How powerful of an amp do i need to power my two subs?

[MobbD268]

My subs are Infinity KAPPA PERFECT 10.1D 10" Dual Voice Coil Subwoofers. They feature 350W RMS/ 1400 Watts Peak Power Handling and 2 or 8 Ohms Impedance
here are some more specifications.
Power Handling, Peak: 1400W
Power Handling, RMS: 350W
Sensitivity: 94dB (In Car)
Frequency Response (± 1.5dB): 18Hz - 150Hz
Frequency Response (±3dB): 18Hz - 150Hz
Impedance: 2 or 8 Ohms
Mounting Depth: 6"

If you can help me out i would appreciate it. I am looking for an amp to power these subs and i dont know how powerful it should be. Please respond with what you think would be powerful enough and if you know of a good specific amp, let me know. Thanks!

[SupraGuy]

How loud do you want it to be?

What kind of music are you going to use it for?

I have a pair of 10" subs in my car (About 88dB/1W/1m sensitivity) and I'm powering them from a 2X60W amp. The car gets to about 130dBA, which is loud enough for me, and plays down to 22Hz before falling off.

The only thing here is that my amp is really 60W/side. That's not MAX wattage, it's real "RMS" watts.

I used to play the same subs at 40WX2, and it was adequate. (129dBA -- not even a real noticable difference.)

I listen to a wide mixture of music, but not much Rap or Dance stuff. I want to keep my hearing, too, so I hardly ever turn it way up. Most of the bass that I listen to is above 35Hz, which gets me a lot of cabin gain in my car. The subs are in a simple sealed enclosure.

How big an amp do you need? It all depends on what you plan to listen to with it. As a general rule of thumb, a subwoofer amp, playing below 80Hz will require about as much power as the rest of your system, or about half of your total system power. Again, with my car as an example, I've got 120W for the subs, and 160W for everything else, but my subs are crossed over at 50Hz, and I have mid-bass drivers (Which have 80W of the 160 left) doing from 50 to 300 Hz.

[zagisrule!]

I'd say 100W ea is a good minimum.








-Matt

[djQUAN]

I got 170 watts a side for the subs and 100 watts a side for the fronts. rear speakers are powered by the headunit amp.

a pair of 10" subs and it's enough to trigger car alarms in parking lots.

[SupraGuy]

Originally posted by djQUAN
a pair of 10" subs and it's enough to trigger car alarms in parking lots.

Heh. I don't need enough to do that. I'd also be willing to bet that djQUAN gets atypical results with that amount of power. I've seen pictures of his setup.

But the fact remains, "How big an amp" is a lot like asking "how much power does my car need?"

The answer is "enough to do what you want to do." If you want to listen to music and have enough bass to fill in the low end, then you don't need much. Same as if you want to use your car for running errands and getting groceries, you don't need much of an engine. But if you want to trigger seismic sensors, rattle brickwork off of nearby buildings, or set of car alarms for a 6 block radius, then you need more. Same with the engine if you want to run 9 second quarter miles in your '72 Impala.

Figure out what you want to do, then figure out how much power it'll take to do it.

[djQUAN]

sometimes, I have even triggered car alarms parked around 10-15m from my car.

[mtnickel]

I'd say alot of it depends on the kind of box you have too. I'd run almost double the power to a sealed box as i would a ported. I would run sealed as well. The natural roll-off of a sealed box matches the transfer function of the car fairly nicely and you get a pretty even response. Ported boxes however are alot more efficient but give you that big emphasized sound in a certain 40-60hz range. Quite uneven.

I'd stick to the recommended sealed box volume.

I do however typically like to run a digital class amp (D or T) on stock alternators. Even 300-400 Wrms AB amps will put a severe load on the alternator at high volumes.
To run a digital class, you'll either need a class T that typically run at 4 ohms, or a Class D capable of 1 ohm load.
Where do you plan on getting one? what are you looking to spend?
I'd recommend ebay, elitecaraudio.com, or sounddomain.

300rms to both subs is usually plenty. My brother had a phoenix gold xs2300 that put out about 350rms @ 4ohms. Even running 2X80 @ 4 ohms was pretty loud. As long as it's REAL power from a solid amp you're good to go.

I had 2 kappa perfect 12's and i ran an MTX mono block with around 750rms. In a 2 cu ft sealed box, I thought it was needed. My moto is, you can never really have TOO much power. Headroom is nice the way i see it. Usually overpower your subs by about 20% compared to what wattage you'd usually run. This way you get a very clean signal even at your loudest listening volumes.

If i had to buy you an amp, something affordable with good reliable power would be...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...722355637&rd=1

This would be nice too for higher end...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW
run either 4 ohms bridged, or drop it down to 1 ohm mono if you really need the power.

For a great, clean, strong, small footprint, on a budget...you get a whole lot with the Phoenix gold i mentioned earlier. The XS2300
24db crossover filters i think. Although internally set and need to be changed with resistors, however, the stock crossover point is fine.
You'd get this for very cheap...
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...sPageName=WDVW

Anyways, if you let me know exactly what music you listen too, how often you turn stuff up and what sort of budget you are on, i love find good deals on car amps.

Hope this helps.

Mark

[djQUAN]

well, my box is, shall we say, slot loaded?

have a look. www.djquan.angelcities.com/ride.html