Amp not putting out anywhere close to rated.

[iApex 10+ year member]

I just got a Kenwood KAC-X1R in the other day and decided to connect it today to test it out.

I hooked it up in my friends tahoe with 1/0 power/ground and attempted to power a dual 4 ohm kicker comp 12" even with the sens input on max the amp was still barely pushing it. Those kickers are rated at 150wrms/300wpeak. How is an amp that pushes out 1200wrms @2 ohm not able blow up a kicker comp 12"? It was getting about 12.7v I know thats a bit under what it's rated at (14.4v) but still it shouldn't make that big of a difference, should it?

Then I hooked it up in my car with 4ga power/ground and was getting about 13.7v and it was a little better powering my MTX Thunder 6000 12" dual 4ohm. But still with the gain alllllll the way up it wasn't slamming it like I'd expect. The 6000 series are rated at 250wrms and 500 peak. That amp should be able to push it noooooooo problem. It didn't get how, only to 97 degrees F. and was drawing between 2A and 17A.

What could be the problem? Just that extra few volts making it not power fully? or maybe I had something adjusted wrong. Or did something wrong.

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[gunz4me2 10+ year member]

Sadly, many of the Kenwood amplifiers barely make their CEA rated power at 4 ohms, and their 2/1 ohm specs are overly optimistic at best. Your amplifier should be making in the ball park of 750 watts RMS @ 2 ohms, maybe a tad bit more.

Maybe your amplifier is defective?

 

[infamous_e46 5,000+ posts]

same thing happened to my boy same amp defective....

 

[iApex 10+ year member]

Sadly, many of the Kenwood amplifiers barely make their CEA rated power at 4 ohms, and their 2/1 ohm specs are overly optimistic at best. Your amplifier should be making in the ball park of 750 watts RMS @ 2 ohms, maybe a tad bit more.
Maybe your amplifier is defective?

Yeah I expected it to do about 750-800rms @ 2ohm

But it's not even anywhere close.

So either imdoinitwrong, or someone sold me a defective product. Which I seriously hope was not the case.

 

[iApex 10+ year member]

same thing happened to my boy same amp defective....

Fixable?

Or should I sell and get a Kenwood Excelon X1200M. I really need another Kenwood to stay within budget, I need matching amps and I already have a Kenwood amp.

 

[Hedo 10+ year member]

How about not getting a kenwood amp and buying something of quality that will actually put out its rated power if not more.

Sad to say but most of the time you get what you pay for.

 

[J31Rob 5,000+ posts]

How about not getting a kenwood amp and buying something of quality that will actually put out its rated power if not more.
Sad to say but most of the time you get what you pay for.

This.

 

[iApex 10+ year member]

How about not getting a kenwood amp and buying something of quality that will actually put out its rated power if not more.
Sad to say but most of the time you get what you pay for.

I understand what your saying. But the thing is i am on a budget and a deadline. I can not afford the amps your talking about.

Maybe If I had to buy one but if I need matching amps for this project and that means I would have to buy two amps, which simply I can not afford.

This.

Once again... can not afford it. If you want to give me money, then by all means I'll go that route but unfortunately it's not in the budget.

 

[cleansoundzz 10+ year member]

I understand what your saying. But the thing is i am on a budget and a deadline. I can not afford the amps your talking about.
Maybe If I had to buy one but if I need matching amps for this project and that means I would have to buy two amps, which simply I can not afford.

Once again... can not afford it. If you want to give me money, then by all means I'll go that route but unfortunately it's not in the budget.

Save a little more money and do it right. Many reviews done on Kenwood amps have shown time and time over that they do not make their rated power.

 

[JuicyJeff 10+ year member]

Shoulda done your research. As for now i would suggest you run what you got until you save enough or find some guy who doesn't know anything about car audio and sell it to him on craigslist

 

[Rich B 5,000+ posts]

Maybe you could find an old school Kenwood?

There was a time up to the mid 90's they made amps that were tested alongside Zapco and came out on top.

You would probably need to look for one made in Japan, not Korea or China.

 

[iApex 10+ year member]

Save a little more money and do it right. Many reviews done on Kenwood amps have shown time and time over that they do not make their rated power.

I understand they are overrated, but are they THAT overrated? as to not even push out 500wrms?

Shoulda done your research. As for now i would suggest you run what you got until you save enough or find some guy who doesn't know anything about car audio and sell it to him on craigslist

I did research and I knew they were overrated but not that overrated, i thought it should be able to push a type r 12 no problem, but it can't even push a kicker comp 12"

 

[Boomintempo 10+ year member]

I just got a Kenwood KAC-X1R in the other day and decided to connect it today to test it out.
I hooked it up in my friends tahoe with 1/0 power/ground and attempted to power a dual 4 ohm kicker comp 12" even with the sens input on max the amp was still barely pushing it. Those kickers are rated at 150wrms/300wpeak. How is an amp that pushes out 1200wrms @2 ohm not able blow up a kicker comp 12"? It was getting about 12.7v I know thats a bit under what it's rated at (14.4v) but still it shouldn't make that big of a difference, should it?

Then I hooked it up in my car with 4ga power/ground and was getting about 13.7v and it was a little better powering my MTX Thunder 6000 12" dual 4ohm. But still with the gain alllllll the way up it wasn't slamming it like I'd expect. The 6000 series are rated at 250wrms and 500 peak. That amp should be able to push it noooooooo problem. It didn't get how, only to 97 degrees F. and was drawing between 2A and 17A.

What could be the problem? Just that extra few volts making it not power fully? or maybe I had something adjusted wrong. Or did something wrong.

In your friends Tahoe, what type of HU is he using? Did you make sure, if he has one, that the subwoofer-out volume was maxed? If he had it set really low, that may be why you had to spank the gain all the way up with little to no output.

Kenwood does over rate their equipment...looks like that amp probably puts out around 800 watts rms. I'm only going by fuse size here...some people are gonna jump down my throat by say that.

 

[iApex 10+ year member]

In your friends Tahoe, what type of HU is he using? Did you make sure, if he has one, that the subwoofer-out volume was maxed? If he had it set really low, that may be why you had to spank the gain all the way up with little to no output.
Kenwood does over rate their equipment...looks like that amp probably puts out around 800 watts rms. I'm only going by fuse size here...some people are gonna jump down my throat by say that.

He said he had the bass all the way up on his POS Dual HU.

It performed a bit better in my car, I had a better voltage, but still it should have killed my mtx thunder 6000. right?

I don't expect it to put out rated, but it should be able to easily power a type r. And as it's looking right now it couldn't.

Is there a way to see how many watts it's pushing out? like with a dmm?

 

[Boomintempo 10+ year member]

Setting your gain with a dmm...

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j23/steveo200077/RMSchart.jpg

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Sounds to me like you might have a really low preamp voltage, or you guys might not be using a sub preamp out either. My first deck back in the day was a pioneer tape deck with one preamp out. It was 500mV!!! The next one I got was a panasonic cd player, once again only one preamp out, that one was 1 volt! Didn't understand why my system wasn't getting loud all that loud without needing to spank up the gain...

Finally got a good deck, with a good subwoofer non-fading preamp out. Also purchased an audiocontrol epic-150...It was like night and day! I didn't always use the epic-150, but the new deck with the subwoofer preamp out (4v) made a pretty big difference.