2 subs vs 4 subs which is louder and enclosure style

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

Originally I planned on having a pair of Orion HP 12s, with dual 4ohm coils, paralleled down to 1ohm in a ported box. My oldschool Orion HCCA250 would give them approx. 800W. Today I came across another pair of the same subs(identical specs) in a sealed box. So here are my questions????
1. Will (2)12s at 800W(1ohm) be louder AND create more air pressure than (4)12s at 400W(2ohms) given they both use the same cu in airspace per sub?

2. What are your opinions on mixing a sealed & ported box in the same SUV?

3. If I paralleled all the 12s down to 0.5 Ohms , what are your thoughts on adding (2)4ohm 8's paralleled onto the 0.5 that'd give me 1.5 ohms ? Mathematically this works but not sure it's practical?

My goal is to increase audible volume & air moment. I'm open to any suggestions using the equipment I already have. Thanks.

I just looked up the specs of the sub, they're only rated at 500W RMS. 800 might blow them, if you do only hook up 2 keep your gain down.

 

[UsAmpsFreak]

800 watts of clean power won't blow subs rated for 500 watts. Clipping an amp that is 800 watts on subs rated for 500 watts will. As long as he stays within the limits of the equipment he'll be fine.

 

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

800 watts of clean power won't blow subs rated for 500 watts. Clipping an amp that is 800 watts on subs rated for 500 watts will. As long as he stays within the limits of the equipment he'll be fine.

I just wasn't sure. Never worked with Orions or old school equipment like he says he has for an amp.

 

[UsAmpsFreak]

Yea it's cool man, you can damage a speaker from giving it too much clean power but you have to go way off the map to do it. I have run many systems with double the power as what they are rated and as long as you aren't sending distortion to them they always hold up. In fact my last system i had 4 Re Audio SR 15's which i believe were rated in the 500 watt area and i ran 2 UsAmps Md2d's strapped together on them. Which is obviously a lot more power than they were rated to handle. Clean power is the key, and it rarely blows subs unless you just go nuts with it.

 

[jrdnhsnbrg 10+ year member]

Lol like if I hooked my Hifonics BRX1600.1d (1600W RMS@1 ohm) to a DVC 2 ohm 8" sub rated at 300W RMS... That MIGHT blow it I'm not sure. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[UsAmpsFreak]

lol, yes, that is going a bit too far with it and you'd probably smell the sub begging for mercy shortly. But in most cases the idea of "blowing a woofer with too much power" is really not very accurate.

 

[bbeljefe]

Originally I planned on having a pair of Orion HP 12s, with dual 4ohm coils, paralleled down to 1ohm in a ported box. My oldschool Orion HCCA250 would give them approx. 800W. Today I came across another pair of the same subs(identical specs) in a sealed box. So here are my questions????
1. Will (2)12s at 800W(1ohm) be louder AND create more air pressure than (4)12s at 400W(2ohms) given they both use the same cu in airspace per sub?

2. What are your opinions on mixing a sealed & ported box in the same SUV?

3. If I paralleled all the 12s down to 0.5 Ohms , what are your thoughts on adding (2)4ohm 8's paralleled onto the 0.5 that'd give me 1.5 ohms ? Mathematically this works but not sure it's practical?

My goal is to increase audible volume & air moment. I'm open to any suggestions using the equipment I already have. Thanks.

Answers:

1: Theoretically, halving the power and doubling the piston area will not change output. In reality, more motors being able to run cooler will net a slight increase, albeit inaudible in most cases.

2: Not a good idea if the drivers are like and kind on the same power. You could add a smaller sealed sub to a low tuned bandpass box to replace the loss of upper sub bass but in an all other things being equal scenario... the sealed box won't make an audible difference in sound quality and likely won't make an audible difference in sound pressure.

