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Most definitely... thanks for your help I feel like an idiot and rightfully so I can't believe I blew two Type-R's in less than a month. I can only imagine how many uneducated people are drivin around out there with only one sub working, or voice coils blown and not knowing it.

I just learned that this morning. Yep, your Digital Multimeter will work

One VC is at 3.5ohms... the other is at 1.0ohms =( On the other sub they're both 4 >> But it's a bit weird cause when wired for 8ohms this one measures @ 7.3ohms

HOLY CRAP!!!!! One of the subs is measuring @1ohm when it's properly wired for 2ohms. Does that mean a VC is bad?

Okay I pulled out the Subwoofers... Resistance measured @ 2.0ohms. The voice coils look good. If they're burnt they should smell or look dark right? I noticed one sub still has the glue from the dustcap attaching it to the voice coils. The other sub has glue on one side (i'm assuming it burnt off). I pushed and didn't hear any scraping. Even if there isn't visible or scraping, could I still have actual damage? **Oh and I'll never listen to that former Car Toys now Best Buy installer again (I work with him. He's the lead car audio installer, I work @ computer geek squad). He was gonna get the same setup as me... Wouldn't be surprised if he was givin me bad advice for shits and giggles (he's that type)**

Of course it's my fault. And I agree it fucks companies over. I just wish I had known better. I was told by countless people that "Type-Rs are nearly invincible" and "Type-R's can handle well over half the RMS they claim" and "Type-R's can take any beating". Shouldn't have believed it! Cause I blew one simply from clipping and/or underpowering when i had it @ 4ohms with the other Type-R

Hello! I have an interesting predicament and it'll definitely be hard to sleep tonight. I like learning from mistakes. And quite honestly I think I've had a combination of stupid mistakes with possible manufacturer defects. I'm willing to bet I have two poorly performing Type-R's thanks to bad advice from a car audio guy from a Best Buy I work at. I'll list everything in order from past to present. I have a Kenwood HU with two Pre-Amp Outs and voltage is 2v. There is no Sub level control at all. I'm using two sets of 8ga power and ground cable from RF. -I bought an Alpine M-500 (500wRMS@2ohms) and an Alpine Type-R 1242d (500wRMS@2ohms) wired at 2ohms -I ran it with Max Amp Gains and +12db Amp Bass Boost (i was uneducated) and 0db bass on my HU -I bought another Alpine Type-R 1242d -I hooked both Type-R's up to the Amp @ 4ohms with gains and bass boost on Max, and 0db bass on my HU **-I basically was giving 150w@4ohms to each Sub when they're meant for 300w@4ohms each (underpowering them)** -I bought the second Alpine M-500, wired both of them to 2ohms -Ran each Sub to its own M-500, 2ohms each -I ran it with Max Amp Gains and +12db Amp Bass Boost (still uneducated) *-Found out I blew one of the Type-R's, BAD!!! **On a very cold day of course...** -Type-R made a terrible rattling noise. It also smelled bad. -Replaced Type-R @ Best Buy (it was 3 weeks old) -Turned down all my gains (-8bass, -7mid, -7treble) on my HU -I left the Amp Bass Boost and Amp Gains @ Max to compensate for the -8bass on my HU -I replaced the RCA cables with dual twisted for less noise. -Found out one of the Pre-Amp outs on my HU is bad (meaning only one was working all along) *-Got two Y-Splitters, BUMPED on 4/20! Definitely heard both... And played for 4-5 hours with 5 minute breaks every half hour for subs to cool down* -Had gain on HU set @ 0db bass with Gains on Amp Maxed and +12db Bass Boost on Amp when I was listening to Metal that was under-bassed *-Accidentally played Gucci Mane with 0db Bass on my HU... Max Amp Gains and Amp Bass Boost. Forgot to turn it down to -8db* -Noticed today that suddenly one of the subs stopped working -Both amps are powered on.. only one sub is working as we speak -I come to find out, tonight (4/21), that gains are not a volume knob (nobody told me that I had to match them to the headunit!!!!) * = an event where I think damage might have occured. All of the events above occured in less than a month. 1) Given all of these events, what is the likelyhood that my subs are partially damaged? They're about a month old. 2) Could I have ruined one of the subs or both by setting amp gains to max without realizing what it was actually doing? Now I know that I have to match the volts from my headunit with my amp, which shocked me because I thought I would know better than that. 3) Does that mean that if I get both subs to work, and I match my amp gains to my headunit voltage (say I lower them), will it actually be louder than having the amp gains set too high for the HU? 4) Should I just replace the Subs via Manufacturer Warranty and sell them and start over with a new pair?

I would also like to know this. I blew a sub like that and it rattled inside. I think the voice coil was fried or something. Any answers?

