I bought a sub off of my little brother, sight unseen. He said he knew nothing about it. Except that it was big.

$20 later, I find out it is a Blaupunkt 15". But, that's about all I can find out. lol. I can barely make it out on the front. Because it looks like it's from 1973. It says BLAU in big blue letters on the dust cap. It also says 'Pro Component'. It says nothing about watts, nothing about ohms, nothing about any kind of model or serial number anywhere on either side of the sub. It is sitting in a white basket.

Now, I'm trying to figure out if there is any way I can find out the rating on this sub. I've googled extensively, and haven't been able to find it anywhere.
At the moment, I have it hooked up to a kenwood kac-7202 which is only giving out 150 rms to the sub. I barely have the gain up on the thing at all. 20 dollars is enough that I don't want to blow the thing up for no reason.

What is the best way to test the sub? To find out how much I can give it, without giving it too much in the process?

Thanks to all that can chime in!

 

well first id say its very important to know what OHM it is before you blow an amp up. or overheat it. take a Digital multi meter and put the negative on the negative terminal, positive on the positive. switch it over to ohms. and it will tell you. then post back. if its a dual voice coil check all the terminals to make sure one of the coils isnt blown.

 

It's a SVC. I'm pretty sure it said 4-ohm on the magnet. Just wasn't positive. Do I need to disconnect it from the amp before I check the ohms? Car should be off, right?

 

not 100% postive but i think you can check it while its hooked up just turn the car off... although i would un hook the speaker wires to be safe.. just unhook the wires and hook the DMM up to those wires and it will tell you.

 

Sounds good. Gimme 10 minutes.

 

3.8 ohms, sir.

 

yupp its a 4ohm subwoofer. now.. this is the interesting part. i dont think there is a way to test wattage. but this may take a few days of tunning and figuring it out. your not giving it much power as it is. so i think that sub can handle 150 watts RMS, thats not much. here is one way to tell. distortion! your sub will sound like crap if you put to much power on it. and it will get smelly! if you smell something bad turn it down a little. and keep the 4/10ths 1/2 of the way up. and just use your volume on the head unit. i dont know how old that sub is but my guess is it can probably do 150 watts. they make 6.5 door speakers that do that much these days.

 

So, basically, just give it a little more power every little while and check on it to make sure it's handling well? By the '4/10ths' do you mean the gain on the amp?

 

thats my suggestion. if a sub takes to much power it will get hot and it will smell. my back seat is non exsistant now for SPL reasons. i can always smell my subs when they heat up. for a little while just ride with the rear seat folded down. so you can keep an eye on it. yes like turn the amp gain just before halfway(4/10s) or 1/2 way. if you lived in florida i could tune ur stuff with my DD-1 then you would know exactly how high it can go.

 

Ahh! So jealous of the dd-1. Thanks for all the help, man. I guess I'll see how she handles for the next few days. I really don't expect any problems out of it, seeing as the amp is rated so low. I would imagine, no matter how old, that a Blaupunkt 15" would be more than able to handle 150 rms.