Blown Sub: It's my first, so some help would be great!

[CentralFC 0]

So I just bought an Alpine Type-R 12" sub (dual 4 ohms). I had it wired at 4 ohms initially, because I was trying to "break it in" like I was told over and over. I wired it down to 2 ohms after a few weeks to get the full power, and after a few days, it took a shit. I'm not quite sure why. The wiring was done professionally too. My amp (Alpine MRP M500), is essentially perfect for the sub, and the box was 1.94 cubes (recommended is 1.0 - 2.0). I don't know what happened.

So if anyone might have an idea why, I'd GREATLY appreciate it. This was my first sub; I'm 16, and I can't go out and buy a new one whenever I like.

And this is off topic, but it's a big concern as well. I bought it from sonic electronicx, just because of the price. They say they don't replace blown subs. But the thing is, I didn't overpower it or anything, and it took a crap on me. Will they replace it? I was reading some of their forums, and the guys were saying they've had theirs replaced everytime, even when they were negligent with it. Anyone with experience from this website know what they'll do?

Again thanks in advance. I'm really stressed about this.

[shizzzon 461]

well let's find out why it died.

Was it stinking when it went out?

if it was, you had the gain on the amp set too high for the volume level of the stereo that it was on when it happened.

No smell? Push slowly down on the cone dispersing even pressure by using 2 hands around the dustcap. Do you feel or hear any rubbing sound?

You could have had the sub moving too much. Your subsonic filter may not have been up high enough for the box it was in.

[CentralFC 0]

well let's find out why it died.

Was it stinking when it went out?

if it was, you had the gain on the amp set too high for the volume level of the stereo that it was on when it happened.

No smell? Push slowly down on the cone dispersing even pressure by using 2 hands around the dustcap. Do you feel or hear any rubbing sound?

You could have had the sub moving too much. Your subsonic filter may not have been up high enough for the box it was in.

Jeesh, that's more than I knew by a long shot.

My gain was on "nominal". It stunk like crazy (like a burning paint type smell).

The sub grinds when it plays mainly. I applied the even pressure yesterday and it grinded.

[shizzzon 461]

it could be just straight clipping led to failure.

Clipping is when trying to push a signal past it's normal capability. This will generate lots of heat once u enter into clipping.

clipping is typically caused from turning the gain on the amp too high, having the volume on head unit higher than what the amp was setup at, dropping voltage way down low...

For a professional installation, they should have at least told you where they set your amp up at volume-wise on the headunit.

If they only set it up with volume halfway... that could be a big problem and even then... if they did it right!

Don't blame yourself yet because you are knew to this but some things you should acquire if u choose to stay in car audio is some troubleshooting and installation tools-

DMM - digital multimeter

O-scope - oscilloscope. Velleman makes some good portable ones like the HPS10. This is used to fine tune an amp to prevent such scenarios from happening.

Just with a dmm, u can troubleshoot almost anything car audio related. The o-scope is primarily to safely setup your amps to their maximum potential. It's expensive compared to a DMM but ever since i bought mine, i never damaged a speaker since.

[cheese20323 13]

How many ohms is the sub? Might have used just one coil.

[CentralFC 0]

I had it at 4 ohms (using both coils). If it was wired at one ohm, does that do something bad to the sub, only incorporating one coil?

Anyways, the clipping...is my amp ruined, now that the sub is? Or do I just need to go somewhere else to have the amp tuned when I get a new sub?

[cheese20323 13]

Tune it by yourself by ear. What i meant is the sub a D4 or D2.

[CentralFC 0]

Tune it by yourself by ear. What i meant is the sub a D4 or D2.

It's a dual 4 ohm sub bro.

[Sir-Lancelot 216]

I am going to put my money on playing below tuning. SSF on that amp is set at 15hz and is prolly best suited to sealed boxes.

[KU40 173]

You couldn't have wired the sub at 4 ohms initially since it's a dual 4 ohm sub, if you used both coils as I assume you did. If you wired the coils in series, it was 8 ohms. if you wired them in parallel, it's 2 ohms.

With the burning smell you got, that more than likely indicates cooked coils. You need to understand that just because an amplifier is rated at 500 watts RMS doesn't mean it can't put out more. In fact, at full clip the amp may put out nearly 1,000 watts. So it is very possible that you overpowered it.

Also, if I recall correctly, Alpine just doesn't do recones.

[Duran 387]

For the Type-R no one can recone it. Just gotta replace it :/

[Notorious97200 339]

Ssf at 15 hz ? If I understand it well, you should only use a small sealed box.

If you use a ported box, you should not listen to music with lots of low bass notes.

Usually music does not go too low.

What do you listen to? What kind of music ?

[ssh 924]

I highly doubt it was SonicElectronix's fault for your driver taking a dump. I had the exact same driver, ordered from the exact same place and I beat the hell out of it for quite a while and it never had any problems,

but I did have the ssf and gain set accordingly...

[cheese20323 13]

what you did was used the the amp set at 8 ohms you put the gain all the way up because the sub wasn't strong enough, you wired it again for 2 ohms and it got way too much power because the settings were for 8 ohms.