I work at Geek Squad so I see this stuff all the time. Dust isn't really gonna be the determining factor. A slow computer is either: 1) A failing hard drive (likely) 2) Viruses 3) Many start up processes (use Run > msconfig, go to Startup, delete entries that like Adobe Speed Launcher, ctfmon, java updates etc... if you dont know what it is don't touch it) I see it every day. If it's painfully slow and you don't see many popups or weird things happening like with viruses, then it's probably your hard drive and it's very very common. If it's slow and there's a lot of stuff that crashes and new icons and popups that you've never seen before, it's viruses. Most people could benefit from removing start up processes that bog up the RAM.

I work at Geek Squad so I'll be helping a lot with questions like this. The CD not burning properly is rare but it can happen. It's probably a bug in the program. Make sure you're not doing other stuff while you're burning or you'll have bad burns! When some computers have a CD in the tray they automatically try to boot from it (in case of using a rescue CD of some sort), so holding the power button down until it's off will work to shut it down. When you cut power to the computer, you likely caused the BIOS to reset to defaults, meaning it will automatically try to boot from USB devices, CDs, floppy drives, network boot, before it boots to the Hard Drive. Some computers' BIOS are different though, some boot from the Hard Drive by default while others try everything before the Hard Drive. I don't think it's a virus, but then again Spybot isn't very good of an antivirus. Geek Squad scans with 7 different antiviruses and I still find many on each scanner. If you're a safe user you're probably fine.

Damn straight! Reminds me of mixtape versions of Gucci Mane

It's good to hear even one more person discovering this shadow of a thing called clipping, Joker =) To save the picture, Press Shift and PrtScrn (its a button up by Scroll Lock [scrLk] and Pause and Break). At this point it's in your clipboard until you cut/copy something else, so open up Photoshop or MSPaint. If you're using MSPaint for example, just go to Edit > Paste! Edit, save as JPG and you're done.

I blew my interiors because the distortion present in the songs combined with being uneducated about distortion led me to play it above what the speakers are capable of. That's my point exactly. Why does everyone have be experts in Car Audio to know when to stop turning up the volume? Why is the distortion even present in the music in the first place? My argument is that anyone involved in music should be educated enough about clipping so that they don't have to leave it up to the consumers to fix their mistakes. Just to clarify: I agree with what you're saying. I agree that people should know more about music than they do. I just wish the mixtape DJs and a few production companies knew their shit, considering speakers are used to play their music in the first place.

Given that record companies and small time production companies lose billions each year from P2P Downloading, and failed many lawsuits, there's not much left that they can do to the general public. I'm not calling them sociopathic snobs that want to hurt everyone. I'm saying the CDs that you purchase are usually unclipped, and they're the first to release the CD to P2P under multiple "release groups" with an entirely clipped set of music. Then, mixtape idiots add their own bass boosts and annoying intros which saturates what music is actually out there being distributed. The problem is, a lot of people don't risk creating their own release group because they eventually get caught. It's much like with movies - in Russia, movies are released 2 weeks earlier than official release date by their own makers. They release them simply because they would rather people have the movie for free as long as they could control how good the quality of the film is. The quality of the releases are usually pretty damn good, and good audio, which is because they want there to be a good first impression and possibility of the viewer enjoying the experience better. There were too many pirates that royally screwed up the video and audio quality by using Cameras, crappy Telesyncs, etc... To be honest having your work out there is better than nothing because the general public is exposed to it. If you don't have money to buy something, you don't buy it. Now, if you dont have money to buy something, you still get to experience the CD or Movie, which means more revenue for tabloids, car audio, iTunes, reality TV shows, and MTV type stations. They're finding ways to profit from our neglect to pay for the official work. The World runs on Money and that's all the World is about. **I just want to add** UFC events are actually distributed under P2P the same day by Zuffa (they own the UFC), there are trap trackers that end up with your IP address in there. I've had a couple letters from Comcast about downloading a couple events. It's not a conspiracy theory. This is the reality of P2P

Why wouldn't they? Hell record companies have no way to get back at pirates other than borking the quality. Note: I'm only saying this because I've already had all of my stock speakers blown from these songs WITHOUT having Gains and WITHOUT turning it up past 80%.

It's safe to say that the majority of songs downloaded out there are clipped by the release group. If you get them for free, the least they would expect you to do is remove the clipping. Personally, I think they're clipped with the sole intention of blowing the speakers of those who are illegally downloading them. What does this mean? More money for car audio companies. If the public was actually educated about what bass boosting and clipping does, then I'm sure we wouldn't be seeing so many messed up tracks out there. NOTE: That, and so many cars have sub-par stock systems that new hip hop is trying to squeeze every bit out of the speakers by distorting it (well, it sounds better as long as its not turned up too loud).