Is it wise to install your subwolfers before you get an amp?

[12audiobahn]

I have some brand new subs and i'm just itching to get them installed before i buy an amp. is that to risky or is it a safe chance?

[sr20de4evr]

what exactly are you planning on powering them with?

[NeonAtron]

Dont do it. Just wait because it would be pretty pointless. With no amp to drive it there would be no power.

[oraxid24124]

no b/c you can actually hurt a sub more by underpowering it than overpowering........just alil something i learned from a stereo shop

[superducky55]

Originally Posted by oraxid24124

no b/c you can actually hurt a sub more by underpowering it than overpowering........just alil something i learned from a stereo shop

you're right, it's usually easier to blow your sub via underpower than it is to overpower it
never hook a sub up to the speaker line from a headunit or something.. that's crazy and stupid, especially since the headunit puts out freq. that the speaker can't handle

[sr20de4evr]

neither of you are right

you can't hurt a sub by underpowering it, not in any way shape or form, anyone who says that you can has no idea how electricity or speakers work.

you also can't hurt a sub by sending it frequencies that are too high....a sub can "handle" any frequency you give it, unless you send it so much power at such a low frequency that you drive it past its mechanical range.

[CBFryman]

THANK YOU SR20. i hate it when kids say "make sure to get exact power ratings of your amp and speakers. underpowering will kill woofers jsut like over powering.
TRUTH: if supplying a woofer with less power than rated at thermaly hurts the coil or suspension in any way then everytime you turned down your system your woofers would blow.
Fact: idiots and uneducated (or both) people kill woofers, NOT POWER. if a coil is rated to 300w real world RMS it doesnt matter if you send it a perfectly clean 300w, a heavily clipped 300w, or a DC 300w, if the coild can truely handle 300w then it will not burn.
MYTH: Putting a 1000w amp on a 500w woofer will hurt the woofer.
FALSE...
Truth: taking a 1000w amp and running a 500w woofer wont hurt the woofer. imporperly set gains set by stupid installers hurt the woofer. you can turn the gains down to only supply the woofer with 500w and the amp will run cooler and the signal will be cleaner.
Myth: playing 10kHz into a woofer with a roll off at say 300Hz will hurt the woofer.... FALSE
Truth: as i said before, power is power. one watt is one joule of energy persecond, or one columb of electrons (6.238*10^23 i think, ahhh i forgot) per second being pushed by one volt. a DC signal of a lower voltage will put out the same wattage through a given resistance as a clean AC signal of a higher voltage peak. if you knew even the basics of electricity you should know this. if a speaker is rated thermally (which all good, high end companies do) then it doesnt matter what signal you put into it. if the coil can handle it, it wont be blown.
The TRUTH about 'UNDERPOWERING': In reality taking a 500w amp and putting it on a 1000w woofer will not hurt the woofer (well it will if you use a 500w amp to brake the woofer in, which many people who do self installs and alot of your run of the mill auto stereo installers do, it will hurth the suspension because it wont reach full excursion and loosen up. if you switch to a higher wattage later then the suspension will not be correct). what happens is the 500w amp will supply 500w to the woofer, the woofer may not reach full excursion but it shouldnt hurt the woofer unless it is suverely underrated. what really happens is some kid screws with the gains and sees that if he turns the gain up it gets louder but distorted. then the amp has to put out the extra unrated wattage by clipping the signal, this gives short periods of DC power. which, as we know, DC of a lower voltage will give the same wattage as AC with a higher voltage peak.
so lets say an amp that is rated to 500w clean into a 4ohm load. aprox. it would take aprox. 45v DC to reach 500w. at our given frequincy, lets say it takes a 80v peak to make 500w. when we beign to clip the signal we are giving short periods of 80v DC. lets say it is heavily clipped and for every 2sec of playing there is 1sec of 80v DC. thats an extra 1600w on top of the 500w that the AC signal is giving. now in this extreme case the amp would blow a fuse or blow its self before it proided 2100w. but this is an exagerated example. of corse 2100w is going to kill a 500w woofer. but this is only because there was a heavily clipped signal caused by improperly set gains because osme kid wanted his system to be a little louder.

What we learned: Read above.

