Fried L5s

[AndonD454]

Hey so this weekend my buddys amp shut off after he was listening to music for like 20 minutes, then he tried shuting his car off and starting it back up and it came back on but the subs werent playing (2 10" L5s).. he didnt know what was goin on and after a while decided to take his subs out of his box to see if a wire came loose or soemthing. hah smoke poured everywhere (it was sealed) and his subs were really hot. his amps fine because it went into protection but his subs are fried.

Any suggestions as to why you think that happened. he was giving them about 1000 rms (which is about 50 over each subs rating).. but he didnt have his music or sub level up all the way so i dont think it was getting that whole 1000 rms. it was a rockford fosgate power 1000t or something.. but he had his subsonic filter at like 23hz or soemthing and his LPF at like 90 hz., so he wasnt like running them at much higher or lower fqs than they should handle.. but he said nothing was unusual when this happened as far as he knows. the amp just shut off and his subs were toast.

hes wondering if kickers gonna fix em in warranty or if he screwed up and hes gonna have to buy new subs. but he needs to know what went wrong first and so i said i could ask you guys. any help would be great

[sr20de4evr]

he overpowered them

the amp could have been clipping, or possibly sending out DC....where was his gain set?

[KMoney28]

I might be mistaken but I believe L7's take 750 rms so L5's would have to be less than that unless they are the SoloX series? Sounds like they're fried if that's the case, how long have the subs been hooked up and playing with that amount of rms?

[aznxthuggie]

im not sure why they were blown, but....
the L5's are supposed to run at 450rms, and.. also why does he have his subsonic filter on.. in a sealed box? before u try to argue with me, sit in the car, with the volume at 0, and you'll hear a little humming sound coming from the sub, if you touch the sub, it'll probably be moving, ssf should be used for ported boxes

my guess is that he had the wiring wrong, and the amp sent a horribly clipped signal to the subwoofers.. which killed them, and the amp of course went into protection... bad wiring!! make sure he wired the subs to the right ohm load

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by aznxthuggie

also why does he have his subsonic filter on.. in a sealed box? before u try to argue with me, sit in the car, with the volume at 0, and you'll hear a little humming sound coming from the sub, if you touch the sub, it'll probably be moving, ssf should be used for ported boxes

Why would the sub be humming if he had a ssf on? All it is is a highpass filter with a very low cutoff frequency.

[AndonD454]

ok well first when i said they were like 50 rms overpowered.. i meant total.. they handle 450 each (supposedly) totalling 900 for two.. so 100 rms over to each sub makes it 50 over.. sorry i didnt mean to sound like they were 950 rms each or somethin...

anyways.. the only thing i could think was that thy were over powered.. sr20 i think the gain was about a quarter of the way up.. and his preouts are 4 volt i think.. but it came with a remote punch bass thing and i think when he fried em he had this most of the way up.. is this like a gain control or more like a bass boost? either way im sure it shouldnt have been up high. and this probably sent the distorted or clipped signal. but im almost positive he wired them right.. i helped him wire them and we had em to 2 ohms.. just in a series and then in parallel to the amp (theyre dual 2 ohm). but i wouldnt be surprised if they were just overpowered like most of you said or had a clipped signal or both.

so im assuming kicker wont do anything to help since it was probably his fault.. but i know to be careful with my power if i ever get kickers cause i wonder if their rms ratings are a little over the real world rms

thanks though for the help ill tell him

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by AndonD454

sr20 i think the gain was about a quarter of the way up.. and his preouts are 4 volt i think.. but it came with a remote punch bass thing and i think when he fried em he had this most of the way up.. is this like a gain control or more like a bass boost?

Could be either, it just depends on how the amp maker designed it. Either way, if it was most of the way up then there's a VERY good chance the amp was clipping. Since the speakers were being overpowered already, clipping the amp on top of that would REALLY take its toll.

They might be warranted, they shouldn't, but a lot of times local shops don't really care and they'll exchange them anyway, so it's worth a shot.

