My Subs Only Twitch, whats wrong?

[critical 10+ year member]

My whole system worked fine about a month ago.

I took them out and they sat for 2 weeks.

I put them in a friends car and just could not get them to work.

The amp has a light on indicating its connected, all the connections are good, i had a store check all the wires and they are good....the subs just vibrate slightly. It's like they're not getting NEAR sufficient power, does this sound like my amp blew somwhere in the install or what? Help Please! Thanks!

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[Thomas Nicolas 10+ year member]

What Kinda Amp And Subs?

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

Double check the wiring, they could have the coils wired opposite eachother (Assuming DVC subs)

 

[critical 10+ year member]

It's a pioneer 5100 t 760 watt amp with 2 12 inch RE 500w rms 1000w peak subs (dual voice coil)

The deck is a pioneer as well

Im not too smart with this stuff but i know a decent amount...however i dont know if they're DVC subs I don't even know what that means haha and how would I tell if the coils are wired opposite of each other?

There's a blue light on the amp that lights up when i connect the wire to my deck so I know it's receiving power and signal etc. But they just wont go for some reason I don't get it at all. On install, there was a decent sized spark when I connected the power wire to the amp, is there anyway this could have fried it? but if it was fried wouldn't it not even get signal from the deck? AHH! i dont know what to do

Thanks for the help so far I hope we can figure this out.

Alex

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

DVC means dual voice coils, so that means each sub would have 4 speaker wires (2 positive, 2 negative)

Do you know what resistance (ohms) the subs are supposed to be wired to?

Edit: That amp is pretty small for those subs, you should have at least 1000w RMS on a pair of 500w RMS subs

 

[Trey803 5,000+ posts]

Ive had this problem before. Move your ground and make sure it got very good connection to the chasis

 

[critical 10+ year member]

Ohh ok yes they are DVC . And yeah the amp is small I know but it sounded fine when Ihad it running a month ago or so. And I'll check the DVC wiring I've already messed with that Im pretty sure square is positive and circle is negative...but ill double check again and I'll try to find out what ohms the subs are i bought them from a good friend awhile ago....Pretty sure 4 but once agian I'll double check..just curious though how would that matter? (im not very educated here)

Edit: I think these r the stats for my subs, I dont see any wattages so I'm just going by what the guy told me...about 500 rms and 1000 peak

Electrical Q Value -Qes: 0.42

Mechanical Q Value -Qms: 4.27

Total Speaker Q Value -Qts: 0.38

Free Air Resonance -Fs: 20.0 Hz

Equivalent Compliance -Vas: 182 liters

One-Way, Linear Excursion -Xmax: 12 mm

Efficiency -SPL 1W/1m: 87.3 dB SPL

Effective Piston Area -Sd: 500 cm^2

DC Resistance -Re: 3.2 ohm

Nominal Impedance -Znom: Dual 4 ohm

Thermal Power Handling -Pe: 175 W

Force Factor -Bl: 15.4

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

No problem on being new to this, everyone is at one point.

The impedance (ohms) of the subs will determine how much power the subs will draw from the amp. If you buy/setup a substage with too low an impedance that the amp cant handle, it'll draw too much power (current) and overload the amp.

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

These are your amp specs:

• 125 Watts x 2, at 4 ohms

• 380 Watts x 1, at 4 ohms BRIDGE

• 75 dBA Signal-to-Noise Ratio (Reference: 1 Watt Output)

You should have the subs wired @ 4 ohms, so it should look like this:

 

[critical 10+ year member]

ok ill double check that they're wired like that...but my only thought is, they worked for months wired how they were, and the wiring has not changed, would thye have worked for so long then died all of a sudden because of bad wiring?

ohh ok well i just did some research and it turns out the guy lied to me they're like 500w peak power and only 175 rms...i posted all the stats above...

Electrical Q Value -Qes: 0.42

Mechanical Q Value -Qms: 4.27

Total Speaker Q Value -Qts: 0.38

Free Air Resonance -Fs: 20.0 Hz

Equivalent Compliance -Vas: 182 liters

One-Way, Linear Excursion -Xmax: 12 mm

Efficiency -SPL 1W/1m: 87.3 dB SPL

Effective Piston Area -Sd: 500 cm^2

DC Resistance -Re: 3.2 ohm

Nominal Impedance -Znom: Dual 4 ohm

Thermal Power Handling -Pe: 175 W

Force Factor -Bl: 15.4

I have 2 of these on my 760 watt pioneer amp.

Here's a link to the sub I have for sale on ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/RE-AUDIO-RE-12D4-12-SUBWOOFER-US-AMPS-SUB-RESONANT-NEW_W0QQitemZ250159549804QQihZ015QQcategoryZ18803QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Thanks for your help!

 

[phantom240 5,000+ posts]

Im guessing RE's RE series subs?

Also, make sure your RCA's are connected right. My amp was doing the same thing. After messing with the RCAs, it started to work.

 

[critical 10+ year member]

How can RCA'S be connected wrong? Doesn't it not matter if you have the right rca plugged into the left or the left into the right?

 

[critical 10+ year member]

Ultimate, is there anyway though that the subs could have worked for so long if they weren't wired for 4ohms and then all of a sudden the amp died?

 

[ultimate157 5,000+ posts]

Either way, the wiring should be the same as the picture above... and it turns out that amp is a good match for the subs.

I would also check all the wiring for the amp itself, power, ground, remote, rcas.

 

[critical 10+ year member]

alrite i will mess with it today and try all these things, thanks for ur help