How bad can this hurt my amp...?

[lifted95 10+ year member]

Ok so I bought the wrong ohm subs and can't return them. (craigslist) I either must run 8-ohm or 2-ohm to the amp. 4 is impossible. My amp is only stable in bridged mode if the resistance is 4 ohms. Am I better of running 8 or are most amps tough enough to run at 2 if I keep the gain down? Actual restiance is 2.7 ohms. amp is a RF P400.2.

Thanks a lot guys!

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[kross 10+ year member]

Can you tell us more about your subs? Are they SVC or DVC? 4 ohm or 2 ohm?

 

[lifted95 10+ year member]

My bad, I have two DVC kicker CVRs at 2ohms per coil.

 

[phyphoestilic 5,000+ posts]

run it at 8ohms to be safe. Rather get less power than blow the amplifier and get no power. + 8 ohms should be more efficiant and be less of a strain on ur electrical

 

[lifted95 10+ year member]

True, but I was thinking I might underpower the subs and blow them. what do ya think?

 

[kross 10+ year member]

I'm not an expert on driving amps past their rated specs. My feeling is, even if you could do it, you'd be underpowering those subs by so much, you wouldn't be happy anyway. 200w per sub isn't really enough for those. So why risk damaging your amp? If you wire each sub to 4 ohms, and wire each sub to one of the channels on the amp, that'll give you 100w x 2.

You might be better off just using one sub, and bridging the amp, giving that one sub the full 400w. Hook the second one up when you get a second amp for it, or when you trade/sell your amp for a better match for your subs.

 

[kross 10+ year member]

True, but I was thinking I might underpower the subs and blow them. what do ya think?

It's possible to overheat the voice coils if you send it a clipped signal. If it's a clean signal, then underpowering will not hurt the sub. Since you'd be underpowering your subs, you'll be temped to turn the gain up to get more volume (or the dreaded bass boost), and then you'll be giving the subs a clipped signal.

 

[lifted95 10+ year member]

You might be better off just using one sub, and bridging the amp, giving that one sub the full 400w. Hook the second one up when you get a second amp for it, or when you trade/sell your amp for a better match for your subs.

I'm leaning toward that route, maybe a ZX400 or something, thanks everyone for the help.