Blew out my subwoofers...

I installed my pair of kicker cvt8s to my zx1000.1 amp last night... i finished around 3am and it was a pain. took it for a drive and my speakers blew in about 15 min... im incredibly pissed, but i should be able to exchange the subs for a new pair, and get my money back for the amp so i can buy a smaller one...

 

How much were you channeling you each sub and what was your amp wired at? Ohm load? gain?

 

Yeah something is seriously wrong with your setup. Make sure you figure out the problem before wiring up the new speakers.

 

Just so we're clear, I told you in advance that this would happen. If I may, I'd like to cross post from your other thread and quote myself...

But that's water under the bridge. So you've got cutouts for 8's and a strong amp; we can work with that for sure. Are you sure the subs are toast? What exactly happened? Also, what is the interior volume for each sub in the enclosure?

It sounds like you like it loud so we'll need to pick a beefier sub.

 

Agreed, easier to fry the coil. But my guess is that these bottomed out pretty hard or reached their mechanical limits and then died. That being said, giving them more than double their RMS rating will do it for sure. I think we gotta get some more info from this guy before we can throw out any decent suggestions.

 

From Kicker...http://www.kicker.com/comp_vt

RMS handling for the CompVT 8" is 200W (peak 400W). If you had 2 - 8's, you shouldn't have any more than a 400W RMS amp. If you were driving 2 - 8's with a 1000W+ RMS (@ 2Ohm) amp, how can you possibly be surprised? Granted.. it depends on if you had them wired for 2Ohm or 4Ohm (or 8Ohm)... but still. I would actually find it a little strange that you fried them in 15 minutes too. Are you positive that the box is perfectly sealed? As someone above mentioned too, do figure out exactly what went wrong before you just slap more stuff in there.

I am driving a single CompVT 12" with a ZX400.1 and that is a pretty ideal match up. The actual rated power for my amp is 469W RMS. But that is also running wide open, which I dont really do.

 

^GT brought up a good point about the box being entirely sealed. Although I'm pretty sure you just threw too much power at them it certainly wouldn't help if the box wasn't sealed. A leaky sealed box will keep a subwoofer from handling rated power for sure.

 

lol i had someone come over and take a look at it. i had everything hooked up right... i just had too much amp lol. i pushed them too far so im goin with a 500w amp. i just want an amp i can turn all the way up and not have to worry about blowing them...

 

Woah woah woah...hold up there killer. You've got the wrong idea here. Let's not do anything irrational till we talk about a few things.

If you get a smaller amp and try and push them to that point again, they'll die in 12 seconds not 15. See this amp sent 1000 CLEAN watts to those sub. Yep, too much, and they died. Now if you get a 500watt amp and try that again you'll just clip the shit out of it and send 500 CLIPPED watts to those subs which is way way worse. I believe I wrote a thread on clipping that is somewhere around here you can probably search and find.

Best course of action for you is to get new SUBS not a new amp. I say that because...
A) Your subs are toast and you'll have to buy new ones regardless.
B) You can always just set your gain on the amp lower so it wont make all 1000 watts....duh

If you can tell me what your maximum mounting depth is in those boxes and how much airspace they have I can find you a pair of subs that will rock out and take the power.

 

Get a JH HD amp and follow the instructions for the gains using a voltmeter... then you wont clip. Get speakers that will EXCEED your amps rated RMS by 50-100%.

It does not sound like you will not destroy things if you dont do this because you lack any kind of sense.

You will probably set the gain too high on your next amp and destroy something if you dont do this.

 

well it looks like im givin the 1000w amp another shot anyways cuz they wont give me my money back for it... but ur saying that i can set my gain lower and be able to turn my bass knob all the way up and be okay? and what about the xover freq knob? i mean i kinda need to know exactly what to set eveything to in order to turn the bass knob all the way up without blowing my speakers.. cuz i got friends that play with my stuff in there and i have a bass knob on my dash that controlls that. and you bet theyll play with that as well....

 

well really they just mess with whats on the dash, like my volume and bass.... they like to turn up the volume past what my mids can handle and u know they are gonna mess with the bass remote that came with the amp...

 

lol well i did just greaduate, but yes, some of my friends have no respect for what isnt theirs....

 

I asked you for specific things...box volume and depth. I can't help you otherwise.

 

And yes, what you'll do is set the amp with the remote gain knob all the way up and you'll turn down the gain on the amp to the appropriate spot. This will limit power to a place that you want. I'd recommend using a DMM (digital multimeter) to confirm where the power is at.

 

you need to gradually break in subs not just bang them out. and if you turn the bass all the way up it will be distorted