I wanted to get into the car audio scene and I got a great deal on 2 generic 10" subs, a box, a Rockford 201s amp, and an 8 gauge wiring kit for $80. I bought it to learn about installing stereos and car audio in general. Right now I have the 2 tens sharing the same air space in the sealed box. The amp is a 2 channel, and one sub is hooked up to each channel. It really doesn’t sound too bad, I’d just like to play around with it and see how much I can get out of it. Is there a better way to set this up? My buddy told me I should put a divider in the box, bridge the amp, and wire the subs up in parallel. The subs are 4 ohm by the way.

 

It depends on the voice coil configuration of the subs. You say they are 4 ohm, is that single or dual voice coils?

If they're SVC, running the subs in parallel will create a 2 ohm load. I haven't seen many amps that are 2 ohm stable when the 2 channels are bridged. I'd be surprised if that RF amp was capable of operating that way. Upon checking specs, its not.

This amp will do 200W x 1 @ 4 ohm, when bridged. If one of these subs can handle that much power, you could put 200W to one driver, instead of 50W to each. That's an option that might give you louder and more controlled bass.

Then you could build a slot ported enclosure for one sub to help get more bass out of it.

 

What subs do you have? It will be easier to make box recommendations if we know what you are running.

 

The subs are from a company called Quest, and they are only single voice coil. I know they're just cheap, but they do have an aluminum cone, somewhat thick surround and a decent amount of travel. I was wondering if running one sub would be better, but all they say on them is 250 watts, and I doubt that’s nominal. I also have a Pioneer TS-W254c 250rms 10", that I’ve never tried. Do you think that would be a better choice than the 2 Quest's? Also what about running the Quest's in series?

 

Anybody have any ideas, opinions or recommendations?

 

I'd recommend bridging the amp and running the Pioneer. I couldn't find any info about Quest subs, but running at 8 ohms (series) would only be about 50 watts per sub. Using the Pioneer it will get 200 watts. Build a nice ported box and away you go.

 

Thanks for the reply and I also couldn't find any info about the Quest's. I think I am going to run the pioneer. I'm going to start with a sealed box because I'm limited on space. The pioneer says on the back it's for a 0.8 cubic foot sealed box. What info would you need to do all the calculations to build a good ported box?

 

build a nice ported box for the pioneer 10 and bridge tha amp to it