JL shipped me a turd in a box labelled W3 for $159

Vertigo

Any suggestions, Matt? Do you think it was blown due to the way it was wired?

Wicked CAS

It was blown...

That is all it matters ...

It was not a DUD....

It worked for 3 weeks being overpowered...

Call sonic see what they will do for you... If they give you the option upgrade to W6v2 and send both w3s in for trade...

You have too much power and too much risk with the existing set up. Those subs are great subs, set up properly they will not get damaged easily.... We sell close to 200 W3 subs in the store with less then 0.5 percent defective rate... given they were matched and set up properly...

Like I said all it takes is one heavy bass note... Even though gains were adjusted low... not all recording levels are the same... if you had a cd or mp3 that was recorded at +3 or +6 dp above noise level, that is the same as doubling your gain...

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Vertigo

Let's wait to hear from Matt who installed it and see what he says.

bigaudiofanat

I will agree that it did blow however there was no clipping of the signal after tuning, they just were overpowered because I wired them at 1 ohm instead of 4 ohms like I had thought I wired it. Installer error

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Vertigo

If that's true, then I have one working sub that could theoretically blow any time now, one blown sub that I'm SOL on, and approx a few hundred dollars gone.

Fantastic.

Vertigo

Is there a way to tell if the speaker is blown, other than it is unresponsive?

bigaudiofanat

NOTE: As it is the installers fault "mine" I have offered Jim payment for the replacement and to install it at no charge.

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vjarnot

You could measure impedance, and/or gently push the cone by hand and listen for sounds of broken-ness. The best test is to hook it up to a known-good source.

Vertigo

I tried hooking it up to the wires that are going to the working sub, but no response. However, I did push on the cone by hand and it depresses with no noise coming from it.

Wicked CAS

Did you call sonic yet to see what they will offer you for warranty?
See what they say... if not send me the serial number of the subwoofer.

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Vertigo

Sounds good man. I will call them tonight.
Where is the serial number for the sub? - is it located on the sub itself?

vividracing

The gain has nothing to do with how much power the woofer sees. The gain is not a bass boost knob, or a volume knob, either.

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Vertigo

The volume level was low when the sub stopped working. That's why I'm so much in disbelief.
The bass eq on my radio was all the way down and the volume was on 10 or 11. By comparison, when my volume was on let's say, 6, I could barely hear the subs.

Idk, based on the volume I was playing it, it just seems tough to believe that the subs were being overpowered.

RonRizz

Wait a minute......too little power damages speakers???

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vjarnot

Speakers fail in two ways:

You turn the volume to a particular level, which determines the load that the speaker places on the amp, let's say X watts.

Now then: your amp either can, or can not, supply X watts:

a) your amp can supply X watts: the speaker plays at the selected volume. If playing at this volume causes the speaker to exceed its thermal or physical capacities (i.e., the amount of heat it can dissipate, or the distance the cone can extend), then the output sound is distorted and the speaker ultimately fails.

b) your amp can not supply X watts: the amplifier attempts to supply the amount of power that the speaker is drawing, but can not. This causes clipping, as the electrical waveform from amp to speaker has its peaks and troughs squared off. The output sound is compressed and the speaker ultimately fails.

The key bit that many people don't get is that the speaker is the component that determines how much output power (i.e., wattage) is drawn from the amp.