Help me prevent blowing my subs again.

[dumbchild37]

So heres the story. i love my sound system but recentlly i blew one of my subs and im not sure why.. current setup is:

04 Dodge Neon SXT

Kenwood eXcelon X-493 head unit

Kicker custom speakers all around

Kicker custom tweets

Pyramid Royal Red 1.5 Farad cap

Kicker ZX750.1 (gain set one notch above half)

2x 07CVR102 in a cheap sealed box from pep boys..

everything worked great and sounded great for about 6 months and just recentlly one of my subs blew. The whole thing looked horrible... One coil had completelly fried (black ends and snapped) and the spider was all torn apart were Kicker winds the coils through it.. like the coils didnt move and the spider just tore around the coils.

i just ordered the dual Kicker CVR12 pre-fab box (DCVR122) and i want to avoid blowing them once more.. so could anyone maybe give me insite to why my other one did blow?

the other 10" sub also has a torn up spider but is not blown.

-i know i messed up that i never gave the subs a break-in period, would that cause the spider to be torn from it being stiff at first and not being worn in?

how to avoid blowing one of my new subs?

Click to read more...

 

[gboo559 10+ year member]

cancel the order on the prefab.

Get a built to spec enclosure. Set your gains RIGHT. You could be clipping the subs.

 

[dumbchild37]

i assumed the box was built to spec... its built by kicker specifically for the subs that come in it..

and could you maybe elaborate a little regarding setting my gains right? im looking for help here not just random comments thrown at me.

 

[gboo559 10+ year member]

no those are prefab boxes which **** IMO.

Get a custom built enclosure.

Set your gains with a DMM.

 

[csu87 10+ year member]

Search for the gain setting tutorial

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

no those are prefab boxes which **** IMO. Get a custom built enclosure.

Set your gains with a DMM.

There is no reason to assume that enclosure sucks. Can you even give one solid reason why you assume it sucks?
To the OP, it sounds like your subs experienced thermal and mechanical failure. Thermal failure implies too much power, which improperly set gains could cause due to clipping the amp. The torn spiders imply excessive excursion, which could be the improperly set gains, and/or too large of an enclosure, or playing below tuning if its ported and you lack a subsonic filter. Check the gain setting tutorial.

 

[satchel50207 10+ year member]

did you uy these subs as refurbs? i had that problem when i bought refurbs off ebay. one literally fried seconds after turning it on.

 

[basshedz06 10+ year member]

again your gains may have been set wrong, but a little over half isn't that much, it really depends on what song you was playing an how big that prefab is.

the box playes a huge role in it, if your box isn't built properly you will shred subs on 200 wastts!!!

if you play your system hard an loud thats where the thermal break down comes in at if you take out the subs an feel them they are hot then you have a heat issue in your box an sealed boxes are bad about that, thats why everyone runs ported. just look into getting your a custom ported box built to your car not the subs, an you should be fine once the gains are set correctly too,.

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

Ported boxes aren't as helpful to heat dissipation as one might think. They **** in as much as push air out the port. So its mostly the same air going in and out of the port. That is definitely not the main reason people run ported enclosures.

 

[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

again your gains may have been set wrong, but a little over half isn't that much, it really depends on what song you was playing an how big that prefab is. the box playes a huge role in it, if your box isn't built properly you will shred subs on 200 wastts!!!

if you play your system hard an loud thats where the thermal break down comes in at if you take out the subs an feel them they are hot then you have a heat issue in your box an sealed boxes are bad about that, thats why everyone runs ported. just look into getting your a custom ported box built to your car not the subs, an you should be fine once the gains are set correctly too,.

This post is full of fail

To the OP: Almost everyone here (except audioholic) will agree that prefab boxes ****. If it's a sealed box, it doesn't matter so much, but with ported it usually turns out that it's either: A. Not big enough, B. Not enough port area, C. Tuning is way off, or D. All of the above. A Kicker prefab box, may be better since supposedly it's designed specifically for those subs. But the first box you had was not designed for any set of subs, it was just a generic prefab correct?

Also, setting your gains at "one notch over half" is NOT setting them properly. It all depends on your HU's pre-out voltage. If that voltage is very high, you may only need to set your gains at 1/4. You need to read the gain setting tutorial to find the proper way to set the gains. Clipping was most likely why your subs blew.

 

[mazdakid 5,000+ posts]

did you uy these subs as refurbs? i had that problem when i bought refurbs off ebay. one literally fried seconds after turning it on.

wouldnt a refurb sub be a reconed sub? so because it was reconed it fried within seconds of turning on?

 

[ascitiesburn69 10+ year member]

One notch over half can mean horrible clipping if you dont know what your doing. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

When I put the scope on my Sundown it would be fine then about a 1/16th of a turn after no clipping it would be nearly full on clip.