Subs not hitting as hard as they should?

[PhDDevice]

Hello forum!

I was hoping you all could help me with this problem I've been having. I feel that my subs are not hitting at their fullest potential. I have a pair of Fi SSD12s (H-QTS) in to separate sealed boxes I made (sealed with a cubic volume of 1.25 cuft [sub displacement included]), to power it I have a Hifonics Zeus ZRX2000.1d, 2 ohm load at subs; running it with Raptor 4 ga, and a Raptor 150A fuse (triple checked all connections). I was told by the people on this for and elsewhere that the ZRX2000 would be just fine on the subs, and I also thought that Hifonics was CEA-2006 compliant. I just don't feel the huge improvement I was expecting by upgrading the piece Audiobahn 10's I had, but they really aren't which tells me I must be messing something up.

Should I run the subs at 1 ohm, do you think the amp could keep up? I was gonna get a hold of Hifonics and see if I could return it and get the ZRX3000 instead, get some more power with little money. Or maybe going with their Brutus line? Bigger enclosures? Any thoughts?

This is all in a '89 SedanDeville by the way.

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[garretttt4 10+ year member]

What ohm are the subs? Like d2 or what?

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

Build or get a proper ported enclosure built for them. I think the sealed is where you were expecting too much. Also, is that 2 ohm load per sub or at the amp? Are the subs 4 ohm dual voice coil?

 

[PhDDevice]

Sorry I left that out, they are D1s. 2ohm load at each sub. I intend to listen to rock music, so I don't want to lose the tightness of a sealed box. I suppose I could make a 33 H ported (I've heard that you get best of both worlds), however the subs are High QTS, would I run into any problems if I tried dropping it into a ported box? Right now I've mostly been looking at a big 3, bigger gauge power ground/line, and maybe a deep cycle in the trunk, amp is my biggest worry (and my wallet).

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

So how are you wired now then? Do you have a 4ohm or 1ohm load on the amp? If you are at 4ohms now, wiring down to 1ohm will yield good results.

 

[PhDDevice]

I have them at 4, do you think my amp will be able to handle that?

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

Oh yeah man, wire down to 1ohm. See how you like that, and go from there.

 

[tpatten12345 10+ year member]

Wiring them down is definitely key. with that amp the way you have them wired you are getting 650 watts total so only 325 watts per sub and the subs are rated for 1000 watts each. when you wire them down your amp will push 2000 watts making it 1000 watts per sub which is exactly what your subs call for. Just remember when you first wire them down turn the gains down and slowly turn it up to where you like it, you don't want to chance blowing your subs due to loud low quality audio right off.

 

[PhDDevice]

Alright, I'll give that a try and let you all know how it goes.

 

[gckless 5,000+ posts]

Wiring them down is definitely key. with that amp the way you have them wired you are getting 650 watts total so only 325 watts per sub and the subs are rated for 1000 watts each. when you wire them down your amp will push 2000 watts making it 1000 watts per sub which is exactly what your subs call for. Just remember when you first wire them down turn the gains down and slowly turn it up to where you like it, you don't want to chance blowing your subs due to loud low quality audio right off.

For the love of god, do not do this. Set the gains correctly with a DMM, since I'm pretty sure you have one already. You do the above, you will either not get the full power from the amp or you will be clipping your subs, which you will then destroy, neither of which is good. Do a search on here, I'm pretty sure it's also a sticky in one of the sections on how to set them with a DMM.

Alright, I'll give that a try and let you all know how it goes.

Edit: But do turn the gain down when you first hook it up when you are setting it.

 

[ThatChevyGuy 5,000+ posts]

just triple check your wiring and dont be too big of a man to look at a diagram. Thats what they are for...

Should get quite a bit louder //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif