Amp Problems

[JohnnyB4439]

i got a 600 watt kenwood, and i have it bridged to a 15 inch kicker solo baric, and it seems like it wonna keeps cutting out when i try and hit it hard, it wont do it if its low but when i turn the volume up then it starts cutting out on me, i tried everything but i cant get any luck, what do you thnk i should do? PS: im not very good with amps.

[nnewton123]

whats the impedence of the sub?

[JohnnyB4439]

2 ohms

[nnewton123]

that is most likely the problem. Since you said you have the amp bridged... I'm assuming this is a 2-channel amp. If you bridge a 2-channel to a 2-ohm load... each channel will see a 1 ohm load. A lot of amps aren't stable at that low of an impedence.

As far as fixing that... there isn't much you can do. Using only one channel will be stable but not put out nearly as much power. When you have just one 2-ohm sub you are best off in most cases using a mono amp, or a 2-channel amp that advertises being 1 ohm stable.

[JohnnyB4439]

heres a pic of my amp, well the same one at least
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3051526323&category=39734

[JohnnyB4439]

heres a pic of the sub
http://www.crutchfield.com/cgi-bin/S-TVAJsQmMtUS/ProdView.asp?s=0&c=10&g=67800&I=2062S15L72&o=m&a=0&cc=01&avf=N

[JohnnyB4439]

so your just saying im better off with a mono amp then? it does say though that its stable down to 2 ohms. but i dunno

[nnewton123]

the amp says that it is stable down to 2-ohms.... but that is when you are using it as a 2-channel amp. When bridging to a 2-ohm load the amp needs to be 1 ohm stable.

However... the sub you just showed me is a dvc 2-ohm. That sub can be wired to a 4-ohm load or a 1-ohm load. If it is wired in series for a 4 ohm load your amp should work fine and there is some other problem. If it is wired in parallel for a 1 ohm load then that amp definitely will not work.

Make sure that your sub is wired in series. Look through some of AmIGrand's sticky's to learn more about this if you don't know what I am talking about.

[brchn1]

The amp is stable down to 2 ohms STEREO, and 4 ohms MONO. If that is the exact sub you bought then you could wire the voice coils in series and get a 4 ohm load that you could bridge your amp to. Or you could run one voice coil per channel which would of course run the amp at 2ohms stereo. Now you said it is a 2ohm sub, are you only running one of the two voice coils? If you are then you need to do a little rewiring before you hurt your sub. Just curious but where did you buy these two things from? Peace, Lee

[JohnnyB4439]

as of right now i got it working but i wonna make sure im doing this right, two of the voice coils are wired together and the other two and wired to the amp, now when i had those two bridged to the amp it would cut out all the time, but when i just hooked it up to the left +, -, it was fine and it sounds good. Oh i got my stuff from a friend. Not new of course

[brchn1]

Let me get this straight, you are running the subs voice coils in parralel? hook both positives together and both negatives together then run that combination to one channel of the amp. If that is true then you are running the one channel at 1ohm. Probably not good, but better then what you had. I still suggest running the voice coils in sereis, then hooking them up to the amp in bridged mode. Series is running a wire from the + terminal of voice coil 1 over to the - of voice coil 2. Then hook a wire upto the - of voice coil 1 and run it to the - terminal on the amp. Now take the + of voice coil 2 and run it to the + terminal on the amp. You now have a 4ohm bridged configuration. Safest setting while still giving the sub a decent amount of power. This is all based on the fact that the sub has dual 2ohm voice coils. As for a future upgrade I would look into a mono block amp that is stable to 1ohm if you are keeping just the one sub or an amp that is stable to, and makes full power, at 2ohms if you want to add another sub. Peace, Lee

[JohnnyB4439]

[i]Series is running a wire from the + terminal of voice coil 1 over to the - of voice coil 2. Then hook a wire upto the - of voice coil 1 and run it to the - terminal on the amp. Now take the + of voice coil 2 and run it to the + terminal on the amp. You now have a 4ohm bridged configuration[/B]

this is what i did. But i didnt bridge it on the amp, i just hooked it up to the left + and -