Need Adice! - Polk DX12 sub

[carney115]

Hey,

Whats goin on. I;m havin a problem with my car audio system. At medium volume levels the bass from my sub sounds great but when i crank up the volume it gets real sloppy and doesn't sound clean at all. I have a Kenwood KAC 7202 2 channel amp which puts out 460 watts bridged. I have one polk dx 12 inch sub in a sealed box. The sub can handle 400 watts max and is 4 ohms with a single voice coil. I have all this in a honda pilot SUV. I was thinking that maybe i need to upgrade my subwoofer. If thats the case could someone suggest a sub that would sound good with my amp. I really don't know too much about this stuff. Could this also be an amp tuning problem? Any suggestions or advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

[MacLeod]

It could be a couple of things.

-Most likely you could have the gain set too high. Normally you wont have it set any higher than the 12:00 position. Here (http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/dhuston/gains.html) is a link to a great gain setting walkthru. With your gains set too high your amp is clipping and sending out a distorted signal to your sub which it is dutifully reproducing as crappy sound.

-Your amp may be making more than its 460 watts which is already 60 more than this sub is able to handle.

-Your box may not be air tight.

[carney115]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check out that site. If my box is not air tight what can i do to fix the problem?

[neomagus00]

if you're thinking about replacing the sub, that depends on budget and the kind of music you listen to...

and if your box isn't airtight, the easiest way that i've found to fix it is to run a bead of liquid nails or similar around the inside of the box on the seams, then simply smooth it out with a finger... it looks like a professional caulk seal, and will make the seams completely airtight (of course, it requires a bit of contortion to get your hand under the front panel of the box, but it's well worth it). under the mounting ring of the sub, you can put 1/2 weather stripping (a foam strip with adhesive backing) and then screw the sub tightly down on top of that, and that'll keep air from escaping out around the sub.

[carney115]

what kind of sub do you suggest to runn with my Kenwood 7202 which puts out 460 rms? I mostly listen to rap and techno

[neomagus00]

let's use the thread in the subwoofer forum, yah?

[carney115]

yea, posted it to both my mistake