I've searched for hours on the internet, I need help!!

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

To answer the power handling debate in this thread, manufacturer power specs (RMS and PEAK) are almost exclusively based on thermal limits. The enclosure's affect is almost exclusively on mechanical limits. This difference is subtle, but worth understanding.

 

[Jake Cooley 10+ year member]

well I'm going to try and sell that other amp probably on the classifieds here and then I guess buy another one. And as long as people have been here for a while i'll buy from them. If i can sell this amp for like 100 i'll have 200 dollar spending limit

 

[Heeltoeclutch 10+ year member]

I chose my amp on the recommendations of people here, and it just happened that something that fit my needs nicely was in the classifieds. You might wanna make a thread in the Amplifiers discussion section asking for recommendations based on a given budget. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[Heeltoeclutch 10+ year member]

Oh something else- another option is amping only the front two speakers and letting the HU power the rears. The rears are much less important to your system. If you went this route, you could get a sexier two channel amp for the money you would spend on a 4-channel //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif This is what I'm doing.

 

[Jake Cooley 10+ year member]

Do each of the tweeters need one channel a piece? and i'll check out and see if i can find anything on there. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif thanks so much for all the info!! It is greatly appreciated

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

To answer the power handling debate in this thread, manufacturer power specs (RMS and PEAK) are almost exclusively based on thermal limits. The enclosure's affect is almost exclusively on mechanical limits. This difference is subtle, but worth understanding.

I have to admit the name looks good orange. Yes, you are correct though.

The relation to power and mechanical limits when dealing with enclosures is a must know in my book. Unless you want to rebuild subs all the time.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

People stop giving me **** about not knowing a bunch of EE stuff, i'm a Computer Engineering major and I've taken circuits 1 and microelectronic circuits. I've never dealt with dual voice coils, I know about ohms law, mosfets, bjts, and diodes. Also, i've never even touched an amp other than a guitar amp in my life before yesterday. IDSkot, i'm assuming your an over-arrogant thinks he knows it all engineer type, please quit posting on my thread because your being a jerk, I don't want any information you have to give.
Heeltoeclutch, If i have a CD receiver that gives out 21W rms x 4, 4 speakers that are 40w rms and 2 tweeters that are let's say 40W rms also, How would i hook that up to a 4-channel amp and would you say i need like a 150w rms amp?

No, I'm not an 'over-arrogant jerk'. I've had a lot of experience on this forum, and I'm well aware of how MOST people are.

I was over-simplifying things, and not at all being a 'jerk'.

And in terms of your speakers: You don't want to do that unless you have a fancy-pants HU that allows you to set a HP / LPF on each channel. You'll want to send each channel signal through a Cross-over that effectively chooses which output a certain frequency range gets and powers that driver... and as such, if a tweeter / speaker combo is rated at say 100 watts RMS, you'll put 100 watts RMS into that crossover and it will power the speakers with their optimal power handling.

If you need further explanation about cross-overs,

Think about your music, you all ranges get 100 watts, so that means at 50 hz, you have 100 watts, while simultaneously, at 2k hz, you have 100 watts.

A cross over is a integrated circuit that channels the frequency to the proper driver.

There is no power loss (ideally), in reality there is a slight power loss (a few watts) due to thermal dissipation.

This is because that 100 watts RMS is spread across the whole range of the frequencies, so the low end will still get those 100 watts, as will the high end.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

To answer the power handling debate in this thread, manufacturer power specs (RMS and PEAK) are almost exclusively based on thermal limits. The enclosure's affect is almost exclusively on mechanical limits. This difference is subtle, but worth understanding.

Worth or not worth?

Honestly, it comes into somewhat of a bigger deal when you have more powerful drivers. When you get into the 1K / speaker range, I think then it starts to become something that you might want to experiment with. But at lower ranges, the size of the box isn't going to change the power handling much.

EDIT:: Glad at least one mod knows about car audio...

I have to admit the name looks good orange. Yes, you are correct though.
The relation to power and mechanical limits when dealing with enclosures is a must know in my book. Unless you want to rebuild subs all the time.

This is piggy-backing on the previous statement.

I've built many-a-systems, and while I KNOW about the correlation between power and mechanical limits, I don't often put them into play much. In the systems I've built, they've all been insubstantial. But, like I said to Audioholic: I don't think they realyl come into effect until you get into the bigger more powerful drivers. And even then, we're taking about +/- 1 CuFt change will start to alter the limit noticeably. .2 CuFt won't change much.

