Why do some brands knowinly under-rate subs?

[EpicMango 10+ year member]

I've noticed that many high end brands will purposely underrate there subs when they describe them online. Here's a quote from Skars website "This woofer is built to take abuse beyond it's rated power handling of 600 Watts RMS" and its known across this community that they have a good RMS rating of around 1200 watts, thats double output! Do they do it so it makes there subs look better to the consumer? I mean if I was a consumer, I'd definitely look at a sub that had 1200 watts RMS vs a sub that said 600 watts RMS. And since the same goes for amp's I'll extend the question to amps as well.

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[TheUnderFighter 10+ year member]

From my understanding, Skar, OA, and Sundown rate their subs at 600w because that is what they can take all day long, forever and ever without failing.

Though I agree, I think more uneducated people would be more willing to buy the subs if they knew they could really be rated for more. For the most part, uneducated consumers don't really even know about those brands though. As for the amps, I know some companies say they do 1200w at 12.5v, so that's their sneaky little way of underrating it. And then it really does like, 1500w at 14v. Not sure about that. I think they just guarantee a certain level of output, but they build the amps very strong, so they end up doing more. Same thing with the Kicker and RF amps, it's not uncommon for their birthsheet tests to be 300w higher than the advertised model specs.

 

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

^^^ well amp testing usually results at a 100hz tone and a higher THD to get those 14.4v ratings. not always, but MOST.

for subs, they do it for warranty purposes partially. if they rated "Xxx" sub @ 600rms, where it could take 1k all day but 1k has a higher chance of damaging internals, they'll rate it at 600 watts, past that its the users fault if he/she blows the sub due to "overpowering the companies rating"

 

[Nissan350 10+ year member]

I read somewhere that they do it for warranty purposes. They don't want you pushing the equipment to its limit, so they rate them lower as to prevent any kind of damage to ultimately avoid you having to go through warranty. Just what I've heard.

 

[Dirtrider4eva 10+ year member]

I read somewhere that they do it for warranty purposes. They don't want you pushing the equipment to its limit, so they rate them lower as to prevent any kind of damage to ultimately avoid you having to go through warranty. Just what I've heard.

just wrote that....

 

[Robert 2001 10+ year member]

Alot of manufacturers underate there products both sub and amp imo they do this because they know you the buyer will push them to there rated rms daily. So they tell you 600 even though it will knowingly take more. They make an amp rated 600 that runs a lil higher will push the sub better and still keep it reliable.

 

[Nissan350 10+ year member]

My apologies. We must have wrote it at the same time.

 

[ahole-ic]

There really isn't a standard. Over what time period will this woofer take that power? These guys are rating Conservatively because of the retards on this forum go "that woofer is made by sundown which everyone knows is teh best brand out therez0r. I can apply 3x the powerz to it all day giiiiz. w00t eym speshalz"

 

[05trailblazer 10+ year member]

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/crap.gif.7f4dd41e3e9b23fbd170a1ee6f65cecc.gif

 

[TheUnderFighter 10+ year member]

^ on THAT note... I give my single SA-10 ~1300w and it's never gotten warm So I wonder what they could be rated at if Jacob did a real rating on them.

 

[ahole-ic]

^ on THAT note... I give my single SA-10 ~1300w and it's never gotten warm So I wonder what they could be rated at if Jacob did a real rating on them.

You mean the dustcap has never got warm? You know that doesn't mean anything right? Also, what equipment have you used to clamp that power?

 

[murph 10+ year member]

Most non mainstream brands have the ability to be used over rms for a long amount of time. The thing here is if you don't know what your doing and you decide to go over rms by 400-500 on a 600 rms sub and decide to boost everything problems will happen. You have to understand that equipment rms rating are as stated above everyday all day rating while running over that you may need to give your subs a break. My eclipse ti's were never even rated correctly with their rms they are the same as the tc 3hp subs rated at 1500rms and my ti's are rated at 750rms. Many old school amps will also be far underrated on their output.

 

[sundownz Pro Seller]

Simple... no matter what we say people will throw it out the window and put way more on it. The more we rate it the more carried away this gets.

I cannot speak for other brands... but we do ALOT of local retail sales through dealers to people who simply aren't extremely educated on the technical side of audio. The ratings on our woofers are pretty much completely fail safe under almost any set of conditions... in most cases our woofers will take their ratings in free air to protect against customers using completely wrong pre-fab boxes and we tend to drastically under-rate them thermally to prevent failure even when amps are clipped to the maximum.

 

[wenn_du_weinst 10+ year member]

Simple... no matter what we say people will throw it out the window and put way more on it. The more we rate it the more carried away this gets.
I cannot speak for other brands... but we do ALOT of local retail sales through dealers to people who simply aren't extremely educated on the technical side of audio. The ratings on our woofers are pretty much completely fail safe under almost any set of conditions... in most cases our woofers will take their ratings in free air to protect against customers using completely wrong pre-fab boxes and we tend to drastically under-rate them thermally to prevent failure even when amps are clipped to the maximum.

exactly the way it should be. These subs are rated correctly, no sub should be rated in a perfect world setting.

 

[THATpurpleKUSH 5,000+ posts]

Simple... no matter what we say people will throw it out the window and put way more on it. The more we rate it the more carried away this gets.
I cannot speak for other brands... but we do ALOT of local retail sales through dealers to people who simply aren't extremely educated on the technical side of audio. The ratings on our woofers are pretty much completely fail safe under almost any set of conditions... in most cases our woofers will take their ratings in free air to protect against customers using completely wrong pre-fab boxes and we tend to drastically under-rate them thermally to prevent failure even when amps are clipped to the maximum.

The professional way of saying idiot proof //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/biggrin.gif.d71a5d36fcbab170f2364c9f2e3946cb.gif