Are my subs blown?

[coots57]

Earlier today me and a friend were seeing whose system was better i have two pioneer premier 10 inch subs and im temporarily am running a 222 watt sony explode amp. So i was listening to it and i turned the amp all the way up for more base. it played for a minute the the bae kicked in and it distorted really bad. then they wouldnt work and my amp light was not on. So when i got home i replaced every wire in the whole system. Now the subs work but when the base kicks in they distort and pop randomly. The base will work all the way up to volume 10 but after that they pop and fade in and out. So are my subs blown or is it the amp?

[Greg Peters]

Grab a digital multimeter and measure across the voice coil terminals on each sub, each voice coil. Resistance drastically lower than specified by Pioneer isn't a good sign. Scratchy noises from the coils when you gently push down on the cones isn't a good sign either.

There are two ways to kill a subwoofer- thermal damage (to the voice coils) or mechanical damage (to parts of the motor assembly, tinsel leads, surrounds). Thermal damage comes from exceeding your speakers' rated power for a significant amount of time, while mechanical damage comes from exceeding excursion limits, or allowing a sub in a ported (or too large) enclosure "unload" by playing tones below it's tuned frequency at high volume for extended periods.

Sony Xplod amps aren't terribly clean or strong, but if you turned the gains all the way up it will put out more than rated power with a dirty clipped signal that your subs won't appreciate- bottom line is, depending on which subs you have and how you've installed them you could have damaged them. Do the tests above to rule out one or the other.

[dudeinaroom]

Turn the gain back down n the amp? If the bass kicks on and off by it's self most likely you have a bad ground from the amp to the car, or you are overdriving the amp. Turning the gain back down might help your problem. turn the gain all the way down. Go in the car put on some thing bass heavy, and turn up the volume until you hear distortion, themn back the volume down until it is gone. next with the volume still up go do the same to your amp.

[ntculenuff]

best yet consider the amp and subs blown and start over with bigger and badder subs and amp that way you will no doubt hands down have more bass than your friend :D:D:D

[jiaan13]

Grab a digital multimeter and measure across the voice coil terminals on each sub, each voice coil. Resistance drastically lower than specified by Pioneer isn't a good sign. Scratchy noises from the coils when you gently push down on the cones isn't a good sign either.

There are two ways to kill a subwoofer- thermal damage (to the voice coils) or mechanical damage (to parts of the motor assembly, tinsel leads, surrounds). Thermal damage comes from exceeding your speakers' rated power for a significant amount of time, while mechanical damage comes from exceeding excursion limits, or allowing a sub in a ported (or too large) enclosure "unload" by playing tones below it's tuned frequency at high volume for extended periods.

Sony Xplod amps aren't terribly clean or strong, but if you turned the gains all the way up it will put out more than rated power with a dirty clipped signal that your subs won't appreciate- bottom line is, depending on which subs you have and how you've installed them you could have damaged them. Do the tests above to rule out one or the other.

Very well put.

[litlred515]

just go buy bigger better stuff