that. gotcha!

at this point i wouldnt worry about how much current the amp will be pulling but rather what kind of signals his amps will be sending to his driver/drivers.

 

Yeah I agree. The problem isnt with the current but when you are asking for more power then the amp can give like with a bass knob turned up really high you start to get clipping which is no good and probably the source of the problems.