[NeonAtron]

Hey thanx for the lesson, really makes sence.

also, that box you have in ur sig is #%@#ing mean!

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by CBFryman

In reality taking a 500w amp and putting it on a 1000w woofer will not hurt the woofer (well it will if you use a 500w amp to brake the woofer in, which many people who do self installs and alot of your run of the mill auto stereo installers do, it will hurth the suspension because it wont reach full excursion and loosen up. if you switch to a higher wattage later then the suspension will not be correct).

No such thing as "breaking in" a sub, yes it will break in over time, but you don't have to treat it any differently during this period. Eventually the suspension will loosen up and the sub will become a little more efficient and/or sound a little warmer, but this happens on its own, you don't have to do anything special to the sub for this to happen, and beating on it like normal won't hurt it during this special period (as long as you don't physically abuse the speaker by bottoming it out, that will do damage whether it's broken in or not).

The whole "break in" period is really for you, not the driver. It's so that you start off easy and slowly push the sub harder and harder, so that if/when you find the physical limits of the driver you do it gradually and hopefully without damage, instead of cranking it up immediately and driving the sub WAY past its limits and destroying it before you even know what you did.

[Haibane]

Originally Posted by sr20de4evr

No such thing as "breaking in" a sub, yes it will break in over time, but you don't have to treat it any differently during this period. Eventually the suspension will loosen up and the sub will become a little more efficient and/or sound a little warmer, but this happens on its own, you don't have to do anything special to the sub for this to happen, and beating on it like normal won't hurt it during this special period (as long as you don't physically abuse the speaker by bottoming it out, that will do damage whether it's broken in or not).

The whole "break in" period is really for you, not the driver. It's so that you start off easy and slowly push the sub harder and harder, so that if/when you find the physical limits of the driver you do it gradually and hopefully without damage, instead of cranking it up immediately and driving the sub WAY past its limits and destroying it before you even know what you did.

I can find plenty of people that will argue there is more of a breaking in period, but I do agree on your statement.

[bumpinstang77]

I never break subs in. Never had a problem. Now subs DO break in as the fs drops and the q's (which I don't know much about) I think rises or sumthin like that....it plays deeper and smoother once broken in.

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by Haibane

I can find plenty of people that will argue there is more of a breaking in period, but I do agree on your statement.

yeah, there are a bunch of people on both sides of the argument

the way I see it is this:
The point of "breaking in" a sub is to loosen up the suspension before you try to push it too hard. I have 2 problems with that. First is that no damage can be done to the sub in any way if the motor puts out a certain amount of power and because the suspension is stiffer than it "should be" the cone doesn't move as far. Second is that the only way to loosen up the suspension is to stretch it out, the only way to stretch it out is to send it a good bit of power and really get it moving. Leaving it on low power will barely loosen up anything, as soon as you actually feed it a good bit of power that's when the actual break in will occur, so no matter how long you spent sending the sub low power in an attempt to "break it in", it's all moot once you actually turn up the volume.

Now I do normally break in my subs, but that's because I wait until I have the sub in my hands before building the box that way I can get all the motor clearances right and everything. So while the sub is sitting there waiting on a box, I just let it play a 10hz wave freeair in my room while I'm working. About 10 hours of constant full excursion gets it loosened up nice so that when I actually get it in the car it's pretty well broken in already and the sound doesn't change all that much (that way I don't have to level match it again after it breaks in).

[CBFryman]

Well a brake in period isnt needed, i never did it with my home sub. however i still reccomend a proper brake in, ive never had a woofer screw up or sound wrong because of improper brake in because i always brake them in free air or IB. however, i have heard stories, many, and many sound very beleive able about a muffled sort of sound at high excursions if the woofer wasnt broken in to its full ability before being placed in an enclosure.

[CBFryman]

Originally Posted by NeonAtron

Hey thanx for the lesson, really makes sence.

also, that box you have in ur sig is #%@#ing mean!

That enclosure is a basically SPL enclosure (not going all out SPL but made for big bass) i made for a friend's DD3500's. Very loud. he compeats. in an Infinity G35 (not exactly an SPL friendly vehicle) he hit 145.2dB on 1500w RMS each. its 4.2 cuft and i think 38Hz tuning.