And kickers can handle their rated power pretty well, but depending on how badly your friend was clipping his amp (if he was indeed clipping it), he could have been sending those subs up to 1000rms EACH (2000rms in total). That's in the unlikely event that he was sending them a 100% clipped signal and the amp's power supply was able to keep up with the power demands, which it most likely couldn't. BUT, 7-800rms per sub is entirely within reach with that amp if it's clipping. Clipping is one of the most dangerous things in audio, and is easily the cause for most of the blown speakers out there. That's why it's so important to set the gain properly (listening for clipping using test tones) and not use the bass boost unless you actually know what you're doing.

[crown86]

I had a wire break on my L7 looks like it was rubbing on someting andbroke think kicker will do anything the other wires look like the rubbed on something too let me know thanks

[AndonD454]

im pretty sure theyll replace it or fix it. go to a kicker dealer and tell them cause i think that most warranties cover any manufacturer defects or anything that wasnt messed up due to improper use or installation

[sr20de4evr]

clipping the amp and therefore thermalling the subs is "improper use", there's no way around that

[AndonD454]

was that for me or for crown 86?

[sr20de4evr]

You, you said that most manufacturer warranties cover problems that didn't arise because of improper use.

That's true, but 99% of the time if you thermal a speaker it's because of improper use, especially if it was already overpowered AND the amp was clipping on top of that. Actually I don't know of 1 defect that a speaker could have that would cause the coil to fry during normal use. The only possibilities are smaller gauge windings or less cooling, neither of which is even possible in a manufacturing process, at least not that I'm aware of.

Now if the coil became misaligned and started rubbing, or if the spider tore, or the cone cracked, etc, then that would be another issue, but fried coils aren't caused by a defect.

Either way, it's still worth a shot, sometimes the manufacters don't care because they know that the loyalty and repeat business they will gain is more important than the cost of replacing that one speaker.

[AndonD454]

oh yeah i figured that was to me.. hes gonna check but i told him his chances are slim.. anyways when i was talking about something being covered by a warranty i was just replying to crown.. he said something about like his tinsel leads breaking and messing up his sub so i told him if nothing was his fault it should be fixed under warranty.. i didnt mean to sound like i was thinking my friends would be covered. i figured as soon as i knew smoke was involved that a warranty wasnt likely.

[AndonD454]

also sr20 i heard youre from SA... my dad lives down there and i still visit him a couple times a year. are there any good audio shops down there. i havent been to any but im sure theres gotta be some better than here in ohio. there are only like 2 here and they both kinda suck. if you know of one or two id like to check em out next time im down there.

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by AndonD454

oh yeah i figured that was to me.. hes gonna check but i told him his chances are slim.. anyways when i was talking about something being covered by a warranty i was just replying to crown.. he said something about like his tinsel leads breaking and messing up his sub so i told him if nothing was his fault it should be fixed under warranty.. i didnt mean to sound like i was thinking my friends would be covered. i figured as soon as i knew smoke was involved that a warranty wasnt likely.

hah, sorry I got confused, I thought that you were someone else replying to the original poster....forgot that you WERE the original poster. Anyway, you might be right about his, it all depends on how it broke. There's a chance that it was overexcursion which wouldn't be covered, but there's also the chance that it was weak and just broke, which should definitely be covered. Sorry that was my bad

And yes there is one very nice store down here that I just found out about recently. The only ones I knew about before were the normal car toys/tweeter/*insert other store here that sells the exact same stuff as both of the aformentioned ones*, that carry the normal kicker, JL, alpine, eclipse, etc. I just found one though called Dynamic Sounds, they're an authorized retailer for Arc, Macintosh, Tru, Rainbow, Genesis, Dynaudio, and I forgot what else. The owners actually know what they're talking about too, I went there for the first time to check out the Arc amps and I got talking with them, they're some of the few people I have EVER met who knew about Linear Power, Adire, Morel, Scanspeak, etc (plus all the stuff they carried that 99% of people have never heard of). The owner had his own TT Supra that he was building up, fully sponsored by Arc, and in his other car he was running Peerless drivers and Genesis amps. They had a photo album there with various installs they had done, among all the normal cars there were a few Lamborghinis and Ferraris in there. I feel bad ordering my Arc the day before I went there (I was just checking them out to see what I could expect when mine got here), the guy was real nice and talkative too. I think he was just as excited to find a customer who actually knew their stuff as I was to find a dealer who actually knew their stuff.