I could be wrong, of course. This is just going off of my little knowledge of the subject and my experience.

 

[DukeNut 10+ year member]

Jake, first I am sorry for how some people on here have treated you. not sure if they are sarcastic people or not but still no way to treat fellow car audio folks:smash: I guess they forget when they started in car audio they didn't know $hit either and it took time and experience to learn:uhoh:

anyway, lets see if we can get this all figured out for you. looks like you have 2 subs, each are dual voice coil @ 2ohms each vc and rated for 400rms ea. use the diamond amp until you sell it or buy another, as mentioned it will not maximize ur subs but get you started. wire them this way for 2ohm load at amp.

http://a248.e.akamai.net/pix.crutchfield.com/ca/learningcenter/car/subwoofer_wiring/2DVC_2-ohm_2ch.jpg

this shows 4ohm at amp but since the diamond has 2 sets of speaker connections it was best the pic to show u, it actually is bridging the 2 sets inside the amp for 2ohm as shown in next pic.

http://a248.e.akamai.net/pix.crutchfield.com/ca/learningcenter/car/subwoofer_wiring/2DVC_2-ohm_mono.jpg

now lets talk about your front stage and rear stage. i'm going to post this in a new post to make it more readable.

 

[pro-rabbit 5,000+ posts]

This is piggy-backing on the previous statement.

I've built many-a-systems, and while I KNOW about the correlation between power and mechanical limits, I don't often put them into play much. In the systems I've built, they've all been insubstantial. But, like I said to Audioholic: I don't think they realyl come into effect until you get into the bigger more powerful drivers. And even then, we're taking about +/- 1 CuFt change will start to alter the limit noticeably. .2 CuFt won't change much.

I could be wrong, of course. This is just going off of my little knowledge of the subject and my experience.

It was a piggy back because as I stated earlier I agreed with his statement. I actually see it go the other way. Cheaper subs are affected by this much more quickly do to their lack of mechanical suspension. When you are on the larger side of the enclosure spectrum for a low end driver they will not take even the RMS in most cases. They will bottom out and/or have over excursion. In larger setups this is still prevalent, but much less so do to the soft parts being able to with stand more abuse.

 

[DukeNut 10+ year member]

cont. from post #39

I do not think you will want to add a 2nd set of tweeters. if you are thinking about going this route i would put a 2 way component set up front instead of the pioneer 3way. that way the component woofer would be mounted in the existing speaker location and you can mount the tweeter that comes with it where you want.

get a 4 channel amp if you want to amp both front and rear or a 2 channel if you want to just amp front and run the rears off the hu. so depending on what u decide for front speakers and their rms rating get an amp rated 100-120% of the 2 sets speaker rms. any extra rms will provide headroom for music peaks but use a dmm to set the gains properly (search for tutorial on setting gains).

the 4 ga wiring suggestion is good. you'll need a distribution block, fuse for the power wire placed near battery, rcas and y adapters as your hu only has 1 set of rca outputs (when u get ur amp try to get 1 with a set of rca outputs so you can link to the sub amp), and speaker wire. good luck

 

[audioholic 5,000+ posts]

I dont consider the system being high powered or low powered a significant factor in recognizing thermal versus mechanical limits. The importance of understanding the difference between the two has to do with realizing how they affect each other, and how they do not.

What I mean is, decreasing enclosure size would tend to indicate power handling just went up (because its now harder to push the sub to its excursion limits). But, thermal limits (the sub's ability to dissipate excess heat) was either not affected in any perceivable way, or it actually decreased (smaller box gets slightly warmer when speaker is operating, and excursion decreases so it pumps less air through the motor). The most common mistake made by someone not understanding the difference between the two limit types is someone throws a 1600 watt sub (for example) into a smaller box and then assumes the sub is now a 2000 watt sub. Or, to show the high powered system is not the only possible problem... someone tossing a 200 watt sub in a smaller box and assuming its now a 300 watt sub.

Manufacturers have recommended box sizes, but they are just that, recommendations. Manufacturers have no way to determine what size box every customer will use, and enclosure size has a drastic impact on mechanical limits. Hence the manufacturers rely almost exclusively on publishing thermal limits (a much more constant variable). Its also easier for the average user to recognize mechanical failure/stress than it is thermal stress. So it just makes sense they tell us thermal limits.

