got everything hooked up and running. door speakers ROCK but the sub sunds like absolute ****. I have the frequencies turned to the lowest on th sub side of the amp but the distortion is awful. cant find any rips in cone or anythin but it sounds like it is ripped in side the cone. SOunds like a bunch of celifane being crunched at once every time it hits. is it blown? or is it something else?

 

Could be blown. Do you have a multi-meter? If not borrow one off somone and test the sub with it. Make sure it's close to what it's rated (4-ohm, 2-ohm, 8-ohm...)

 

When you take the sub out if it smells bad its probably the voice coil....If you push down on the sub does it make a scratching sounds?

 

yea and i removed the sub from th box to try and pin point the noise and its like the cone has something in it. No bad smells. just horrible scratching or crinkling sound.

 

overpowered

what sub, and amp setup.. wattage of amp and max wattage of sub?


whats your wiring?

diagram if possible?

 

amp is kenwood 8454 4 channel. front channels is pushing a set of door speakers and the rear channels ar runing the sub. its bridged at 200 watts (not a lot of power) and peak might hit a little more but not much. sub is alpine swe 1242 12 inch. rms is 250 and peak is 800 watts or so. Im no where near overloading this sub. im gona try runin it off the front channel to see if it clears up. the setup im using is i kept the stock headunit and conencted the high level inputs for the signal. could this be my problem? all wires check out im just puzzeled. so far its lookin like i eat that sub and get another one. hate to do that though

 

Did it do it rite when u got it?? Didnt you buy the sub on ebay??

 

200W at 2 or 4 ohms?

and im not too sure about the stock HU to amp wiring., aftermarketsHU all have the RCA sub output.

 

Not all aftermarket headunits have pre-amp outputs. And just because you're running 200W to a 250W sub doesn't mean you can't overpower it. And by overpower I mean running a clipped (distorted) signal into the speaker. If your amp clips it can send as much as 4 times as much as it's rated power into the sub. At the same time, the clipped signal is keeping the sub from moving as much as it would when it had a good signal. The extra power, and the sub not being able to move fully makes cooling itself impossible and it cooks.

Like I said I would test it with a meter. If it reads right it doesn't necessarily mean it isnt cooked either. We get these crappy pioneer 251's in all the time that have the same symtoms you say, sometimes they won't even move, but they still read fine on a meter. Like the voice coil unravelled

 

yea its from ebay. lesson learned. ill test out the ohms and see what i get. what causes the amp to run a clipped signal?

the subs 4 ohms and 200watts at 4 ohms bridged.