Test how much power I'm actually getting?

[kozik 10+ year member]

Hi, I have a hifonics hfi1000.1 amp and an RE sex12d4 so the sub is 4ohm and the amp is 750w @ 2 ohm so that's what I'm aiming for. Anyways I was just wondering how I can test how many watts my amp is sending out? And how many watts my sub is using?

Thanks

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[Kangaroux 5,000+ posts]

well, whatever the power your amp puts out is what the sub will take lol.

you need a clamp meter and a dmm to test it. i'm almost certain that the hfi line does not put out the power it claims. youre probably looking more at 700 or 650 @ 2. if you have the money, i would try and aim to get a BRZ1200 or something similar.

 

[kozik 10+ year member]

Well I think I wired the sub in parallel but I just want to make sure i did it right... It's my first time installing a sub so I'm not too confident lol it bangs pretty hard buy I want to make sure I'm getting the full potential of the sub. Im just confused in the 2ohm vs 8ohm cuz if I messed up the wiring at the sub it could be wired at 8 right?

I'm confused because does the amp push 1000w and then depending on the impedance it gets lowered to 750w at the sub? Or is the a setting on the amp itself where you choose how many ohms? Like I know there is no switch but am I supposed to do something with the speaker wire on the amp side?

Sorry I know these are really noob questions

 

[bubbagumper6 5,000+ posts]

No, no, and no. The impedance that the amplifier sees determines how much power it will output. If you have the sub wired to 2 ohms, the amplifier will output it's 2 ohm rating. If you wire the sub to 8 ohms, the amp will output whatever it's rated for at 8 ohm (usually significantly less than the 2 ohm)

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

Most amps dont even have a power rating for 8 ohms... Show use how you wired them/it man

 

[kozik 10+ year member]

Okay makes sense lol thanks

Would you guys have any advice as to how I can tell if it's running at 2 or 8ohms? Since I don't have the tools to test how can I know?

I'll tell you how I did it... My box has the positive and the negative and the hifonics amp has 2 positive and 2 negative... According to the manual I connected the outside + and the outside - thus bridging it (I don't know why since it's supposed to be a mono amp)... Then inside the box I have the positive from the box going to the sub positive then another wire connected at the exact same point on the sub (inside the holder) and going to the other positive.... Then the negative is the same two negative wires into one and one connects to the other negative...

This should be 2ohms right?

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

For one your amp is mono it just has to sets of terminals for ease of wiring multiple subs... what sub is this? dual 4 ohm?

 

[kozik 10+ year member]

Yea dual 4ohm

 

[Bettr n' Revrse 5,000+ posts]

This is how it should look (Image deal isnt working for me for some reason sorry)....

 

[kozik 10+ year member]

Well I have mine wired like this 2ohm diagrams shows

Subwoofer Wiring Diagrams, One 4 ohm Dual Voice Coil (DVC) Speaker

Except I have both negative wires one side and both positive wires on that same side if that makes sense.... So if you look at the diagram in the link it shows the negative at the top with 2 wires, 1 from the amp the other connecting the positives... Then if you look at the bottom negative it have the one from the amp and one connecting the two negatives... Mine is if you look at the top of the diagram at the top i have the amp connecting to both the negative and the positive then the positive connects to the other positive and the negative connects to the other negative...

So I guess the diagram shows positive going to one voice coil then negative going to the other voice coil mine is from the amp and positive and negative both go to the same voice coil then connect to the other voice coile

I'm trying to explain this as well as I can but I don't know how good of a job I'm doing lol let me know of this is too confusing.