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Ok so I had my rockford amp hooked up to my system for years and it suddenly crapped out on me it was only a 150 watt amp. So i went and bought the cheapest thing I could find at visions a pioneer with 300 wattsl.. so i hook it up and its mega weak.. my subs are barely making a noise i have to crank every bass setting to get something decent. And yes the gain is on max.. any ideas? Maybe I need a bigger power wire. its a 10 guage with 25 fuse and amp came with a 25 fuse in it.

Make sure the HU sub output voltage and the amp input voltage levels match....

10 gauge seeems awfully small in my opinion, but if your other amp was fine with it, then I wouldn't worry about that too much...

You really shouldn't be cranking the gain to max - causes the subs to be distorted and can burn out the voice coils.

shameem wrote:Make sure the HU sub output voltage and the amp input voltage levels match....

and how do i do that???? lol

The headunit has a fixed sub output voltage level (usually noted in the specifications) - the amp usually has a control (like gain) to change the input voltage level (anywhere from 1 - 4 volts i think). You just have to match them......

I second that 10 gauge is too small. Also, you pay for what you get. that "300watts sweet awesomeness" is probably peak output. Whats the RMS? I had a crap amp (jensen) and it says 425W right on top. (The guy I bought the car from had the POS installed) I took it off, and read it - 425W Max - 85W RMS...LOL. Thats the definition of a bad amp right there. And you don't want to run with your gain maxed. It's bad for the amp.


Check on those things, and check on what the minimum RMS your subs need is. Make sure you have everything wired right.

On my car, I have 4 gauge from Battery back, split to two - 8gauge lines for each of my amps. (one 250 and one 500). I would think 8gauge would be enough for what you're doing, but 10 is a bit small. Also, make sure you ground the thing nicely.

your old amp was 150 watts, but was that on a single channel? if you hook up two subs to a single channel amp you could make the full 150 watts of the amp.

is the new amp a 300 watt 2ch amp? if you hook up two subs one on each channel you will only get like 50watts a sub - and would be weak!!!!

make sure when you get the cheapest solution that the solution will actually do something for you.

two subs (4ohms each) works best with a single channel mono amp (ecpecially if you go the cheap route).

having a 10 gauge power wire at 300 watts wouldn't necessarily affect output like that (although i also recommend dropping down to a 4 as it would easily handle anything up to around 1000 watts at 10 feet) running the wrong gauge over time will overheat and breakdown the wire, which in turn will overheat the amp, but you would be popping fuses before that happened. i'd say look more closely at the amp controls. check for a low/high pass filter and make sure that it's set to low. if the high pass filter is engaged, only higher treble frequencies will be passed to the speaker, which it has a hard time reproducing. also if there is a frequency knob set it no higher than 100 hz. that will fine tune the filter setting allowing only the lowest bass tones to pass to your sub. finally, make sure you didn't crisscross the + and -

Typhoonk wrote:your old amp was 150 watts, but was that on a single channel? if you hook up two subs to a single channel amp you could make the full 150 watts of the amp.

is the new amp a 300 watt 2ch amp? if you hook up two subs one on each channel you will only get like 50watts a sub - and would be weak!!!!

make sure when you get the cheapest solution that the solution will actually do something for you.

two subs (4ohms each) works best with a single channel mono amp (ecpecially if you go the cheap route).

yah this is making the most sense... frig i'm a tard.. but if i was running max power off an the 150 thats only 75 watts per sub.. With the new set up my specs say 60 Watts x 2, at 4 ohms <= 1% THD+N would the 30 extra watts make that much of a dif.. Like the old set up was pounding and this one is probably not even half as powerful?
So what if I have one sub hooked up i'm getting 150 watts to one sub should be equal to 2 gettin 75 each right?
Or is the mono giving 150 to each sub?

If your amp can handle the load, it will put out more power through a bridged channel than it would into through a non-bridged channel. Theoretically, a "perfect" amplifier that puts
out X watts into Y impedance into each of two channels will put out 4X watts into Y impedance into one bridged channel.

Ok so I bridged the wires and subs were working exact same as before for about a week and then subs stopped working. Thought I had blown a fuse checked them and they are all fine. So i hooked up subs wiring back to the original way I had it. + - for left and right. Turn on my amp and now my subs have like a small heartbeat its very weird. it will pop out for like 4 seconds then pop in for 3 seconds and continues to do this.

Are my subs toast now??

sounds like you overheated your amp and it fried. Some amps can be bridged others cannot.

Try the subs on another amplifer, to see if they are ok.

you blew yer amp. Most cheap 2 ch. amps pretty much all of them aren't stable bridged to a 2 ohm load. Hooked up at 4 ohm stereo ie: 4ohm 1 ch. and 4ohm another channel isn't enough power you need to upgrade to a mono amp (these amps are internally bridged) to a single 2 ohm load (hook up your subs in parallel ( positive to positive negative to negative) that is all assuming you have 2 single 4 ohm subs. Or just buy a 2 channel with more wattage and run in stereo. Hopefully for u u bought the warranty. And yes most pioneer is inferior but they have competitive prices. JBL has the best entry line (cheaper) stuff in my opinon.

Well took it in and the guy tested it and said the output was toasted. However it says right on the side of the amp that its bridgable. So it was just a POS. I'm still confused though my old amp says 37.5 X 2 Watts Rms continuous power 20-20KHZ
and my pioneer said 60 X 2 continuous power 20-20khz

Sorry but you said your old amp was a Fosgate, Right? They are high current amps. I am still running my Phoenix Gold M25's that were new in '93. They are hooked to 4 gauge from the battery to distribution block that splits down to 8 ga. for each. There is NO substitute for current. My M25's are only rated at 25 watts rms @ 4 ohms, like your old Fosgate. Consumer crap electronics ( sony, pioneer, kenwood) all grossly over rate what there amps actually make. My system will make any 1000 watt sony look like garbage, because I am loaded down to 1 ohm on each amp pulling at least three times that original 25 rms watts per channel. sorry you get what you pay for. You should look into getting the Fosgate fixed, they can be and are worth it you know. 131db. on "100" watts in unlimited spl can't be too wrong.