i never had an aftermarket sound system and dont know whats enough...im looking into a rockford setup p3s that puts out 1000rms and do people think that is overkill? or run the rockford p2s that puts out 500 rms... how much more bass is that over stock ssl sub? im know its hard to explain but im want to get some input really quick...

 

my sig says 2 kicker cvx12s but im going with 2 type X 12s, with a kicker zx1500.1 amp pushing them, prolly not all the power but good enough. i like alot of bass. so yeah, im prolly overkill but oh well, wen i want it, i need it. and an amp for speakers and good *** speakers. so p3s are prolly good, it will have good power, and some people might so just get 1 12" w7(JL). oh and a gotta buy a new alternator i think for mine to work at full power.and a new battery with a cap. lol

 

the thing is im running a mini battery with cap and not really planning on getting aftermarket alternator... would 2 p3s but too much for stock alternator?

 

idk for a fact, you might have to get a normal size battery for that, cause the small ones arent made for aftermarket stereos, you no. but does anyone no if the kicker ZX1500.1 amp is acually 1500 watts rms. oh and if you dont go with a normal battery then you might need an alternator im not sure.

 

That depends. Are you trying to add bass to your music or pop the chassis welds loose?

Just kidding.. it just depends on what you want to hear. It's not for me but if going BOOM as hard as possible is the objective, then is there ever such a thing as overkill?

 

How much bass is enough is completely up to you. I really don't know, but I'd imagine the ssl woofer is no more than 200w. 1000w rms is a lot of power. My old system had a little over 1000w rms and it would rattle my freakin teeth. No sh*t. It probably also won't be very good on your alternator with such a small battery. 500w rms is probably plenty for most people, they just don't know it. It depends on what you're looking for. Are you looking for straight up volume or more of an sq type of system.

Landis that kicker amp is rated for 1500w rms @ 2ohms, 750 @ 4 ohms so it depends on how your woofers are wired.

 

oh ok, thanks, im prolly gonna run it at 2 ohms but not all the way up.

 

I really depends on what you like. I agree with the 500 being enough unless you want to do spl or rattle stuff. You can even make 200 sound great in a car. I used to compete in IASCA for sound quality and placed in the top 25 in north america at the finals. But if you just want as loud as you can go it all depends on how much you want to spend. Just remember, more power means more draw on your system. Do you have to stick with the mini battery now? Might be a problem if you want a large system. Might want to look into a kinetic battery. They make some small ones that might work.

 

I agree that 500 is enough for a sub in a car stereo, but you really need to factor in what you are powering. If the optimal range of your sub is 1000 rms, you are actually doing a lot more harm to the speaker if you underpower than if you overpower it. By overpowering a speaker, it leaves you headroom and you won't have to push the amp as hard and the speaker can perform at at optimal levels. If you underpower, you will be pushing the amp real hard and the speaker can clip....enough clipping and you can say goodbye to that speaker.

 

I don't think it's an issue of underpowering a speaker, I think it's more of underpowering the ears. If 500w rms to a single 12 is enough volume for a person, it doesn't really matter if that's to a 500w woofer or a 1000w woofer. But if it's not loud enough than that's where they turn up the amps to clipping. "Underpowering" a sub doesn't hurt anything electrically.

I completely agree about overpowering speakers. I do it as much as i can.

 

Good point about underpowering your ears. My thinking is it will take more gain on an underpowered sub to achieve the same levels and if you are big into high SPL's for the lows, that will present a big problem if compared to a high powered amp.

 

Maybe if the difference is really big, like pushing 200w to a 1000w sub where as a higher powered sub's suspension might be a little stiffer and the moving assembly has a higher mass. Music changes so much that at any given point in time the amount of power delivered to a speaker is different and never is 500w being continuously fed into a speaker, unless you're playing a sine wave.

Most speaker power ratings are based on how much thermal energy they can disperse before overheating and not so much how much music power they can handle. In theory a speaker should be able to handle an infinite amount of power (there is a voltage limit though) if you could provide an infinite amount of cooling. That's why clipping is so bad, because for that period of time a speaker is playing a clip (which is effectively DC) it can't cool itself and the speaker heats up very fast.

Like I said, there is nothing wrong electrically with underpowering a speaker, it's when people that are underpowering speakers that don't understand how an amp gain actually works and they try to compensate by pumping up the gain to the point that it's clipping and they destroy speakers. That's where the saying of it's more damaging to underpower speakers than overpower them comes from.

 

It really depends on what you are looking for. I stumbled onto this thread by accident... so bare with me.

I don't own an evo but used to have 2x12" Infinity Reference's [BOGO @ Crutchfield]. Those definitely weren't SPL subs by any means. They each got about 200w RMS @ 4ohm's and were in a sealed dual enclosure with 1.5cf per. They sounded pretty good and could hit low when needed. Unfortunately they were stolen a buddy gave me a Dual brand 12" dual bandpass enclosure. Powered the same 200w RMS @ 4ohm's. Granted the difference in enclosures made a huge difference but the subs were definitely geared towards SPL's. They sounded good for rap and techno music. Listening to something like rock, etc and it sounded like crap.

I'm currently running a single 12" Adire Audio Shiva "Classic" [no xbl2 for me]. It's powered by about 250-300W RMS @ 4ohm. In 2.0cf sealed enclosure w/ 12oz of polyfill. The sub sounds better than the dual Infinity's I had... and hits the same, if not lower than that Dual garbage that was in there temporarily.

I'd say the enclosure is the single most important of your subwoofer choice. In the 2cf enclosure the Shiva sounded nice. When I added the polyfill it hit lower and harder than before. Also ditch the cap idea... caps are useless. I don't want to get into the whole debate of the cap issue. Simply put if your alternator isn't putting out enough power than a cap won't help anything. If you're talking about putting on a cap on a sufficently powered system... then the gains are debatable at best. It *should* in theory stabilize the voltage... but then again that's what your battery is there for.

 

A cap stabilizes much faster than a battery. Also a battery will do nothing to stabilize the voltage drop between the battery and amp where as due to it where it's wired in a cap will.

 

It all depends on what kind of music you listen to and how "noticeable" you want to be. For all around comfortable listening, I would recommend a 10 or 12 inch sub running 300-500 rms. If you want tighter more accurate bass, then go with a sealed enclosure. If you listen to mainly rap/techno and want that BOOM, then you should go with a ported. Like s8n said, ditch the capacitor. Its just a bandaid and doesn't truly fix the power drain.

Running 2 12's with 500-1000 watts rms will have everyone in traffic going "who the f**k is that!" and waking up all the neighbors. And it won't help with weight either. I personally think its overkill if you're going for a balanced sound system. But if you're looking to have a competition spl setup, then go for it.

I personally listen to mostly alternative, music with a lot of midbass and highs. So I have a 10 inch infinity kappa perfect in a 1 cubic foot sealed enclosure, running it at about 300rms. I also have infinity components up front. It suits my listening needs.

you don't have to spend a ton of money or get mainstream namebrand stuff to have a quality sounding system. You should look into other companies beside rockford fosgate. Its all up to your listening needs and finding a good combination of parts, setting it up correctly, and installing it correctly. Do it right the first time and take your time.