Ok its a P500 prime from fosgate. 534 rms.... i recently blew two kenwood single coil tweleves that were 4 ohms. wire a seperate set of wires to each sub.... Both kenwoods are rated minimum 50rms and max 600rms..... My gain is at a quarter past half or 3/4 up and my other one is the same and the filter was set at 100hz. Head unit was at 100hz.... Bein fine for two months all sets of subs... than one day driverside blows first followed by passenger.... Most recently i had them for.... 3 months worked them in for two weeks by keeping volume way down... than yesterday while driving they cut out.... on further inspection and ohming.... driver side is showing nothing.... passenger side is 1.2ohms..... its trying to hit but when i depress cone it starts pounding so i think i blew a lead on that side. *will take apart later* but drivers side im getting nothing now and i have a faint coil smell.... Question is why do i keep blowing subs over and over again? 1st set of subs were old red letter fosgate punches that were installed at Audio Express a local place.... *I supplied subs so they dont warranty* Second set of subs were DVC 600w 350rms Hifonics twelves.... blew same way out of nowhere....and now SVC 1200w 50-600rms Kenwood twelves.... Could i possibly have a defective amp or head unit ? those last subs were well within the RMS range.... and i didnt hear any distortion from the subs... they were hitting perfectly. Im about to go hang myself with shoe laces.... This is driving me crazy... Also head unit is a Jensen fold out dvd/tv

 

you parcily blew one of the sub coils, and you blew the other, let me clear that with you to get that out of the way.

let me share my story with you. i had a 10" kenwood with a kenwood amp, had a DVC, 2 ohm, wired it down to 1 ohm, amp ran at 900 + Watts rms at that, and the sub claimed 1800 peak, 800 RMS, and it blew in 3 months. their junk, idk what series you have, but kenwood is junk, especially their subs, even their excelion subs. whitch is what i had. that amp is most likly fine, just poorly rated subs, just drop some RF subs in there or maybe even some Alpine Type R' 12"s and you'll be golden, if you want more basy subs, go with some kicker L5's or L7's, those subs will rock your world in a ported box. but are very poor SQ subs, i personaly really like the Polk SR series subs, i have a 12" DVC (dual voice coil) SR, and it's a beutiful sub, it's not a true SQ sub, does great SPL, and great SQ.

 

Sounds to me like you're sending the subs a horribly clipped signal, which is a good way to kill subs. I think that due to your gain setting, 3/4 of the way is pretty high....how did you determine that's where it needed to be set?

Can't do much but guess, and this is mine. So I say set your gain appropriately, throw on some cheap subs and bang out a few songs and see what happens. What I'd be checking for is the dust caps, bang a song a full tilt and then touch the dust caps to see if they're hot/warm. If after banging out a song and full tilt your dust caps are hot then your gain isn't set right and/or the song you were playing was clipped.

When I take my car out to get some system videos, I bang out anywhere from 3-10 songs at full tilt and when i'm all done I'll check my dust caps and there's been a couple times where they were a little warm (which isn't bad after bangin' out 6 songs at full tilt on stock electrical) but for the most part I feel like an idiot to even check cause most of the time they're room temp.

Let me know if you need help on the proper way to set your gain, at least for those of us who don't have an oscilliscope.

 

were they properly broke in. Blaring a brand new sub is never good cause there stiff and the coils are stiff..they need to be loosened before they should be used hard

 

They were properly broke in..... We played them low for two weeks to break them in. As far as setting the gain it was actually a little passed half way. I had Audio express set it for me, after returning to talk with them and talking to a few other people they think i have a defective amp that is surging or something along those lines.... Not sure how that happens... Either way i guess im just goin to do without for awhile until i can replace the amp and subs at the same time. Better safe than sorry Oh and as far as feeling them for heat, I was doing that trick 04MonteLs with these after the previous sets blowing.... Everything was going fine! Thats why i just cant figure out how the hell out of nowhere they just basically blew up lol and burned. They never showed early warning signs like that slight burn smell or anything.

 

i doubt the amps surging, but i'd sitll look into it, but kenwood subs are just junk , like i said. i blew mine with little effort, and i mean completly obliterated it. the coil imploded it's self. cheap construction, the amp was sent back that was on it whe it blew and they tried to charge me for processing on the repair since nothing was wrong with it.

 

Never good huh? I've been putting systems in since 1993 and have NEVER done any special sub break in routine other than playing them as I would normally and have NEVER blown a single sub. And just a FYI, the coils are always going to be stiff seeing as how they're made of wire that's tightly wrapped around a cylindrical tube. What makes a sub "stiff" are the spiders.

I honestly think the sub break in theory is an old wives tale otherwise I surely would have blown some subs by now. However, I did notice that after the suspension loosened up on my subs that they hit noticeably lower.

Could be a bad amp, I guess. Anything is possible. If I were you though I'd set the gain with a dmm, it's not 100% exact but it's better than setting it by ear like they do at Audio Express, home of the $1 install

My brother is running a pair of Kenwood subs with no problem. Every brand is going to have bad eggs from time to time. They aren't the greatest, but not the worst either.

 

yea same here i've never broke in any sub. just be smart when setting up your amp. just because the gains are turned up high doesn't mean its louder. it might sound louder to the ear, but it might not be to a meter. and it sounds like your amp is sending some bad signals causing the problem, like stated above.

 

Hey all...I have been into car audio since about 1974 and have had a number of different kinds of subs over the years. I have learned that no matter what,do not just buy a cheep sub. Now i am not saying that kenwood subs are cheep,some of the newer ones are very good. For about the last 10 years i have had a pair of Kicker Solobaric 10" L5's in a Kicker ported box with a Kicker 750.1 amp (750 watts + into 2 ohms). I run the amp gain at about half way and i have more good bass than i need. Now true,a ported box will give you a little more "boom" in your bass,i like to call it a "fuller sound" bass than a sealed box. But it really depends on the type of music you listen to. I also control the amount of bass from the front of the car via the remote bass modual that comes with the kicker amp. Like i have said,i have had this same system for the last 10 years with no problems at all. I will say this: make sure you have your subs wired in the correct phase and make sure that the positives go to positives and the negatives go to negatives!...If you wire your subs out of phase or reverse the positive and negative wires,no matter what subs you have,they are not going to sound their best....Hopes this helps a little....

 

yeah, kickers are nice, I really love the SPL they can produce but their frequence response ranges are **** poor on aloot of their stuff, sepecily their high end stuff is almost all designed for SPL. if you really want a nice sub, I suggest you take that RF amp and wire it to a RF sub.

this sub right here was practicly bread just for that amp, it has a good frequency response, real low, and handles the higher ones better than that kenwood could ever dream of. the Punch P3D212. you might be able to find a better price, i just like the spec layouts of sonic, they're pretty good when it comes to that. their prices arent the best but they won't screw ya.

http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...ch+P3D212.html


or even this alpine Type R
http://www.sonicelectronix.com/item_...SWR-1223D.html


of course make sure that amp is firing good before you plug a new sub into them but once you got that worked out, these are subs that'll treat ya much better than that kenwood ever could