volfenhags

[hotrod_chevyz]

THE AMP:

Kicker ZR 600. This amp has murdered several 12 and 15 inch RF's. The last set of 15's it sent to hell were kickers with 2 inch voice coils. It ripped the coils clean off the face of the woofer while i was listening to TBC "sludge". Its very obvious this amp puts out more power than kicker said it did when wired up 2 ohm.. needless to say by now i know to hang on to my woofer receipts.

THE SPEAKERS:

Two 12 inch volfenhangs dual 2.5 voice coils, 2 or 4 ohm. SUPPOSEDLY they handle 500W RMS. I figures hey, they are cheap, they look good, and are packaged like no other. I felt pretty bad for them really since ive seen this amp in action before. I wired them up as 2 ohm.

DONT BUY VOLFENHAGS if you know your amp pushes more than 300W RMS!!
Trust me... The inside of your car will smell like its been on fire. And when they blow up some kind of oil or something blows back into your speaker box.

I dont like to jam my system in my driveway (apt). Too many witnesses. So i hooked it all up secretly and then drove it down the street a couple blocks away to try it out. About four blocks away from the house i cranked it up with a bass cd in the reciever. In a matter of one MINUTE we had to pull over to let the smoke out of the car. I opened the trunk and the smoke inside had to clear before i could even see my speaker box. Like straight out of a cheech and chong movie. And the smell will not go away my car now smells like electrical smoke damage still after two days.

Im lucky the amp didnt get damaged.

[sr20de4evr]

Sounds to me like you have your amp set up horribly and are clipping the hell out of it, destroying anything you have attached.

And Volfenhags are crap no matter what amp they're being powered by

[hotrod_chevyz]

The amp is and was set up perfect. This was confirmed by several professionals around town just yesterday. The entire system was checked by more than one professional installer when i took the speakers back to where i bought them. They tried to say i hooked them up wrong. This was dismissed quickly and they would only give refund if they were professionally installed. Considering i hold an electrical licence for the state i live in they made good on the warrenty after they confirmed the error was not mine or with my equipment. They even wanted to check my amp to make sure it wasnt damaged or anything wich they said could cause a problem. They were looking for any excuse not to give me my money back, and found none. The gain was set at around 50% and the wiring was correct and above the standard from what ive seen come from professional installers.

The problem is companies sell speakers and rate them at higher power capacity than what they can actually do.

[hotrod_chevyz]

And yes, volfenhags are crap. I went to wal-mart and bought two 12 inch sony explodes today. Got them hooked up, they sound good and dont catch fire. Bonus. I backed the gain off on the amp to about 40% and so far so good. I dont expect them to last very long because they look like they are pushing pretty dang hard. I turned the gain on the amp down all the way, cranked the stereo up nice and loud and then turned the gain back up on the amp till it looked like it was all they can take. They havent started stinking yet so i guess i will see how it goes.

[pimprolla112]

Originally Posted by hotrod_chevyz

I went to wal-mart and bought two 12 inch sony explodes today. Got them hooked up, they sound good and will catch fire.

I think the only think worse than a set of volfenhags is a set of sony subs. Cmon man purchase some real quality stuff, if the woofer costs 50 off line or 100 at walmart it cant be expected to last long.

Another thing read the RMS rating peak power is NOTHING its a marketing scam to get people to buy stuff. Im going to agree with sr20 your settings are whacked, ive over powered under powered and even set perfect power to subs with no problems. And ive seen a lot of "professionals" before. Do it right the first time and dont waste money.

[hotrod_chevyz]

If your going to quote a person, dont change what they say or it isnt a quote any more.

I dont expect these sonys to last very long. I might return them and go back to 15's. But For the price they are doing okay. Im happy with the sound they make but i dont expect them to live up to the 30 day return warrenty. They are as loud as what a single high end 15 is. The sound quality is average. They do not live up to the power they are rated at. And they are 4 ohm wich sucks.

So lets see how bad my settings are.

