I have to 12'' subs, but I'm planning on going down to one jlw3 I have siting in my room. my question is, can I use the 600 watt amp, pushing my two subs, to push the one. do I just wire it from one of the terminals and leave the other terminals alone? sorry I'm stereo stupid. or is using a 600 watt amp just moronic. I have a smaller amp, but it's a pos. thanks for the input.

 

i think 600 watts to 1 w3 is a little much. but if you use the gains accordingly i guess you can get away with it. check out jl's site for the recommended power handling of the sub.

 

how many channels does the amp have? assuming its 2 channel (meaning there are 2 pairs of + and - outputs for speaker wire), then use the + from one channel and the - from another channel to get the full 600 watts out of it, instead of just using 1 channel's + and - which would give u half the power.

also, i wouldnt worry about overpowering the sub as long as you keep the gain (aka level on the side of the amp) set right, youll be ok. its not power that will blow a sub, its distortion, and the higher you have gains turned up the more distortion you get. i would probably keep the gain halfway up, turn it loud, and see if it distorts at all, then adjust it accordingly.

 

Yes it's two channel. So if I just use one channel it will just push 300 watts to the sub? That's cool. Is it bad for the other channel to run (I guess its "running"), but not be hooked up to anything?

Also, if I were to run the full power to the sub, what would the gain need to be at? I've never looked for a switch. I'll have to check it out. Any suggestions of the top of your head. I'll see what it says tomorrow and post back. thanks for the help. I don't know much about subs and amps, just that they sound nice.

 

Ok, here are the setting on the amp.

Cross-over selection:
Low pass, high pass, or flat

Phase Shift:
0-180 degrees

High Pass:
105-1.2k

Low Pass:
35-155

Bass Boost:
0-+18

Level:
5v-100mV

To hook up one JLW3, what should these be set on? Should they be the same for two subs (how it is now)? Thanks for the help.

 

how abouy telling us the make/model of the amp....

 

and what h/u do you have?

 

it's a planet audio amp (600 watts) 2 channels. that's all I know.

the h/u is the stock bose.

amp is already run and everything just need to know how to run the amp for one jlw3 instead of the 2 rockfords hooked up to it now.

 

on the amp, the outputs should have a little word on it called "bridged." What that tells you is where to hook up your pos and neg. Bridging an amp means that you combine the power of 2 different channels into 1. i dont know the watt ratings of your JL, but what size it is also? most subs handel like 400w, so just turn down your gain (which is called your level) to like 20%/100%. So put the gain to 0, and then go up a little bit, with the subs hooked up and a song playing, and then turn up/down the gain to the volume which you'd like. te only way you can mess this up is if you start with the gain really high, so make sure you start at the bottom and work your way up. higher you go on gain>more power>louder bass.

: )

 

ah, you're the man. that's the info I was looking for. thanks a lot.

 

higher gain also means more distortion. sure it's louder, but it's bad for the sub.