D1NOnly34

iTrader: (4)

Well I had 12" HE2's in my max, they were DVC's, and both bridged to my RF 700s amp. They sounded awesome (800watts max, 400watts rms). I bought 2 new kicker L5's, wired them the exact same way since they are also DVC's, broke them in for over 2 weeks, and it sounds weak. Why is this? Im thinking of putting each L5 to its own channel instead of having it bridged, so thats around 350 watts to each sub, and its RMS is 600, where the HE2's rms was 400. Any opinions on what I should do? I cant remember if I wired the subs in series or parallel, but its the right way because the other way would cause the amp to turn off from overheating. If I do put each sub to a channel, do I have to change the wiring? Let me know thanks.

jmax

The ouput is highly dependant on the enclosure and the power. A $1000 sub in a $50 enclosure may only sound like a $20 sub.

nismos14

iTrader: (56)

yup what kind of box do u have them in and so forth, wat was the resistance on all of the coils of the subs? also i think the L5's aren't as good as the HE2's to begin with, they are the lower echelon of the solo baric's lineup i would have gone with L7's

D1NOnly34

iTrader: (4)

I bought a box from a local audio store here, highly known in Miami, its a dual sealed box, made to specs (supposedly).

L7's were out of my price range, my friend has a 15" L7 in a ported box in his VW bug and it sounds insane.

Hmmmm =-(

nismos14

iTrader: (56)

it would sound diff in a vw bug since its a hatch, plus its an L7 not an L5 and a 15, not comparable to ur two 12's, i'd suspect at best that the out put from ur two 12 L5's would equal his 15 if it was in the same type of car as ur 4th gen.

DanIAm

iTrader: (5)

L5's have the posibility of moving more air but remmeber that the area of the sub is larger then the area of a round he2 so in a sealed box its gonna take more power to move the l5's to their potential, most square kickers need large boxes to really sound right or maybe try buildin a ported box for them if you have the room, i've heard kickers l7's sound horible in sealed boxes and have heard them sound incredible in ported boxes...i've recently sold my comp vr's to go back to either punch hx2 15's or power hx2 12's...i loved my rf subs

raga55

you probably need to run more power to the l5s. I have two 12 inch Rockford he2s in a sealed box in my max. My friend has two l5s in a sealed box and hes running them off a kicker 800.2 in his supra now granted its a hatch but the l5s sound alot louder than my he2s (i think my he2s are alot clearer though)

Pearl96Max

iTrader: (151)

L5s are intended to be in a vented enclosure. Main difference between L5 and L7 is power handling. For what your running the L5s are appropriate for you.

--Don

D1NOnly34

iTrader: (4)

After reading all this. I feel that my enclosure is the real problem here... =(

kingrukus

iTrader: (41)

It's all about your install. Personally I would say that the L5 is superior to the HE2 in terms of raw output, but then again I am baised .

Now are your L5's dual 4 ohm speakers or dual 2 ohms? I am guessing that the HE2's were dual 4 ohms? And how exactly did you 'bridge' your amp to these speakers? How did you wire the coils to each other? And how did you wire it to the amp? At what impedance does your amp give the most power?

jmax

There is a fairly simple equation to figure out the amount of air that a sub can move while remaining in it's mechanical limits. The equation has been posted in the JL audio tutorials for about a decade. Sd * Xmax * 2 = volume of air a sub can move per stroke. If you double the number of subs you have you get an increase of 3 dB's, twice as loud. A port can give you between 3 and 12 dB's, the equivalent of having between 2 and 16 times as many subs.

D1NOnly34

iTrader: (4)

My L5's are dual 4 ohm speakers, as were my HE2's. I wired them the same way for both sets, not sure whether it was series or parallel, I can never remember. I took both speakers and had them both wired to the positive of one channel and the negative of the other channel (the ones that are meant for bridging). I dont have the specs of the amp, I'll look it up in a bit, but its a Rockford Fosgate 700s, 2 channel amp.

Jmax, what you said confused me, but I do try and understand because I know these subs can perform better than they are. I plan to soon change the box, I dont know about ported because it would be too big, but maybe just a bigger sealed box.

jmax

Your 700S is most likely 4 ohm stable when bridged. In that case you should have the individual speakers wired series, 8 ohms. Then as you said have both speakers wired to the amps bridged terminals for a 4 ohm load at the amp. You bought two subs that need a big box. May as well go ported as you seem to be after more SPL. Kicker has a lot of info on different boxes for those subs. Check the Kicker web site for the info.

D1NOnly34

iTrader: (4)

Yes, you're right. I was looking at the specs of the amp and the specs of the subs.

Here are the amp specs:

Per channel power 175 W X 2 @ 4 Ohms RMS
350 W X 2 @ 2 Ohms RMS
700 W X 1 @ 4 Ohms Bridged RMS
Total power 1400 Watts Peak/Max

I have the subs wired in series, making them each have an 8 ohm load. And as you said, i have both subs wired to the amp bridged which is 4 ohm at the amp. I guess everythin seems right, just the box is what needs to be changed.