TRUE RMS for P3 12"??

[bcbrassard]

Welcome to the wonderful sarcastic world of SMD. Yes RF amps are underrated, but there speakers aren't. Yes they cant take more power if done right by a person with knowledge. Its the difference between lasting a few years to 10 yrs and how its treated. Run rated RMS and if you want a higher rated driver down the road buy one.

[RyanRosier]

Welcome to the wonderful sarcastic world of SMD. Yes RF amps are underrated, but there speakers aren't. Yes they cant take more power if done right by a person with knowledge. Its the difference between lasting a few years to 10 yrs and how its treated. Run rated RMS and if you want a higher rated driver down the road buy one.

I would have loved this answer from the start loll, but on a side note, why make an underrated amp at 500 watts, and a sub that will take 500, then have the amp do 700? Would either seem like a marketing gimic or just subs are underrated as well ya know? The Punch 500a2 was rated 500 but I've seen bench tests of 700 before. Just a generalized question lol

[jcarter1885]

[MrSkippyJ]

It's not that they under rate anything, it's like building an engine with parts to produce 500 hp and you put it on the dyno and you get 600 hp. It's still sold as a 500 hp motor because the next one might only do 500.

On the other hand you have a transmission that is fine with a 500 hp engine from the same company. With all the testing hey have done they say 500 is the limit. Could you run more through it? Maybe but they have tested it to be reliable with a 500 hp limit.

[Karkov]

A lot depends on if you are gonna clip it or not........

[Moreno93]

Honestly dude stick to the manufactuers RMS rating. Yes there amps put out more power. Yes there subs can take more power but if you knew what you were doing you wouldn't be asking this question. There are obvious signs to tell whether you are pushing to much power to your subs. So either ask & learn what that is, or stick to rated RMS. The reason new people get these sarcastic replies is because normally the person who replies first has the right answer & new people tend to ignore it.

[mcfalcon]

I really do agree with sticking to man suggested rms if you do not really know what's going on which I myself do not yet. So I am in no way arguing with any of you guys input but I do have 1 question. How can you observe these signs and learn what's going on without doing it? Ryan I am not telling you overpower your subs. This is kinda a thread jack (sorry) for my own purposes but maybe help you too.

[Triticum Agricolam]

RMS power really is a tricky thing to nail down. It's not an absolute number where at 500 watts you are fine all day long and then at 501 you burn up your sub, it very situationally dependant. You could have a sub that can take 500 watts in a sealed box at 30 hz just fine, then you put it in a ported box tuned to 30 Hz and you smoke the coil. In the sealed box at 30 hz there is going to be tons of cone movement so you will have good airflow over the coil, but in the ported box there were be very little cone movement and the coil overheats. So this raises the question of "how did the manufacturer determine what the RMS rating was?"

Then you have the problem of determining just how much power you sub is actually getting. If you have a 500 watt RMS sub and a 500 watt RMS amp, your sub is probably almost never actually going to get 500 watts. Amplifiers don't put out watts, they put out volts. 500 watts at one ohm is 22.35 volts. So lets say you have your sub in a 30 Hz ported box, around the tuning frequency where impedance is low your sub may see relatively close to 500 watts, but at 50 hz, where impedance is high that 22.35 volts that your amp can put out is only going to actually be less than 100 watts. So at that higher frequency you could put your 500 watt sub on a 2,000 watt amp and it would be fine all day long.

RMS power handling of subs is such a moving target, it's really tough to put a number to.

[RyanRosier]

So much good information here