Changing subwoofer wattage

[Ronoman 10+ year member]

Hi! I am looking into getting a PSI 12in with about 1800w RMS.

Right now I have an Alpine 1100w that I would use to power it, until I had enough money for a 2000w amp. My question is could I put 1100 in for like 2-4months then switch to 2000w and not blow the sub?

Basically should I do

Amp then sub or sub then amp?

Thanks

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[wickedwitt 10+ year member]

Putting less than RMS (if clean) will do nothing except help break the suspension in. This is a great move. Often times when running very high power, people will play new subs less than full tilt for a bit to loosen the suspension up before running them full. You are in essence doing the same thing. No harm done, just make sure she sees clean power.

 

[Loudmp5 10+ year member]

Why would you blow the sub?

 

[Sonic. 10+ year member]

There is nothing wrong with putting less rms into a sub, set your gains properly, that is, dont try to force the amp to do more than what it can do or you will damage the sub.

 

[Ronoman 10+ year member]

Alright. Awesome. Thanks guys! My friend that says he knows car audio said if I run it on 1100 it will get used to that. If I go to 2000 later on it would break is what he said.. haha

Thanks

 

[mat3833 10+ year member]

ok, im going out on a REALLLLLY long and REALLLLLY thin branch here, but i can say i actually experianced something similar to this. i pulled some 6.5" subs from an old 2.1 computer system a few years ago. rated RMS was 50W each(labled on the bottom of the VC), but they were only seeing ~25W each from the 2.1 amp. so i built 2 boxes smaller than their factory enclosure(factory enclosure was 1.4cubes internal volume not taking into account driver displacment, the enclosures i built were .6 cubes external volume with .5" MDF again, not taking into account driver displacment). now i threw both of them in my trunk and wired them to 2 ohms. set the gains on the TMA 500.1 i had at the time to deliver 80W to the pair. after 30 min of driving to work, one sub popped. and on the way home the second popped.

now i never actually looked into what happened, but the coil was visibly charred. and the TMA 500.1 is rated at 500W @2 ohms. gain was virtually at minimum and it was a clean signal.

BUT in the real world, running a sub at less than its RMS for a month, year, or even a decade, and then putting more power to it will cause no harm at all.

Matt