running a single 12" with 4 gauge wire and a 400 watt amp. anyone have any good setups for it?

 

What do you mean by a good setting?

I would face the port to the back of the trunk, or the face of the sub to the back of the trunk. I would turn your sub up to about the highest level that you'll be playing at and change the gain and tune so that it is sounding how it should, this way you lessen the risk of burning out the voice coils.

What setup are you running?

 

Only a 400 watt amp? I'd suggest getting something bigger, just my opinion though.

 

How can you say that without knowing what sub/amp combo he is running? Unless he posted what it was and I didn't see it.

 

In my experience, 400 watts isn't quite enough to make it bump.

I had a 12" Kicker in the Monte with a 400 watt amp, and it wasn't good enough for MY personal liking. Now I have a 600 watt bridged amp and a 10" Kenwood in the Prelude and me likey...

 

It's 100% dependent on the sub, I thought you knew what sub he has.

I'd still like to know. It also depends a good amount on ohms and the overall setup. My 4-ohm Alpine Type-R 10" is running on 300 watts RMS and it's voice coils have seen it's better days (not to the end but they're slowly kind of losing the loudness unfortunately), and it's louder than a lot of my buddies systems, one is particular that is 2-12" Type-R's 2 ohms, running 500 watts RMS.

Another big factor is the box, my box is built completely to specs for my sub, so it helps to make the most of my sub.

 

Running a dual amp with a single JL that is bridged.

 

I run a 500 watt amp I fined as I get older it don't need as much bump so I think what he's running will be fine as long as he just looking for something a little extra besides the factory radio / amp if his car has one

 

i have 800 watts on my 2 10's i just want a ported box i took out one of the the back wire caps and it rocks but i think a real ported box would fix the low end right now theres alittle rattle because the hole relieves more pressure on one sub that the other i hate sealed boxes

 

It all kind of depends on the sub and the enclosure you're running also. You're probably fine if it's a JL lower series sub like a W0... if it's a W6 you're choking it and will probably run into some issues down the line.

With the caps out you're probably not really helping yourself at all, you're just basically introducing a leak into a sealed box. I would put them back on until you can get a proper box built for those subs.

That's just me though