One last thing to note, increasing enclosure size (or decreasing it) does more than simply alter the cone compliance, it also affects frequency response via the system Q. This should be accounted for when upsizing or downsizing any enclosure simply based on available amplifier power.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

It was a piggy back because as I stated earlier I agreed with his statement. I actually see it go the other way. Cheaper subs are affected by this much more quickly do to their lack of mechanical suspension. When you are on the larger side of the enclosure spectrum for a low end driver they will not take even the RMS in most cases. They will bottom out and/or have over excursion. In larger setups this is still prevalent, but much less so do to the soft parts being able to with stand more abuse.

You know, I think that's actually a good point. I guess I make the unconscious jump from low powered and cheap to high powered with good quality. I forget that the suspension in subs that can take more power can be cheap.

I dont consider the system being high powered or low powered a significant factor in recognizing thermal versus mechanical limits. The importance of understanding the difference between the two has to do with realizing how they affect each other, and how they do not.
What I mean is, decreasing enclosure size would tend to indicate power handling just went up (because its now harder to push the sub to its excursion limits). But, thermal limits (the sub's ability to dissipate excess heat) was either not affected in any perceivable way, or it actually decreased (smaller box gets slightly warmer when speaker is operating, and excursion decreases so it pumps less air through the motor). The most common mistake made by someone not understanding the difference between the two limit types is someone throws a 1600 watt sub (for example) into a smaller box and then assumes the sub is now a 2000 watt sub. Or, to show the high powered system is not the only possible problem... someone tossing a 200 watt sub in a smaller box and assuming its now a 300 watt sub.

Manufacturers have recommended box sizes, but they are just that, recommendations. Manufacturers have no way to determine what size box every customer will use, and enclosure size has a drastic impact on mechanical limits. Hence the manufacturers rely almost exclusively on publishing thermal limits (a much more constant variable). Its also easier for the average user to recognize mechanical failure/stress than it is thermal stress. So it just makes sense they tell us thermal limits.

One last thing to note, increasing enclosure size (or decreasing it) does more than simply alter the cone compliance, it also affects frequency response via the system Q. This should be accounted for when upsizing or downsizing any enclosure simply based on available amplifier power.

Hope that clears up any confusion.

I've always gone by the recommendations on most builds. Seeing how I don't have a decent microphone oscilloscope or any way of testing it other than, "Gee, that sounds kind of good".

I personally think it's dense to think you can get 400 extra watts of power handling by simply throwing it into a smaller enclosure.]

if anything, I'd put the same amount of power in an enclosure I know is lower than recommended size. But I tend to be more on the 'safe' than 'sorry' side. All of my equipment is tuned down quite a bit, in terms of their "maximum capability". But as such, my "cheap" speakers have lasted nearly 5 years, as has my "cheap" Boss amp. Ironically, the most expensive part of my build, that being Hertz component speakers were the first thing to blow... and I blame that on my overzealous brother whom I mistakenly lent my car to.

 

[Heeltoeclutch 10+ year member]

Jake, first I am sorry for how some people on here have treated you. not sure if they are sarcastic people or not but still no way to treat fellow car audio folks:smash: I guess they forget when they started in car audio they didn't know $hit either and it took time and experience to learn:uhoh:

+1

I do not think you will want to add a 2nd set of tweeters. if you are thinking about going this route i would put a 2 way component set up front instead of the pioneer 3way.

I agree with this- it's why I asked if you already had the speakers. If possible it might be best to return them and pick up a set of components. They're not that much more difficult to install and would make it a "job done right"

 

[IDSkoT 5,000+ posts]

+1


I agree with this- it's why I asked if you already had the speakers. If possible it might be best to return them and pick up a set of components. They're not that much more difficult to install and would make it a "job done right"

You should think of speakers as a factory, rather than as speakers.

As you add more speakers, you can make them specialized for a certain frequency range. As such, you can assume that the work at that area will increase.

Which is why most people have subs, "mid-range" and Tweeters.

If you go higher up into the SQ (Sound Quality) realm, you see that the bare minimum for a "SQ-Head" is Subs, Mid-Low, Mid-High, and Tweeters.

This is again, cutting up the frequency range allowing for more specialized and "better" drivers which can be designed to excel in the frequency range you put them in.

So, if you have one set of mid-range and two sets of tweeters, you're basically going to have 1.5 times more volume in the high range, while having the basic 1x volume in the mid-range.