The stereo is a 1 week old pioneer. It has several pre-selects in the audio settings like "powerful" "flat" "voice" ect. I dont use any of them. I select "custom" and set it up like this:

-2 to +2 bass
-2 to 0 mid
-1 to +2 high

loudness = off or low
The highest the volume ever sees is 19.

RCA jacks run from the stereo output to the input of the amp. The amp gain control is set usually between 20-50%. The amps MDP is configured as a subwoofer crossover.

Thats about it. Never have i had a set of speakers blow out like the volfenhags did. Even these sonys can take some abuse. A good set of kickers usually lasts me 1-2 years.

[pimprolla112]

You should be getting alot longer life out of subs that 1-2 years, i have an old infinity perfect thats been going since the end of 03, sold it to a friend still works fine. My old MTX is going on 3 and my old setup had subs that where about 10 years old. The only time i have ever blown a sub by accident was when i had my first setup and i messed with the settings on the amp, only took about 20 min. No sub should ever fry unless there overpowered, the amp is clipping or the enclosure has problems, IE free air setups that shouldnt be. You really shouldnt expect a set of speakers you cna pic up for about 50 to last very long, especially if they lis them with thre main features as chrome this or show quality that.

AS for the qoute i was stating the obvious. Sorry it offends anyone but it makes some threads interesting.

[bjboertje]

hehe. i saw a thread on some forum a couple weeks ago where a guy bought one of those 12" walmart xplods and dumped several thousand watts into it (don't remember exactly but i think it was around 4-5k). he was just proving a point about boxes but he hit about 147 db with it. it started to smell after a few burps.

[hotrod_chevyz]

Those speakers claimed 1000 peak 500 RMS. I know i was pushing them at the time they blew but i wanted to see what they could do. My amp is 200 rms shy of what the speakers claim to handle at 2 ohm.

Heres what the book to the amp says.

4 ohm = 150 RMS x2
2 ohm = 300 RMS x2
1 ohm = 600 RMS x1

snr = 100 Db
thd @ rated RMS = .02%

the sony subs at 4 ohm cannot take 150w rms in a large ported box. the volfenhags at 2 ohm cannot handle 300w rms. Both companies are liars. I miss my kicker 15's. But they too claim more power than they can push. At least they lasted me for a bit. Thats what i need to do is invest in better speakers, but for now the sonys may have to do. With the cost of the rest of the system amp,box,reciever, my wallet was hit pretty hard.

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by hotrod_chevyz

Heres what the book to the amp says.

4 ohm = 150 RMS x2
2 ohm = 300 RMS x2
1 ohm = 600 RMS x1

Those specs make no sense

Are you sure that last one is correct, and it's not 600x1 @ 4ohm?

[hotrod_chevyz]

oops i was off. lets try this again.

2 x 150w @ 4 ohms
2 x 300w @ 2 ohms
2 x 275w @ 1 ohm
1 x 600w @ 4 ohms bridged
1 x 600w @ 2.66 ohms bridged
1 x 550w @ 2 ohms bridged

this should be correct my mistake.

[bjboertje]

why is there a rating for 2.66 ohms? companies never rate them that way. and it makes less power at 2 ohms bridged than 4 ohms bridged?

[pimprolla112]

Wow that amp is retarded


http://www.kicker.com/06/tech-suppor.../ZRAmpsMan.pdf

[hotrod_chevyz]

Thats what its rated at according to the original booklet. From what i understand they actually push more than kicker claims. Ive ran it at 2 and 4 ohm. MANY owners would not share the opinion that its retarded. Its a damn good amp so think what you want to about it.

[sr20de4evr]

Originally Posted by bjboertje

why is there a rating for 2.66 ohms? companies never rate them that way.

3 8's in parallel or 3 dual 4's in series/parallel is 2.66

Originally Posted by bjboertje

and it makes less power at 2 ohms bridged than 4 ohms bridged?

rail voltage will drop very quickly when you reach the limits of the power supply, often resulting in less power being available at the lower impedance than a higher impedance because of the large difference in rail voltage in each case.