Max4Good

In just the comparison of RMS, not max watts, will RMS of higher watt amp blow up lower watt sub? vice versa?

price for 800watt and 1200 watt amps are not too different for a 750watt sub, and i was wondering if 1200watt amp would harm the sub..

cadence Z9000 amp is 800watts
jbl 1200.1 amp is 1200watts
kicker 12" L7 is 750watts

all at rms. As you guys can see, i'm a newb, so don't burn me

Damion

Most people will say yes it will harm the sub but you cant blow a sub or any other speaker for that matter by giving it too much juice what actually blows speakers is clipping them or driving them into distorsion that is what actually blows them.

victor

iTrader: (1)

and clipping and distortion is cause by an amp that can't put out enough power to push a sub...

PATRICK94SE

You could also have the benefit of being able to get another sub without have to get another amp if you go high power now. For example run one sub 4 ohm now and if you decide to upgrade somewhere down the line just run em at 2 ohm

Gates

iTrader: (2)

If you keep the gains on the amp down you won't have a problem. Most subs will take a lot more that what they are rated for without problems. BTW I have the JBL and it's a great amp. Maybe later on you'll want to add a second sub and then you can use the amp's full power. If you are considering this at all then definately fo with the JBL.

Max4Good

I havent heard too much "IMO" about cadences, yet, i've heard that its not too bad. I tried searching in this forum but seems like everyone is a kicker or RF amp fans. Anybody had experiences or heard about cadence amps?

Tony Fernandes

I think I understood what you meant, but I wanted to try and clarify what you said.

By giving a speaker too much juice, do you mean by simply hooking it up to an amp that's rated to deliver more power than the speaker is rated? I agree that this will not blow the speaker. However, if you turn the volume up and try to get a speaker to produce sound louder than it's designed for, the speaker will blow. Which, is what you meant by "driving them into distortion", correct?

So, yes you can blow a speaker by giving it too much juice, which you can re-word as "driving them into distortion". I think you contradicted yourself in your post, but I understood what you meant.


Tony

Tony Fernandes

It is a common practice to get an amp that is overrated for your given speaker. This allows you to run the amp at a lower power level for a given volume. In other words, by not running the amp at or near its limit, there will be less distortion. However, since the amp is capable of over-driving the speaker, you have to be aware of this and keep the volume below the level when the speaker begins to distort...AKA blow up!

On the other hand, if you get an amp that is not powerful enough to drive a given speaker, you will get a lot of distortion when turning the volume up. Often, people mistake this as having too much power because all they hear is distortion. Unfortunately, this type of under-driven distortion can hurt your speaker in a similar way as over-powering it.

Just don't distort your speakers in any manner and they should last a long time!

Tony

nismo240sx

im gonna kinda go against the grain here. distortion does not hurt a speaker (within reason)...what i mean is, when you have a dynamic driver (a standard speaker), every time it moves, you get some distortion. the further it moves, the more distortion you get. at 90% of the speakers at rest Bl, you begin to have audible distortion. at 70% of the at rest Bl, the distortion becomes offensive to most people. you can go beyond this without problems. where you start having problems is where you go past either your Xsus or your Xmag (Xsus is how far the suspension can travel - ie bottoming out; Xmag is how far the magnet can push the speaker -- and your Xmax number is the lesser of the previous 2). you will blow speakers by pushing them mechanically too far, or be over powering them, which is easy to do with bass boost, cuz of clipping. you can overpower subs safely, but you have to use some reason when doing it. there is no need to feed a jbl 1200.1 to a single 8" driver...etc.

eric