JL audio 12W3 Wiring question

[sdotcarter33 10+ year member]

New to this stuff, please help

I have a sealed JL box with 2 old 12W0's in it. I'm gonna replace them and put in 2 12W3. My question is what type of wire can i use and where can i buy it. It looks like the 12W3's have a diffrent type of connection the 12W0's.

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[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

I'm assuming that the W3s are the v3? If so, you can simply use the same wire (wire is wire) and cut the terminals used to connect to the W0s off. The W3v3 have spring terminals that don't require a connector. Just strip about 3/8" on each wire, press down on the terminal and insert the wire into the hole on the side. Release the terminal and the wire is connected. Simple as it gets.

 

[sdotcarter33 10+ year member]

I'm assuming that the W3s are the v3? If so, you can simply use the same wire (wire is wire) and cut the terminals used to connect to the W0s off. The W3v3 have spring terminals that don't require a connector. Just strip about 3/8" on each wire, press down on the terminal and insert the wire into the hole on the side. Release the terminal and the wire is connected. Simple as it gets.

Thanks a lot helotaxi...yeah i meant W3-V3's... i don't have them yet but from a pic it looked more complicated then that.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Those terminals are the easiest type possible to work with.

 

[jrwalte 10+ year member]

Make sure to buy the 4 ohm version of the W3v3 so you can wire them in parallel for a 2ohm load. Also, depending on the guage of your current speaker wire you may want to upgrade to a 10 guage wire. The 12W3v3 can handle 500 RMS whereas the 12W0 is 125 so your original installer may have used a smaller 14 guage.

To get the best out of these subs you'll probably have to upgrade your amp. If you aren't considering upgrading the amp in the future you may want to save almost half and buy the discontinued, but still sold new, 12W3v2. They're 300RMS. But they're DVC so you'd have to get the 2 ohm version for a 2 ohm load.

Nevermind. They're only about $20 cheaper...it was only the expensive crutchfield that was showing up on google and I didn't notice. Might as well get the 12W3v3 for future upgrade.

What is your amp?

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

They don't NEED 500W and even if the previous installer used 16ga inside the box, over a run that short any loss in power would be negligible. The W3s should sound way better on the same power as the W0 and will at least be as loud.

Blindly recommending that he get the 4 ohm version so he can wire to 2 ohms is pretty irresponsible. He might need the 8 ohm version because his amp won't do 2 ohms. The proper advice would be "make sure that you get the right impedance subs to match your amp. If you let us know what amp you have we can make sure that you get the right ones."

 

[jrwalte 10+ year member]

I said, "to get the best out of the subs, upgrade". And he could potentially damage the subs and cause them to 'go bad' much more quickly by giving them too little power and playing them too loud. While I did assume his amp could do 2 ohm (which isn't uncommon) I did ask what amp he had to verify.

And for wire size, never hurts to go bigger with something so cheap.

 

[sdotcarter33 10+ year member]

Yeah i'm going to be getting a new JL 500/1 amp.

I have no idea what guage wire was used in my box. It's an older JL powerwedge box. I talked to a JL Audio repesinetive and he said the box will work fine for the 12W3's. It's .25 cubic feet larger then what JL recommends, and it fits almost perfect in my trunk.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

With that amp either the 4 or 8 ohm versions of the subs will be fine. With the larger than recommended box, 250 per sub will probably get all they have to give mechanically.

Running less than RMS power to a sub CANNOT hurt the sub unless the amp is clipping and the clipped power exceeds the RMS power rating of the sub. Usually the amp will die before damaging the sub if the sub is rated for a lot more than the rated output of the amp.

Wasted money is wasted money. Upgrading 14 or even 16 ga speaker wire to 10ga (seriously?) is a waste unless you're talking aboutmany times the amount of power he's dealing with.

 

[sdotcarter33 10+ year member]

ok great....I'll be purchasing everything this weekend.

Thanks a lot to both of you for the help.

 

[jrwalte 10+ year member]

FYI,

Check out this website. They're recommendation for speaker wire gauge is a minimum of 12 for your power output. Except on a 1 foot length - you can use 14. This is due to running at 2 ohm. If you were running at 4 ohm then 16 would be fine.

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

10 gauge for 250wrms ? HA!

I upgraded to 8 gauge when I dropped my amp to 1 ohm with the mag, and I'm now running 1200w.

 

[sdotcarter33 10+ year member]

FYI,
Check out this website. They're recommendation for speaker wire gauge is a minimum of 12 for your power output. Except on a 1 foot length - you can use 14. This is due to running at 2 ohm. If you were running at 4 ohm then 16 would be fine.

I checked my box and it has 16 gauge.

Yeah if possible, I was planning on getting two 12W3v3-4OHM's.

I have another question:

My sub box has only one wire terminal on the outside of it, with indiviual wires going to each sub. Does this mean i can only hook up an amp with 300RMS (recomended per sub) or can i still hook up a JL 500/1 with 500RMS...will it divide evenly?

 

[jrwalte 10+ year member]

It'll divide the load automatically. No worries. You'll just run + amp to sub1 and then sub2 and same with the neg. I'd recommend using 12 gauge. Yeah, 16 will work, but you'll have more powerloss that would equate to a larger volume drop than 1dB on your subs than if you just spent a couple bucks on 12 gauge.

 

[uspatel89]

Hey guys I just registered and i don't know how old this post is, but if you could please help me as well. I have 2 12w3v3 subs at 2 ohms. my amplifier is a jl audio 500/1v2. I was wondering what would be the best way to wire them, in series or parallel to get the best possible sound, without stressing the amplifier. Is this link correct? http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/ca/learningcenter/car/subwoofer_wiring/2DVC_2-ohm_mono.jpg. THANKS FOR YOUR HELP IN ADVANCE!!