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hooking up two subs with no amp


GPdriver1986

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I was talking to my friend, he knows quite a bit about car audio, he said if my stereo is 200W I can hook up two subs without using an amp. He said I can either use my front speakers as subs or I can connect the subs to the back speakers, and I can have both running at the same time. Is he right?

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The power rating 200W is your peak rating not your "rms". I would not recommend doing this simply because your subs can get damaged due to lack of power. I'm not sure what kind you'll be hooking up, just my 2 cents which I competed in car audio for 3 summers. Ask any car audio technition about the 200W from a head unit vs. 200W coming out of an amplifier. :wink:

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I would never do it. A "200 watt" head unit is basically 50 watts peak on each channel and only about 20 watts continuous on each channel. if you can bridge any of the channels, you might get 40 watts mono which is nowhere near enough to run even a crappy sub. The best you might be able to do is run a good 6.5 inch mid-bass driver, which might play a bit lower but not as loud as two decent 6.5 inch coaxial speakers.

 

It's just not worth much to try.

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Yes I know I would be underpowering the sub but I don't plan buying subs more expensive then 100$ CAN Pioneers or Kenwoods. Also he said he has a friend with a pickup truck (only door speakers) and he hooked up what was supposed to be for the rear speakers to the subs and he said it sounds decent. I will be buying an amp though later on.

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My frined had 2 Kenwood subs hooked into his speakers for a while before he could afford the amp. It didnt put out any bass at all as there are no built in crossovers, it just reproduced some crappy mid notes. When he hooked up the amp with the built in low pass cross over it only put out bass and sounded awesome at only 75 watts. Im planning on a 300 watt setup if i do put in subs... you'll hear me far far away :-)

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My brother use to have to 8" subs in a box, and he bought two crossovers from radio shack. These actually work good until u get an amp. I would have to say i was very impressed, I have two 100 watt crossovers if ya wanna give it a shot.

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My frined had 2 Kenwood subs hooked into his speakers for a while before he could afford the amp. It didnt put out any bass at all as there are no built in crossovers, it just reproduced some crappy mid notes. When he hooked up the amp with the built in low pass cross over it only put out bass and sounded awesome at only 75 watts. Im planning on a 300 watt setup if i do put in subs... you'll hear me far far away :-)
300 watts? thats it? if you want to be heard from a ways away get something over 1000, then youll be heard. 1000 watts isnt even that much, my sub can handle 1200 watts, and its only a 10 inch, imagine 3 of those with 1000 watts each running through them, you could hear them from a ways away, more than 300 watts going into 1 sub ill tell you that
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Yes I know I would be underpowering the sub but I don't plan buying subs more expensive then 100$ CAN Pioneers or Kenwoods. Also he said he has a friend with a pickup truck (only door speakers) and he hooked up what was supposed to be for the rear speakers to the subs and he said it sounds decent. I will be buying an amp though later on.

 

 

those cheapie pioneers and kenwoods still need a minimum amount of power to not be damaged, and your HU can NOT supply it

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My frined had 2 Kenwood subs hooked into his speakers for a while before he could afford the amp. It didnt put out any bass at all as there are no built in crossovers, it just reproduced some crappy mid notes. When he hooked up the amp with the built in low pass cross over it only put out bass and sounded awesome at only 75 watts. Im planning on a 300 watt setup if i do put in subs... you'll hear me far far away :-)
300 watts? thats it? if you want to be heard from a ways away get something over 1000, then youll be heard. 1000 watts isnt even that much, my sub can handle 1200 watts, and its only a 10 inch, imagine 3 of those with 1000 watts each running through them, you could hear them from a ways away, more than 300 watts going into 1 sub ill tell you that

 

When you say 1000 watts or better, what brand are you talking about. Rockford always under rates there stuff. 1000 watts to them would be like insane! I had a Soundstream amp that pushed 700 watts @1 ohm. I needed it to run 2 12inch subs that had dual voice coils. I ran the subs parallel @ 300 watts per sub and was hitting 143-147 db's. Now that isn't insane, but very uncomfortable to drive around with. My damn throat and chest would feel numb afterwhile. What I'm trying to say is that cheaper car audio companies like Legacy, Kenwood, Jensen and many more over rate there amps. A true 300 watt system that consist of pure power will make you very happy!

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So I'm not gonna bother with this setup, I'm gonna save up my money for an amp. But one question though the HU that I want to buy has a built in crossover, will that make a difference?

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finding a HU with a built in crossover and sub level control is the easiest way to go. Then you don't have to go in the trunk every time you want to change your sound. I'm wishing now that i would have payed the little extra when i bought my deck!

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As I've read, you've probably decided what to do by now. I was simply going to mention that doing any damage to your sub with an installation like this is least of your worries. For the amount of volume you'd have to set just to hear it, your deck would become so damned hot you'll be quickly setting its life expectancy down with each use.

 

Subs are cheap and can sometimes be claimed on warranty - decks are meant to last and be cared for with proper maintenance.

 

Good setups end up with no speaker hookups to the deck at all; however, you can get decent sound from head units now than ever before. Save the bass for a good driver. Even half-decent amps and installation wiring are cheap-cheap.

 

I run a ported 10" off of an older premium Sony amp rated at something like 175 rms and 400 peak. With an electronic crossover, the gain and frequency boost settings are set to about 1/3. I would find something around the same for an amp to drive two subs - anything less might be noticable (especially if running a passive-coil crossover rather than an electronic).

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Headunit will produce Fullrange sound 20khz-20hz

sub plays ~1000khz-20hz you will deffinaly want a crossover/filter on it

Underpowering subs as you have read is very bad. Overpowering is acceptable to a point ANY distortion = death to sub.

if you are going to spend money do it right the first time!

Headunit RCA to a good Sub amp(bridgable with bassboost and crossover) if it has this then its more then likely built to drive subs. Makesure you dont go under or over OHMs by 2 many people dont realize when they blow their peakers that they have improper OHMs load.

Get a wireing kit for god sake! dont run speaker wire as a powerwire for your amp! i have seen it doen many times i kid you not! Get a premade wiering kit with an Inline FUSE.

to find your proper fuse rating look at the amp you purchaced for the clip fuses in it, (add them up if multiple fuses) and that is the fuse you will want on your inline fuse.

example amp as 2 25amp fuses on the amp will take a 50amp inline fuse multiple amp setup 2 amps with 2 25amp fuses. inline fuse should be 100amps.

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Bass...heh...reminds me of a funny night on the streets.

 

While visiting some friends in Vancouver, the three of us went driving around to check out the summer car scene. When we pulled up to a light next to a Civic, we saw two guys grooving their chins to the bass of the music with their windows down. It was pretty damn loud bass too. There were guys in parking lots around us watching them. So, as a joke, my buddy leans out and pretends to yell something at them, only he isn't saying anything. It looked something like he was telling them how cool they were...pff. They noticed, and shout back, "What?!" He does it again, only now just yelling to make mental-sounds, but not audible words. The driver turns his music down, and again they yell, "What?!" My buddy yells at the top of this lungs, "Your license plate is rattling off!" Everyone around us was laughing their asses off. The light was red for quite a while, and I could tell these two were plenty uncomfortable. I never saw two guys drive away looking so embarrased. Hell, he didn't even try peeling out with his four-banger.

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like others said 200W on a deck is rms. And when it peaks at 50 wats per speaker is when teh deck is turned on or turned to full blast right away, after the deck makes up for the quick turn on or turn up in volume it goes to 20-22W per speaker depending on the deck. The 50 each speaker will only last a split second.

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