You say the second amp I would be wasting money on power I would never use but isn't that in itself worth something? I mean if I'm not pushing the amp then it's going to put out a cleaner sound. Right? If I am right about that then the question is: is that cleaner sound from an amp not designed for subs better then pushing an amp designed for subs?

 

no pushing an amp to make power that it is rated for will not cause any problems. This is another reason why i recommend the coustic. It's CEA 2006 compliant. CEA makes sure that amps are rated at 14.4 volts which helps to keep ratings fair. An amplifier rated to make 400 watts can make in excess of 600 or more watts but not with a clean signal. This unclean signal is called clipping. clipping is bad for the amp and the sub. One becasue the siganl the amp sends is in the form of a sine wave. when the wave is clipped the sine curve flattens out. this means that the sub will not be moving but it will still be recieving power. this causes the subwoofer to overheat and eventually fail. Now when I say it stops I mean for split seconds not like for five seconds it doesn't move. but when you consider that at for example 40Hz that means the period fo the sine wave is .025 seconds. this means the sub moves in and out in a full cycle once over .025 seconds. So when you stop it momentarily for each cycle even though audibly you may not notice it except for slight loss in sound quality. it adds up and will cause the sub to eventually fail. Usually the voice coils melt and seize and then the sub doens't move period and then she's toast. Now since we know that the Coustic amp will make 300 watts without clipping since they are CEA compliant. Then running that amp with proper settings at 2 ohms with it making 300 watts is no problem whatsoever. The amp will be able to put out 300 watts at 14.4 volts with a clean signal no problem. Now the problem with the power accoustic is that they aren't CEA compliant or they at least don't say they are. So they couldn be getting their wattage rating from anywhere. They may have just overlaoded the amp with high voltage and it may have produced 360 watts for a second and then died. Then they put that 360 watts on the box and you think woohhoooo. When it really only puts out 150 watts rms. Not saying that's what they did but it's possible. Also for a subwoofer you only need a Low pass filter. This allows you to select a certain frequency say 50 Hz. anything higher than 50 hz will be played at a lower db slope. In other words the higher the frequency is above 50 hz it plays the tone at a lower db level so the sub does not become damaged. I recommend since you got 12's right set the low pass at about 65 hz and turn on the infrasonic filter to keep frequencies below 20 hz and above 65 hz to damage the subwoofer. You don't need the high pass filter because that would block frequencies below the selected frequency on the filter.

You don't have to worry about using an amplifier to it's full potential that it's rated for. the problems occur whne you push it above that and then the amp clips sends a poor signal and either it fries or the sub will be damaged.
Now did a little more looking and I misread the specs on the coustic it only puts out 300 watts rms and the power accoustic puts out 600 rms. So acutally the coustic isn't as good a buy as I thought. I still don't like the power accoustic because of the CEA 2006 compliance factor but it will put out the power you need unless they are being misleading and trust me lots of companies will use marketing gimmics. My suggestion go look for a CEA 2006 compliant amp that puts out 600 watts at 2 ohms. but if you want an amp just to have it then get that power accoustic because it will give you the power you need. Although It isn't the best choice the coustic definately is if they made a 600 watt rms version.

Now here I did a little looking on crutchfield and foudn this amp. It's infinity which is a decent name brand not the best but they are a name brand not generic junk. http://www.crutchfield.com/S-5LNeGVv...amp;I=108R611A puts out 657 watts rms at 2 ohms right where you need it and is CEA 06 compliant. Another thing raising my eybrow at that power accoustic is the price. Almost any other amp that puts out that kind of power is wayyy wayy mroe expensive which leads me to believe that they don't tell the whole truth about their specs. If they at least said what voltage the amp made the power at I'd be a little more trusting but they don't. I suggest staying away from them.