hey, im in desperate need of assisstance.
ive just bought a Pioneer 12" DVC Sub, each Voice Coil is 4 Ohms, i currently have them running into my Kenwood KAC-929 2 channel amp. theyre wired in as each coil gets a channel, i think its called Parallel wiring (not sure, im only 18 and brand new to the car audio world). now with it wired this way, it runs the amp at 2 Ohms but my amp is not stable at 2 Ohms, its meant to run at 4 Ohms i believe. it will run for about 10 or 15 mins and then shut itself off, or it will not even start in the first place. now i could wire it Series (bridging the amp and the sub) but then it would run at 8 Ohms which would hold my sub back from optimal performance.
basically what im getting at, is there any way to wire a DVC (4 ohms each) sub into the amp to run at 4 Ohms? or are my choices Paralell (2 Ohms) or Series (8 Ohms)?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

in short, you have 4 options.

1, new amp
2, new sub
3, an additional dual 4ohm/vc sub
4, half the power running to the existing set up and be happy it doesn't shut off every ten minutes.

 

well im basically broke cuz i just bought this car, so i think ill run it at 8 Ohms with half the power till i save for anything else. thnx for the help

 

Congrats on the new purchase.
IMO, the best way to connect your DVC subwoofer is to connect each 4 Ohm Coil in series to each other, creating an 8 Ohm load to the amplifier, then Connecting the Amplifier in Bridged Mono to the Subwoofer. The amplifier will react to "Half" the load presented, so it will operate at 4 Ohms, and chances of it shutting down will be reduced to nil, provided your charging system is working well.
I'd suggest you consider adding a stiffening capacitor, of at least 1/2 Farad @16 Volts (min), to help you sub amplifier from damaging your charging system in case you crank it up.

 

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. If he's running one set of speaker wires to each Voice Coil from each channel/terminal, then each channel is getting a 4ohm resistance. And therefore, the amp should be outputting 150W to each channel, which in turn, sends 150W to each Voice Coil. Hard to find specs on this older amp, but from what I can see, it'll put out 150W x 2 (4ohms), 230 x 2 (2ohms), and 460W x 1 bridged (4ohms)...
Does the total load become 2ohm somewhere inside the amplifier?

I mean if he had both speaker (+) terminals wired to 1 amp (+) terminal and both speaker (-) terminals wired to 1 amp (-) terminal, then that would put the voice coils in parallel, and bring the load down to 2 ohms.

I'd double-check your wiring and make sure you haven't crossed them anywhere.

Take some pictures of what you've got. That'd help immensely.

 

i bridged the dual coils on the sub and i bridged the two channels on the amp... is that wrong? cuz i blew both 30 Fuses on my amp... so i definately frigged something up in the wiring. is it possible to bridge the sub and then run those (+) and (-) to only one channel on the amp and leave the other one empty?

 

Yeah, you're creating a 2 ohm load for the amplifier that, when bridged, can only handle a 4ohm load. You need each set of voice coil terminals wired to their own amplifier terminal. This isn't a mono amp, with a pair of terminals. Its a 2 channel amp.
I guess its kinda hard to wire it that way when there's only one terminal jack on the side of the sub box...

 

Can you remove the wire terminal cup? You might be able to put in a cup that has two terminals on it, then just wire one channel to each voice coil. Your sub will be getting a total of 300 watts.

 

Bridging the voice coils would put an 8ohm load on that single amplifier channel, which means it would probably only output about 75Watts. It would be a waste of that new subwoofer you bought.

Have the box modified so each voice coil goes to its own wire terminal on the side of the box. You'd have two terminals, but it would work. Then you'd wire each amp channel to each voice coil. Effectively putting 300W to the subwoofer.

I don't understand how the amplifier would react to half the load when bridged, like Eli said. Could you explain? Bridged at 4ohm the amplifier will produce 460W to the one channel you create with you bridge the amp. But since you'd put an 8ohm load on the amp, after wiring the voice coils in series, you probably get about 230W to the sub.

I like my idea better. lol

*Edit: Read Scuba's post for an easy way of doing what I suggested.

 

you cannot hook up one channel to each voice coil because it's a two channel amp IN STEREO if you do so you will almost surely damage the voice coils of the sub. They need to see the exact same signal. Follow Eli47's
advice as it is the correct wiring information
If you want more power you will need to get a mono block amplifier that is stable at a 2 ohm load.