Subwoofer Myths And Facts

[Neo_frog]

I have 2 1232Ds also and they're great. I got them as just some decent kick-around speakers, but they have really impressed me. I have them in a ported box with 2.75 cf per sub, tuned to 22 hz. Which is way bigger than recommended, but I was going for a certain Effect. They give up output, but the lows are magnificent. Nobody that hears them believes that sound comes from only 2 12s.

I've thrown 1500 RMS each at them in that box just to try and hurt them mechanically and they stood up to it easily. The cone is aluminum, which helps it too.

Lanzar is supposed to be shipping the 1233 and 1533 soon, which are rated for 3000 RMS each, but, so far, I haven't been able to get my hands on any. I hope they don't blow at 2,400 watts, when my volume is on 19.

Now that's funny.

[bkolfo4]

i'm looking for someone that has an extreme spl setup that generates massive amounts of heat to test this out on.

i've been able to keep the motor at a steady safe heat with this design. but i'm in need a big setup to truly test this out on.

Send me (6) 15's - Dual 1's and I will test them on (6) 40.1 heavily clipped at 0.5 ohms.

[lanman31337]

I have 2 1232Ds also and they're great. I got them as just some decent kick-around speakers, but they have really impressed me. I have them in a ported box with 2.75 cf per sub, tuned to 22 hz. Which is way bigger than recommended, but I was going for a certain Effect. They give up output, but the lows are magnificent. Nobody that hears them believes that sound comes from only 2 12s.

I've thrown 1500 RMS each at them in that box just to try and hurt them mechanically and they stood up to it easily. The cone is aluminum, which helps it too.

Lanzar is supposed to be shipping the 1233 and 1533 soon, which are rated for 3000 RMS each, but, so far, I haven't been able to get my hands on any. I hope they don't blow at 2,400 watts, when my volume is on 19.

n8ball2013 is a friend of mine and he can tell you about my old setup. I was initially going to go with 4 type R's, then I contemplated the Pioneer SPL2000's, and Lanzar Optidrives were in the mix as well. I used to run some old school Opti gear 15 or so years ago and it was top notch, but then it turned to crap. I wanted to try it, some of the other guys on the J-body forums were curious too, so I did it. And it wanged. I just want more power to them. They sound very clean, nothing muddy, and when I first got them I tried clipping them and they just laughed. No magic smoke, no burnt anything.

On another side note, all 4 are sitting in my game room hooked up to zero rms. I hope they don't blow just sitting there.

[Boon]

On the underpowering one, generally it is indeed a myth, but as mentioned above the RE MT was known to be prone to getting very hot with low power/bad boxes, even to the point of the coil glue failing.

The MT is kinda unique because it has such a tight gap, no pole piece venting and a very restrictive motor design combined with EXTREMELY stiff suspension.

There is a point with it where the heat being generated is less than the heat being dissipated (since there's no excursion) so the sub just slowly heats up thanks to Newton's law of cooling. You're basically baking the coil because there's no fresh air being circulated in the gap. Hence why some people rigged up cooling systems for their MTs - not really to keep them cool when they're wanging it but to stop them cooking at normal volumes. Because the air in the gap is ALMOST as hot as the coil it provides very little cooling (how fast an object heats/cools is relative to the difference in temperature between the coolant and the object being cooled) so the coils just gradually get hotter and hotter. Then thermal resistance starts to build so the user turns up the volume a bit and wham, cooked sub.

I can draw a graph if you like...

[HHR Ed]

what about if a sub has a super stiffspider and the sub will take 2500 rms and your throwin it abit below what will get it to move lets say you need like 600 watts to move it a quarter of an inch and your throwin it 475 wont it heat up over time? and like if your runnin a pa amp thru a sub to make it a loud speaker? cause then its making it play loud but its not moving the cone much at all.

that low of a wattage wont heat it up enough to even need cooling. The coil still dissipates heat weather its moving or not.

[HHR Ed]

I agree with this to a point, I've seen people install their drivers an hour before a competition, and still come out winning. But it's still recommended to loosen up the spiders

yes, a sub can sound different when broken in, or even produce more SPL after broken in. But it will not effect durability/reliability.

[bkolfo4]

I ran MT's for almost 2 years in my suburban. Played them everyday for at least an hour at all different volume levels (2 MD3Ds strapped per sub with dual 2 ohm coils in parallel). Never had a problem except running 4000+ watts for a 30 sec street beat run. They got hot durig those runs, smelled like crap, but kept on playing. . .

At one time, I ran all 4 MT's on a single MD2D. That is less than 500 watts per sub. Even clipping like crazy, I would never even smell the coils.

Like I said above, thermal power handling might be reduced in a SPL design where you are dumping a lot of power at a frequency where the box is designed for minimum excursion at that frequency, but more than likely not a problem with a daily music setup.

Brian

[Boon]

I ran MT's for almost 2 years in my suburban. Played them everyday for at least an hour at all different volume levels (2 MD3Ds strapped per sub with dual 2 ohm coils in parallel). Never had a problem except running 4000+ watts for a 30 sec street beat run. They got hot durig those runs, smelled like crap, but kept on playing. . .

At one time, I ran all 4 MT's on a single MD2D. That is less than 500 watts per sub. Even clipping like crazy, I would never even smell the coils.

Like I said above, thermal power handling might be reduced in a SPL design where you are dumping a lot of power at a frequency where the box is designed for minimum excursion at that frequency, but more than likely not a problem with a daily music setup.

Brian

I think the 'sweet spot' for killing them is around 1000-1500w. The kind of point where that enormous coil can't just handle it (which it can with like 500w all day cos it's just such a huge lump of copper) but the sub isn't doing any kind of useful excursion. A massive contributing factor is people putting them in boxes that are way too small and with nowhere near enough port which exacerbates the issue of the cone not moving enough.

[bkolfo4]

Like I said, I can agree that would hurt them, but the user has installed them in a way that has limited the thermal rating of the driver. In my mind, that would not count as a driver being damaged from being underpowered. that is a driver being damaged because it was limited due to the installation.

That could also apply to mechanical damage when the sub is installed in a big or high tuned box and the subsonic filter is not used correctly. Underpowering did not kill the sub, the installation limitations killed the sub.

[brewer_brewer]

Like I said, I can agree that would hurt them, but the user has installed them in a way that has limited the thermal rating of the driver. In my mind, that would not count as a driver being damaged from being underpowered. that is a driver being damaged because it was limited due to the installation.

That could also apply to mechanical damage when the sub is installed in a big or high tuned box and the subsonic filter is not used correctly. Underpowering did not kill the sub, the installation limitations killed the sub.

true.