i have a pretty nice system in my max that came when i purchased my car. i was at cc the other day with a friend and heard the kicker comp 10's which they have buy one get 1 free for and are only 79.99. they sound a lot better then my subs, which are 2 rockford fosgate punchs (not sure of the model number) They are powered by a kenwood kac 716 amp, which is kinda old, according to a website it is a 98-99 model year and has these specs:

КДС-716 Mono Power Amplifier
Max. power output (4Q) 240W x 1
RMS power (4Q): 120W x 1 (30-200Hz, 0.08% THD); 2Q load capability (0.8% THD): 160W x 1
Low pass filter (30-200Hz)
DC-DC converter power supply
Speaker level input
Gold plated terminals

Now, does this mean that each of my 2 subs is getting the 120 watts rms? or is that number split in half because there are 2 subs? keep in mind that this is a mono amp.

additionally what do you think i should do? try getting the kickers to see if there is an improvment then return them if there is not, or am i in need for a new amp? keep in mind that i am not looking to spend lots of money as my system sounds very good, i just feel as if the bass is lacking, especially for having 2 subs, especially when compared to the kickers.

while searching online for specs on my amp i found a lot of people who have this amp, some even powering 2 12 inch subs, so it seems that at one point this may have been a somewhat popular amp...i dont know though...sorry for the rambling, but any help would be greatly apreciated.
thanks!

 

your subs are most likely not seeing those rated powers your kenwood amp puts out. how much power a sub sees really depends on how its wired to the amp, and/or the nominal impedance of the voice coils on the subs themselves.

as for the kickers, can't really go wrong with buy one get one free. i don't think you'll see a very large improvement just by swapping subs (and keeping all the other parts of your system as is.) also keep in mind the enclosure the subs are in plays a rather large role on the overall performance.

i'd go ahead and buy those kickers, and put them in a properly designed ported enclosure to help increase spl. looking at CC's website, the kickers are 8 ohm svc, so i'd wire them into parallel to get a 4 ohm final load.

 

i think that the kickers are 4ohm subwoofers. why wouldnt i be getting the output levels of my amp? i would think that when installed it would have been wired properly...this is the nicest install job i have ever seen, so i would think the people knew what they were doing. I also have a sealed box...should i build a ported one?

 

yeah, you can try to build a ported box. just make sure you get the port length etc correct so you can have the box tuned to your desire.

http://www.carstereo.com/help2/Articles.cfm?id=31

http://www.the12volt.com/caraudio/boxcalcs.asp

a lot of amps are benchmarked at 14.4 volts, and you won't often see this at the end of the power wire in the trunk. then theres the issue with the gain adjustment on the amp...i doubt it's maxed out.

 

well...i beleive the kicker subs are 4ohm...does this mean that wiring 2 of those together in parallel will give me a 2ohm load, so an amp that is 150x1 @ 4 ohms or 300w x 1@ 2 ohms will give each sub 150 watts of power?

 

An amp can only put out so much power, regardless of where the gain is. I'd bet that the previous owner had the gains on the high side, so the amp is giving the subs all it's got (at whatever voltage it's seeing from his car's charging system).

 

It would be 150 watts to each woofer. Whenever you have to identical woofers wired in parallel with one amp, all you need to do to find the wattage to each woofer is divide the number of woofers by the power provided. Note, this only works if the woofers are of the same nominal impedance, brand, make, style, year, etc. Even if 2 woofers are rated for the same nominal impedance, doesn't mean that their actuall DC resistance stays teh same as it plays music. They will behave differently.