2 Amps installed...Sub amp not pushing enough power!!!

[Side Show 10+ year member]

how you have wired the sub to the amp and how the subs wired (series or parallel)

 

[858SD]

My sub wiring looks exactly like this..http://m.seimg.net/product/img/subwoofer_wiring/1_sub_DVC_4_ohm_mono.jpg, im still teaching myself on series or parallel wiring so idk which wiring it is..And on the sub amp Its just connected to the 1st Positive and 1st Negative terminals...It has 2 pairs of Pos and Negs

 

[bbeljefe]

sorry to confuse you. I did ran one speaker wire and bridged 2 channels of the 4 and inside the box it looked like this ...."http://m.seimg.net/product/img/subwoofer_wiring/1_sub_DVC_4_ohm_mono.jpg" ..... but instead there was a positive and negative coming from one set/side of terminals hooking on to the amp. In that diagram theres a negative coming from one side/set of terminals and positive coming from the other side/set. The positive hooking to positive and negative to negative was there. I couldnt find a picture/diagram or at least dont know the term for the setup that looked like mine so sorry if i just confused you thats the simplest i can put it..
I thought it would make a difference if i wired it exactly how that diagram is but it didnt. My sub is now wired at the diagram so it should be a 2ohm load now?? at 2 ohms that kenwood should put out 900wrms i believe. Its hooked up to the kenwood right now. I still have my soundstream hooking up my speakers , should i try to hook my sub bridged back on the soundstream to see if itll bump?

Okay, now I understand where you are. And NO... don't connect the sub to the SS amp while it's wired to 2Ω. That will present a 1Ω load to each of the bridged channels and the amp likely won't fare well.

And if the Kenwood amp is still not performing well, try the Alpine at 2Ω and see how it does. I think you'll find the Alpine to be a better amp.

 

[Side Show 10+ year member]

jus do a search on google on how to wire a duel 4 ohm woofer to a 2 ohm load. your wiring seems fine

 

[858SD]

Okay, now I understand where you are. And NO... don't connect the sub to the SS amp while it's wired to 2Ω. That will present a 1Ω load to each of the bridged channels and the amp likely won't fare well.
And if the Kenwood amp is still not performing well, try the Alpine at 2Ω and see how it does. I think you'll find the Alpine to be a better amp.

Alright I will try the alpine tommorow, and if im correct my sub is now wired at parallel, and is my sub now 2 ohms or still 4 ohm sub wired to 2 ohms?

 

[yogegoy]

I didn't read everything written here just parts of it. Just make sure you measured each voice coil if they are truly putting out 4ohm's each. I recently purchased a refurbished JBL GTO-2400 that was stable at 2ohm's, I have two Critical Mass UL-12's thinking they were 4ohm's each voice coil. To make my story short my UL-12's were actually 1.5 ohm's each (too late for outcome), so in parallel (thinking they were 4 ohms and they would be just fine at 2 ohm's) they are 0.375 ohm's. The amp was so weak and putting out a lot of distortion not knowing I may have damaged the poor amp. Luckily I was protected with ebay's buyer protection and got a full refund after returning it to the seller for "Item was not as described" claim. Make sure you use a DMM and measure each coil.

 

[bbeljefe]

Alright I will try the alpine tommorow, and if im correct my sub is now wired at parallel, and is my sub now 2 ohms or still 4 ohm sub wired to 2 ohms?

It's still a dual 4Ω sub but yes, wired to parallel it's at 2Ω.

 

[garychoffmann 10+ year member]

I didn't read everything written here just parts of it. Just make sure you measured each voice coil if they are truly putting out 4ohm's each. I recently purchased a refurbished JBL GTO-2400 that was stable at 2ohm's, I have two Critical Mass UL-12's thinking they were 4ohm's each voice coil. To make my story short my UL-12's were actually 1.5 ohm's each (too late for outcome), so in parallel (thinking they were 4 ohms and they would be just fine at 2 ohm's) they are 0.375 ohm's. The amp was so weak and putting out a lot of distortion not knowing I may have damaged the poor amp. Luckily I was protected with ebay's buyer protection and got a full refund after returning it to the seller for "Item was not as described" claim. Make sure you use a DMM and measure each coil.

so you screwed up an amp because you didn't know what you were doing and made the seller refund your money. Cool story brother on being a scammer

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

i think people are on the right track here with wiring, but no one has mentioned sub level on the deck. the Alpine has a separate sub level control 0-15. default is 0. 15 just means no attenuation and is fine to leave at 15. i personally set gains for a sub level of 10 so i have some headroom when songs have weaker bass. the HU should also allow for sub on/off and maybe sub phase (standard Alpine features but I didn't read the manual on the deck).

start over with the sub wiring, follow the amplifier manufacturers instructions on wiring a 4 ohm DVC sub and you will be fine.

