I have everything hooked up. I got a new radio deck with the two rca outputs. I put the wires through the holes in the sub box and put one on a positive and neg. terminal on the amp. At lower reasonable volumes I have like NO bass. When I crank it up to 100% I finally get a descent thump like I should have at low levels.

My amp is kicking in a bit as it lights up when the radio is on. What could be going on here? I have the bass set to max on the deck....

 

FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT..... depends how your subwoofer is wired!
single voice coils or dual voice coils, and what ohm load are they?

youd be suprised how wiring up a subs voice coils can make a difference! wire it up at 8ohms and your amplifier wont put out much power at all!

first off. name your amplifier and model number or a link to some specs could help....
and also the name of your subwoofer and model, voice coil configuration....

or if ya got a OHM TESTER test the ohm load on the subwoofers terminals. thats the easist way to know what your sub it wired to. but if you just wired up one voice coil instead of both you could also be messing up your subwoofer so you need to be sure both voice coils are wired together!

 

I have two MTX 4500 subs in a thunder box.
I have a PIONEER GM-6300F 4 CHANNEL 600W CAR AMPLIFIER AMP
Specs:
[ul][*]600 Watts Peak Music Power[*]Bridgeable 4 Channel MOSFET Amplifier [*]Load Impedance Capability: 2~8 Ohm (Stereo), 4~8 Ohm (Bridged) [*]60W x 4 Continuous Power (4 ohm)[*]75W x 4 Continuous Power (2 ohm)[*]150W x 2 Continuous Power Bridged (4 ohm)[*]Frequency Response: 10Hz ~ 50kHz [*]Total Harmonic Distortion: 0.010% [*]Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >95dB [*]Channel # Capability: 4/3/2 [*]Screw-Type Speaker Terminals [*]Balanced Isolator Input Circuit [*]RCA Outputs (Pass Thru) [*]4 Channel Speaker Level Input[*]Input Level Control: Hi-Volt (400mV ~ 6.5v) [*]Built-in Crossover: LPF/HPF (Front/Rear Independent) [*]Crossover Frequency Range: 80Hz, -12dB/Oct.
I bought the box used from a guy out of the craigslist. How do I tell how its wired? Yes like I said it does not thump much until I put the audio up so far the speakers dont sound good but then its thumping like it should. I checked all the wiring I have it put on the right leads.

What confuses me is dont all speakers have a neg and positive? Well my amp box only has 2 wires input for 2 speakers. Thats one positive and one negative. I thought it should have 4 inputs and use two channels but it only uses just two screws on my amplifier or should I put it under 4?
Thanks
[/ul]

 

First off be sure the HPF feature on the amp is NOT engaged. That would filter out the bass. I assume you are using both channels in bridge mode. You hook up the speakers differently in bridge mode and it is very important to keep track of + and -. If you have one speaker wired properly and one with + and - reversed, they will generate sound that cancels each other out.

If you didn't get a manual with the amp, go to the Pioneer website and download it.

 

I got a manual. I have it set on either 2 or 4 channel and it makes no difference in sound. I did tweak the radio and yes turned OFF that HPF or it may be called something else on my radio and it helped a lot. I also turned on another feature called "loud" and it bumps the BASS up for low volumes and that helped too.

So I should research bridge mode? Right now I got it on just 2 or 4 channel mode and its connected to one + screw and one - screw.

 

that amp is to small for those subs

 

That amp probably is only marginally adequate if that. You definitely want 150W x 2, one channel to each sub and the subs wired for 4 ohms. Read the manual again about bridged (2 channel) mode because every one I've seen you need to hook up the speakers differently.

Does your head unit have sub out or are the two sets of RCA's front and rear? If your head unit doesn't have a sub out you're limited in what you can do. It would be much better to have a HU with a dedicated sub out.

There's a HPF control on the amp as well. It needs to be off.

 

No sub out just 2 rca's....
So you think it could be just the amps power? Those amps with a lot of power will set you back a whole lot...
I could get another amp for just two channels for my subs only but would I need 4 rca's to do that? Or two alternators?

 

What are those RCA's labeled? Some HU's that don't come with the full 3 pairs of RCAs, you can configure the RCA's to be main or sub out. You really want the HU to be sending only higher frequencies to the main speakers and bass to the RCA's and thus on to your amp and subs.

 

There are 4 total. 2 for sattelite radio inputs and 2 that just say rca outputs or whatever.
Guess what? I thought you meant HPF as something on my deck. I got into the manual and turned off that HPF on the channel I am using and now it shakes my whole car when you have the right kind of song on.

Thanks for the tip!

Now one more question. What size wire do I need to be using for the subs? How thick? I am using like 16 or 12 now I think. It does not seem to be getting hot.
Thanks