3: Your math is incorrect. If you run a .5Ω load in parallel with a 2Ω load you are creating a .4Ω load. If you can't remember (or don't know) the formula for parallel resistances, the final load will always be lower than the lowest resistance. Thus, you can add a 1000Ω load in parallel with a 1Ω load and the result will still be less than 1Ω.

And to achieve your goal... sell two of those woofers along with both boxes and build a ¼ wave t-line for the two you keep.

 

[bbeljefe]

Yea it's cool man, you can damage a speaker from giving it too much clean power but you have to go way off the map to do it. I have run many systems with double the power as what they are rated and as long as you aren't sending distortion to them they always hold up. In fact my last system i had 4 Re Audio SR 15's which i believe were rated in the 500 watt area and i ran 2 UsAmps Md2d's strapped together on them. Which is obviously a lot more power than they were rated to handle. Clean power is the key, and it rarely blows subs unless you just go nuts with it.

Another thing to keep in mind is cooling. You can triple the rated power on a coil so long as you can keep it cool. Heat energy is what melts wire, not motion. So obviously, not reaching mech max is also a huge factor.

And if iirc, the SR is a 400 watt sub.

 

[wickedwitt 10+ year member]

Well i've seen some people on here telling you that cone area will always beat power, personally in my 15+ years installing i'd have to disagree. Power has always been the most important thing to me. I'm sure you've heard many systems with only 2 woofers that blew away other vehicles with a lot more woofers. Sometimes this can be attributed to having a bad box design or some other variables but more often than not they have overdone it one woofers and not put the proper power on them or are running them at weird impedances that don't match well with the amp. In theory doubling your cone area is exactly the same as doubling your power (as long as your woofers can continue to get louder with more power, if they have hit their peak you can add more power and it won't make them any louder, depends on the sub).

Regrettably, that is almost always thanks to bad box design. You have to break well over 1000 sq. in. of cone area in order to start getting diminishing returns on cone; which again boils down to box because you run out of proper airspace for each.

This is coming from a guy that runs 2 15s on 10k, but I could move way more air with 4 15s on 10k than I could adding 10k more in power. Just sayin'.

 

[UsAmpsFreak]

Regrettably, that is almost always thanks to bad box design. You have to break well over 1000 sq. in. of cone area in order to start getting diminishing returns on cone; which again boils down to box because you run out of proper airspace for each.
This is coming from a guy that runs 2 15s on 10k, but I could move way more air with 4 15s on 10k than I could adding 10k more in power. Just sayin'.

While i don't completely disagree with you i do to a point. If cone area was the end all answer for being louder then every single spl record holder would be the next alma gates with a million subs. Power is just as important, if not more important. It's why you see most serious spl contenders with only 2-6 subs with an insane amount of power of them. Well, that's my take anyways.

 

[wickedwitt 10+ year member]

While i don't completely disagree with you i do to a point. If cone area was the end all answer for being louder then every single spl record holder would be the next alma gates with a million subs. Power is just as important, if not more important. It's why you see most serious spl contenders with only 2-6 subs with an insane amount of power of them. Well, that's my take anyways.

We aren't talking about tricking an O2 sensor here, we're talking about listening to music daily and displacement is going to be louder to the ear than the force behind a smaller amount of displacement. I agree with the fact of low number of drivers for SPL, and it's more impressive to be loud on a few cones; for most people it's easier to gain musical output by simply doubling cone area. It's also cheaper as it doesn't require most electrical.

 

[UsAmpsFreak]

We aren't talking about tricking an O2 sensor here, we're talking about listening to music daily and displacement is going to be louder to the ear than the force behind a smaller amount of displacement. I agree with the fact of low number of drivers for SPL, and it's more impressive to be loud on a few cones; for most people it's easier to gain musical output by simply doubling cone area. It's also cheaper as it doesn't require most electrical.

That's true up to a point. That's what i'm saying. Once you have graduated into top of the line equipment the idea that cone area trumps power is IN MY EXPERIENCe not the case.