... Underpowering a speaker cannot alone blow it. Lots of times when using too small of an amp people decide to crank the gains and volume- this blows the speaker by delivering a severely clipped signal.

 

personally I see no reason to have more than one sup when one of them is a 12W7.

but that's just me.

beyond that...those are different amps.
if you try to send the same amount of power to each...i.e. off the same amp, you're gonna be unhappy.

it's not gonna sound right at all. Things won't be hitting at the same levels.
One of those has something like 3 times the RMS rating. The w7 is a beast.

basically I'd run two amps or I just run the W7 alone. Trust me..you power that thing right and you won't need anything else. Get yourself a JL 1000/1 and push that W7 and you'll be hitting rediculously. Believe you me.

So yeah..that's my advice...get a JL 1000/1 and run one sub.

If you want to run both. I'd probably under power the w7 a bit to level it out with the othe sub. Get two JL 500/1's.

 

Narrowed it down to these amps to power 2 sets of 6.5" Infinity Kappa, and a Polk/Momo 10" in an enclosed plexiglass box.

They are all 4 channel
What's the call?

Fosgate 801x for $290
Kicker KX 600.4 for $210
Audiobahn A6004T for $210

I've heard that Watt numbers aren't the whole story - I was looking for some inside info.

 

OneManArmy has the right idea. Put the 12w3 in your ladies car and leave the bass to the real speaker, the 12w7. Put a JL 1000/1 on it and have the gains properly set and hold on. The JL 450/4 will make a great highs amp and matches the 1000/1 in size. These amps will make more power then most other amps due to their power supply technology called "RIPS". Basically, 'RIPS" is a very smartly designed, highley regulated power supply that will allow the amp to produce full power inspite of falling battery voltages. A unregulated power supply will see the amps output power fall as battery voltage falls. Thats the big problem with brands like Rockford and Kicker, they are unregulated designs because they are cheaper and easier to design. Buy the JL 1000/1 and run the 12W7 and hold on.

Good Luck

 

Rupedawg, how do you plan to run 2 sets of speakers and a sub off four channels? If you want to maintain a stereo signal, you must run them (the kappas) @ 4 ohms, meaning you must use all 4 channels to power them. I would advise highly against using two channels and running the speakers parallel- you will get a mono signal and you will be more likely to blow your speakers (@2ohms = 2x the power @4ohms) unless you turn the gains way down, and who wants to do that? . My suggestion would be to get a less powerful 4 channel to power the speakers (the 800x is overkill- RF rates their amps at 14.4 volts rather than 12, meaning they produce more power than they say they do. The certificate that came with my 2001 series RF 200.4 says it can push 444 watts @ 2 ohms)- and get a RF mono amp for the sub (do you already have the sub? is it DVC or SVC?) With a DVC, you can run a mono amp @ 2 ohms and get msot of the power out of it. BTW, a stereo signal is not important for bass.

This is my input.. I'd like to see what others have to say

 

so, do those JL amps w/ RIPS that you talk about have a built in capacitor? A seperate cap accompanies my two RF amps, and I have no problems at all with voltage drops. W/ a JL amp pushing 1000w+, you would probably need a seperate cap anyway to prevent headlight/interior light dimming when the bass hits... Cool if it doesn't, but I can't see how it wouldn't. As far as amp selection... every good brand has different special features that they plug to sell their product and make theirs seem better than all else. For instance, who can match RF's circuitry protection? None that I know of. Personally, I go by my own experience. None of the RF amps that I or any of my friends have owned have died, but we have plenty of other brands to fill the "amp graveyard" as we call it. Until they fail me or I see significant advantages elsewhere, I'm stickin w/ RF

But thats just me... Look into it and decide for yourself.

 

with any amps at all I'd suggest a cap. Our alternaters suck. I will be running just a 300/4 for a while..maybe permanently and I will be running a 1 farat cap.

I'd suggest getting like a 5 farat cap...they are easy enough to wire in and hide if you get one of those box type ones. But at the very least I'd get some sort of cap with 1500 watts going to your stereo.

As for RF...I've seen a few die but they do have a great durability record. My first JL went out because of an install error on the shops part. Pissed me off. And even then it was only part of one channel.

JL sold more 500/1 than any individual amp on the market from any other company last year. I'm sure there is a reason for it.

 

ScoobSport -

I was planning on running the Kappa's w/ 1 channel per each pair.
The guy at the audio shop suggested I run it that way.

However if there are potential problems like the ones you suggested (loss of stereo to the kappas, etc.), maybe that's not the way to go.

The whole idea was to get one amp to power all speakers.

Would you be able to wire the kappa's in either series or parallel?

BTW - good info about the Wattage rating. That's what I'm talking about w/ inside info.

If anyone has any suggestions - I'd love to hear them!

 

If you run speakers in series, it doubles the impedance and you only get 1/4 of the power you would get running at 2 ohms. So series wiring isn't too economical.

Rupedawg- like I said before, I'd go with a 4-channel and a mono amp for the sub (there are advantages to mono amps, i.e. class D circuitry- less power draw from battery)

If your head unit has 2 or three preamp outputs (rca outputs), then multiple amps are even a better idea. My deck has a sub preamp output as well as two others, and each has an independent crossover and level control. This is a very good feature to have on a head unit, as you can customize the sound easily to your exact liking. ...how'd I get sidetracked?

If you've only got 1 preamp output, look for a 5-channel amp. Though they're kinda rare, one would serve your purposes perfectly. Edit: A 5 channel probably needs multiple rca inputs... so 1 preamp output probably wouldn't cut it, unless you were to split it x2 or x3.