Anyone else ever torn the surround on their Infinity Kappa 1200.9w?

[Justin Harris]

To start off, my system is nothing special. JVC head unit,

4 Kicker 6.5's, HiFonics Zeus 1200 monoblock amp,

and I "had" a 12" Infinity Kappa 1200.9w. Bought it new in February.

Anyway, I never really broke it in but never ran the gain above half

on the amp. It's the 2nd Kappa I've owned (Had the older silver ceramic cone)

This last one was the model with gold colored cone. On the way to work

the other night I was thrashin some dubstep for a passenger and heard the

woofer lose suspension and start wheezing. Upon investigation I realized I

had torn a substantial portion of the rubber surround from around the cone,

not the basket.

Has anybody else had this problem?

What is the overall opinion on Infinity's equipment?

What other companies have subs that are comparable in quality and price to the Infinity's?

Thank you in advance for any responses or other feedback!!

[Justin Harris]

I've looked at so many different brands and models of subs

that my eyes are crossing haha. I'm mainly looking for suggestions

for a worthy replacement in the $150-$200 price range.

I'd love to blow $600+ on a monster but it just isn't justifiable.

Right now, I'm goin back and forth between the Type-R 2ohm dvc,

Rockford P2 or P3 2 ohm dvc, or even the newest model Kappa,

but I'm not totally sure.

I'm open to other suggestions, as long as it's not Soundstream,

Power Acoustik, Audiopipe, Planet audio or any of the other run o the mill crap!

[reedal]

There could be an underlying issue as to why you're tearing the surrounds, other than the quality of the sub. I would say the surround tearing is due to over-excursion. What are the specs of your enclosure? how did you determine the setting of your gain? Under half doesn't mean it's the proper setting, since gain is just a voltage matcher. My google is broken, so what is the RMS ratings of that sub and the amp?

[Justin Harris]

I'm not totally sure of the volume specs on my enclosure,

Its a higher end prefab. It's sealed and I want to say

it was either 1.25 or 1.50. The sub is rated at 350W RMS

and 1400W Peak, and it has switchable impedance 2 and 4

Ohm. The amp is a HiFonics Zeus ZRX1200.1D. It's

rated @ 1200W @ 1 ohm, 600 @ 2 ohms. Everyone I

asked before buying it all said the woofer should've been

easily able to handle that amps output. I rarely experienced

any clipping or anything like that, but I saw one review somewhere

and it mentioned the sharp edge on the cone as a potential culprit?

I've never had a problem with Infinity's products till now.

[SkarredSierra]

Have you looked at the american bass xfl's or skar audio ddx's?

Edit- How did you know you werent clipping?

[Justin Harris]

I had looked at the stuff from Skar it looks pretty basic but had good price point,

I am a bit wary of anything with foam surrounds though. As far as knowing

whether I was clipping or not, I have a buddy who works at a small local audio shop,

he helped me do some of the finer tuning and we had tried to make it clip with

several different types of music and could only get it to do so at unbearable decibel levels

which I never achieved because I do value my eardrums a little. But I'm no expert just a enthusiast.

[MrSkippyJ]

Any reason you didn't just use tones to check for clipping? What makes you wary of foam surrounds?

[ShadeTreeMechanic]

I think most of the big monster subs run foam surrounds. Some types of music can be hard on equipment. If you were to run a ported enclosure and tuned it low, you would have so much output that at normal levels the system wouldn't even break a sweat. Maybe even step up to a 15? Soundqubed has the HDS315 for around $180. I am running two of them in 4 cubic feet each and tuned to 34hz. Very musical from 60hz kick drums all the way down to the mid 20hz range.

EDIT: You might be able to replace the surround. There are several sellers on ebay that sell surrounds for all kinds of subs.

[Justin Harris]

Thanks for all the input guys! I'm not totally sure what route to take yet, but any tips/info is much appreciated.

[MrSkippyJ]

First things first, make sure you know what exactly is causing the problem. won't do you much good to get a new sub just to have the problem still exist.