If I have 2 dual voice coil subwoofers that are rated 400W RMS at 4ohms, and I want to wire them to a 2-channel amp with one subwoofer per channel...
what RMS amp would I need and and what ohms would the amp need to be at?

Thanks, all the ohm stuff confuses me, I don't really need an explanation because i'll understand it better by working backwards from your answer.

 

you will need an amp that has at least 400 rms per channel. and you must wire the subs at 2 ohms. i see you have a dual voice coil sub. if you wire it wrong you can wire it 4 ohms and it will be drawing a less amount of power. it should say in the specs how much. crutchfield has wiring diagrams for all different setups. here is a link http://www.crutchfield.com/learn/lea...rs_wiring.html

 

alright so if mine are wired like this:


then i need an 800RMS 2 channel amp at 4ohms per channel?
that will give 400RMS to each channel, right?

 

Connecting the two 4 ohm voice coils of the subwoofer in parallel, which you should do, makes it a 2 ohm load to the amp. Amps are rated per channel, so it should be rated "400W RMS x 2, into 2 ohms."

Click the link that bigmike posted then look under "Two subwoofers, two channel amp", and the last one is "2 DVC 4 ohm sub". That is what you want.

 

http://akamaipix.crutchfield.com/ca/..._4-ohm_2ch.jpg

thats the one your looking for. if you wire it the way you posted you will only be using about 200 watts rms per sub. this way will give you the full 400 watts. what brand subs are these? might be kinda hard to find a 2 channel amp that pushes that much power per channel. might get expensive. you can probably get 2 mono amps. just a suggestion.

 

+1 on crutchfield.

IMO, the diagrams at crutchfield advisor should be a sticky, because they are constantly overlooked, and they provide instant information thats clear and easy to understand.

 

Or one big mono amp. The pair of DVC subs can be wired to load either 1 ohm or 4 ohms to the amp.

 

alright, well these box and subs came already filled and everything. I'm not exactly sure how these subs are wired inside of the box...

but, my box has 4 terminals and it allows me to either use 2 terminals to bridge both subs mono or to use all 4 terminals running each sub in separate channels, so would that indicate that they must be wired the way you suggested?



They're MA Audio subs. I don't understand why everyone talks trash about them, they sound and look great.

The main reason i'm asking this question is because when I bought my subs, I didn't know that much about ohms and watts, so I just bought an amp for it which I now know is not the right rated amp, and I'm probably going to replace it soon.

 

You should take one of the subs out and look at how they have it wired inside the box. Otherwise you and me are just guessing.

 

alright i'll take a look sometime this week