Im confused with my system. Can somebody help me out?

[TheCz101]

So, right now i have hooked up 2 10" Orion H2's on a Rockford Fosgate P300.1 older amp and don’t get me wrong they hit decent for a basic start system because this is my first car but i want it louder so I'm thinking about getting a lanzar max pro 1800 on 1 ohm amp. But i was wondering does it matter what gauge wire you put in? i want to put 4 gauge in there but i have 8 gauge and is it possible to run the 8 for now until I can get some 4 gauge? And I have just stock alternator and a regular battery. So would I need to run a power cap and/or another battery in the back? or can i just run straight battery to soon to be my 1800w amp? Also, do I need a bigger alternator? And if I do need a bigger alternator how big? 105 amp? 120? I’m trying to go out not spend as much as I can. And one more thing, today a guy commented on one of my YouTube videos and said that the 300w amp is too less of power for my h2's because they can handle 2000rms each and 2500w peak. He said that I will destroy them. I thought that it was the exact opposite. if you have too much power going to speakers then they will blow, but if you have too less of power then the sound is just not as good as they could be. With that 300w amp on there i have the loudest system at my school but then again I live in Montana haha but I would really like your input on this. Thanks!

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[reallyxxxxloud 10+ year member]

Firstly change the power cable... Its not that bigger expense but totally worth it. I run 0 gauge no matter what system I'm doing but thats my preference... But if your going to do it turn the gains way down!!! Forget the cap its a waste of time. Increase the Battery to the biggest lead acid you can as they have the best response time or if you do a lot of playing with the car off depleting your batt go for a Deep cycle. Also how big is your Alt now?

It will be totally fine running that amp as long as you dont clip the amp. What you may find is it may have thermal protection that might shut down the amp when or if it heats up with trying to drive it into clipping.

To be fair if these subs will handle 2000rms (basically their V/C's thermal handling threshold) lets say your amp makes to the sub 420 wrms and about 400wrms is turned into heat at the V/C and 20wrms is actually used to make music (Pretending/saying/guessing the sub is 5% efficient (this is not to be confused with the SPL efficiency of the sub usually taken at 1w1m).

Now if you were to push the amp into 20% distortion/clipping it should sound horrid and easy to hear the distortion. This will give you about 500 watts with about 80 watts of clipped power. As that 80 watts will be nearly turned into 100% heat at the V/C it still is only 480 watts turned into heat at the V/C and is way within the heat capability of the thermal capabilities of these subs. There's no way these coils should burn. You are more likely to destroy (due to constantly over driving the amp) the amp before the subs or cause the amps to send something nasty like 12 volts DC to your subs when your amp blows up...

Its only when you send to much heat to the V/C will they burn. I myself over power all my speakers, as I can easily hear them being over driven.

 

[FtheNutHuggers]

let's say your power wire is sufficient, either by changing to recommended gauge or that yours is ok now. you've got 300w of power to play with if the two subs wired the way you have them comes out around the minimum (DCR) impedance the amp is stable to run at. to assist any further, we need to know what year, make and model vehicle you have this system in and what the maximum dimensions of an enclosure you are willing to or "can" fit in and out of your trunk. what it sounds like most is that you've got an enclosure/sub combo that is very inefficient. you'd be surprised what 300w applied efficiently can actually do! think of it this way maybe: the first watt of power in an inefficient enclosure/sub combo may net you only 82dB, whereas the same subs in an efficient system could net you 92dB. if it takes basically double the power to gain 3dB....then the inefficient box will take 10 and a half watts roughly to match the output of the efficient box with but 1 watt on it. or in other words, you may very well have the equivalent of a rock climbing vehicle transmission in your daily driver......it's just the wrong gearbox for the job. your cheapest route would be to replace that transmission (your box) with a way more efficient one so that it gets better results with such low horsepower (300w amp). If you need more after that, then look at spending bigger money on the things that do way less per dollar spent.

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

Find out what the rms rating of the subs are. Google is your friend. I doubt it is 2000 watts.

 

[LosIsATool 5,000+ posts]

1250 rms. You need more then just bigger power wire my friend. Have fun. And lanzar is junk. It might not be much better then the fosgate. You need a AQ 2200 or something along those lines. Something that with make real power. Also a bigger alternator and a few extra batteries.

 

[smd4life 5,000+ posts]

i would get some 4 gauge, a good 1000w amp and a big battery from wal mart or something, get a good quality amp, anything older

 

[reallyxxxxloud 10+ year member]

let's say your power wire is sufficient, either by changing to recommended gauge or that yours is ok now. you've got 300w of power to play with if the two subs wired the way you have them comes out around the minimum (DCR) impedance the amp is stable to run at. to assist any further, we need to know what year, make and model vehicle you have this system in and what the maximum dimensions of an enclosure you are willing to or "can" fit in and out of your trunk. what it sounds like most is that you've got an enclosure/sub combo that is very inefficient. you'd be surprised what 300w applied efficiently can actually do! think of it this way maybe: the first watt of power in an inefficient enclosure/sub combo may net you only 82dB, whereas the same subs in an efficient system could net you 92dB. if it takes basically double the power to gain 3dB....then the inefficient box will take 10 and a half watts roughly to match the output of the efficient box with but 1 watt on it. or in other words, you may very well have the equivalent of a rock climbing vehicle transmission in your daily driver......it's just the wrong gearbox for the job. your cheapest route would be to replace that transmission (your box) with a way more efficient one so that it gets better results with such low horsepower (300w amp). If you need more after that, then look at spending bigger money on the things that do way less per dollar spent.

I wish more people got this basic principle...

 

[keep_hope_alive Premium Member]

good information here. i agree with XXXX and Huggers above. follow the wire sizing chart above. make sure you are properly fused at the battery.

i always prefer AGM batteries (valve regulated lead acid). no flooded lead acid for me. no gel. i also use dual post so wiring is even easier.

as mentioned, you'll never destroy a sub by giving it too little power. over time, if you really tried to, you may possibly be able to overhead the coil with square waves from that amp, maybe. just ignore the utube comment completely.

sub performance is mostly determined by the enclosure/sub efficiency and response, and the orientation of the enclosure. move the box around in the trunk and it'll sound different in each place - that's phase interference at work.

i wouldn't buy Lanzar either. A Powerbass ASA1000.1dx is inexpensive and will make rated power (with enough supply voltage).