Amps & Bass: Riddle Me This

sometimes amps will get so hot that the bass will vibrate circuits loose on the amp boards...and can even crack the boards

In theory it could damage a crappy amp, but most people put the amp right on the box or in front of it with huge setups, i always leave mine in front of the sub and never had any problems.

my old mtx btp 75x2 was mounted on a box with a single 10" thunder 5500 , but i was running it daily at 2 ohms bridged and it used to get hella hot. one day i noticed my lights dimming pretty bad and i found that both of the big power caps inside the amp had broke off the board , so yes vibrations can hurt the amp.

A well designed and built amp will have no problems whatsoever. A POS is a POS regardless.

So is there any specific place to put your amp or a setup for it that'll protect it a little more? What about heat, is there a way to reduce this (higher quality amp, better placement, etc.)?

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if youre worried that your amp might be damaged, cut out a piece of wood matching the size of the amp and place it somewhere in your trunk to keep it somewhat safe from rattling. might add some looks too //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

Heavy vibration for sustained periods (years) will definitely kill an amp, IMHO. The electrolytic capacitors have fluids in them (electrolyte) and I'm sure its not recommended to be exciting the fluid like an ultrasonic cleaner. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif I've had a few amps go bad in time, nothing changed, and the only thing I can really equate it to is having the amp mounted directly to the box, on its side. In my last 2 installs, I mounted the amps at least a foot away from the sub box.

I guess I should clarify a little... As long as your amp isn't mounted directly to your box, you really won't have any problems. Most amp owner's manuals state not to install the amp directly to the subwoofer box. My feeling is that they also don't want their customers introducing lots of harmonic/sonic vibrations directly into the amp.

Mounting the amp a few inches away from the box is adequate to avoid vibration/sonic problems from the subs.