 

[858SD]

It's still a dual 4Ω sub but yes, wired to parallel it's at 2Ω.

I just put that alpine in and im still getting no bump!! Idk wheres the problem at. I will add that when i turn up the Bass on the headunit the sub gets loud and good to where i want it. But i shouldnt have to do that as that means more bass coming to my speakers too. The bass on the headunit is usually at -7 which is the least amount of bass to my speakers. My headunit subwoofer is at 15 right now , I usually have it at 10 so i have room to turn up the bass a lil for some songs and then set the gain on my amp.. Right now on the alpine the gains about 75%..The sub doesnt sound like its clipping or distorted. It just sounds like its only getting like 200-300 watts like i said before...

I feel like maybe my 4 gauge isnt enough for what i have but many people told me that they have ran around the same amount of power im running and even more with 4 gauge.

What else could really be the problem???!

 

[858SD]

i think people are on the right track here with wiring, but no one has mentioned sub level on the deck. the Alpine has a separate sub level control 0-15. default is 0. 15 just means no attenuation and is fine to leave at 15. i personally set gains for a sub level of 10 so i have some headroom when songs have weaker bass. the HU should also allow for sub on/off and maybe sub phase (standard Alpine features but I didn't read the manual on the deck).
start over with the sub wiring, follow the amplifier manufacturers instructions on wiring a 4 ohm DVC sub and you will be fine.

The sub wiring is good, The sub level on the headunit is at 15 but when everything goes good i have it at 10 also to leave room for weak bass in some songs

 

[bbeljefe]

What brand and type of wire do you have run to the amp?

Is the negative wire the same size as the positive?

What kind of ring terminals and other terminations do you have on the power wiring?

How is the negative wire terminated and where?

Pardon me if you've already provided some or all of that info.

It sounds as though you may have a connection problem or, perhaps, an inferior type of 4 gauge cable, because you aren't asking too much from a good quality 4 gauge with proper terminations.

 

[yogegoy]

Cool story brother on being a scammer

I truly didn't know the amp was busted or not to begin with since it was factory refurbished. In case I broke it, I wouldn't know either since I had nothing to compare it with while having the wrong info with my sub impedance. Just like you said I didn't know what I was doing and found the correct info yesterday and the return was a month ago. It's your right to view that as scamming, I consider that an uninformed honest mistake on my part since it wasn't deliberate and never even thought of scamming till you mentioned it.

So brother, it doesn't matter any way since I bought it from the manufacturer and they'll just shove that amp in a bin back to rework, fix it and sell it again as another refurbished item. Harman sells tons of publicized refurbished items in their ebay refurbished auction, it also helped since they have a 30 day money back guaranty. Who knows if that amp wasn't a DOA or not.

 

[858SD]

What brand and type of wire do you have run to the amp?Is the negative wire the same size as the positive?

What kind of ring terminals and other terminations do you have on the power wiring?

How is the negative wire terminated and where?

Pardon me if you've already provided some or all of that info.

It sounds as though you may have a connection problem or, perhaps, an inferior type of 4 gauge cable, because you aren't asking too much from a good quality 4 gauge with proper terminations.

I forgot what brand but i got it off ebay for around 20$ for the whole amp kit. I have had it hooked up for about 2 years no problem when i had it hooked up to one amp. Wire never got hot, fuse only blew once but thats when it had a 60A fuse. I now have a 150A fuse coming from the battery. Even now the wires dont get hot so i know im not asking too much for the wire to handle...Ground is hooked up to the back seat bolt with paint sanded off as much as possible. Negative and Positive is both 4 gauge. The Ground is actually a Stinger wire. I once had the Alternator whine and i thought a new ground would fix it and it didnt. So i just left the Stinger ground wire there but kept the original power wire. Btw that alternator whine went away when i hooked up 2 amps into my car. It comes back from time to time tho...I just never got rid of it 100%. At Least you cant hear it when music is playing.

So from the battery is a unknown 4 gauge Power wire to the distro block. 4 Gauge Stinger ground wire from the back seat bolt to distro block. 4 Gauge stinger ground and power wire coming out distro blocks to the amps. I got stinger cuz thats what my audio shop had and it seems to be good quality.The Stinger is probably a better wire than what i got off ebay but could it really be a issue? The wire i got off ebay has copper just as thick as but a LITTLE bit dense as stingers

For the terminals on the alpine i got the power and ground crimped on to fork like terminals and thats only because the alpine has a screw on terminal and it was hard to fit 4 gauge copper under the screw. The ground wire is also crimped on to a ring bolt which hooks behind the backseat bolt with the screw going through both bolts. On the soundstream the power wires just hooked up straight copper to the amp because it goes right in screwed down by the hex bolt.

 

[zen9122 10+ year member]

make sure you filters are set for low pass