The most basic subwoofer question this board has ever seen.

[Erik]

POINT: I have an amp. It's an old (2004?) V2(or VPower) mono subwoofer amp with all sorts of low-pass controls.

POINT: I have a 10 inch (I think) truck box. It's not ported. It's wide for a truck box but I am clearly not going to fit a deep, substantial M.Y. 2010 sub or its associated thundering lows out of this and I have come to terms with this.

All the same, I want to put a subwoofer in the box and put it in my truck (then boat next month because I have the same amp in the boat and truck). I use a truck box in the SAN 210 because it gets along better with my ballast bags than a standard box, solobaric or otherwise.

ANGER PART: I've tried f**king 5 times to go to Best Buy to buy a subwoofer for this stupid ass setup and the neckbeard mouthbreather kids working there are like "oh that's a 2 ohm amp and you have a 4 ot box and need a k413452134 amp to get the right sound out of that or it's going to make your car asplode and you'll need new headlight fluid and your pitman busings will all disintegrate once you hit 50 decibels." And on and on with the horsey-stuff.

What happened to the days when you could go into any place and say "I want a 10 inch subwoofer please. I'll look at anything but a Kicker product." And you could walk out with your subs all happy and have bass in your boat or car again with a little bit of wiring know how. For God's sake. Someone please help me. I just want simple, cheap sub.

Help?

[slidin_out]

try crutchfield.com, always helped me out

[jjaszkow]

Erik, I think the V2 mono amps were rated for impedances down to 1.5 ohms, but they will certainly power a 4 ohm subwoofer just fine. In order to find a sub that would work, you will need to calculate the volume of the box that you have in cubic feet. You will then need to look at the "sealed box volume" range for the sub, and if the volume of your box falls within that range, you've found your sub.

[Erik]

Thanks for the replies.

See, fellas, I appreciate the advice, but seriously this is me coming from the old school setup mindset where only one set of wires went to the amp, one went to the sub (that's called single voice coil, right?) and its always been simple until the dual voice-coil, juke the ohm's into playing at a lower ohm level thing got involved. That's where I got lost. And I thought I was all fancy getting a subwoofer specific amp. Joke's on me.

Please let me know if these photos help diagnose what I need, how I can just get an acceptably loud sub to put in there and give me some boom and can maybe build the thing up by way of a better box later. I really don't need "the works". That's all for the next boat and car. For this Tahoe with 196k mi on it I just want some fill same for the boat.

I hope these photos help.

[jjaszkow]

Erik, jokes not on you at all. The salespeople are just being unhelpful (probably trying to get you to spend more money by buying a new amp too).

That box looks like it's for a 12" sub. Generally the mounting diameter is right around 11" for a 12", and around 9.25" for a 10" sub.

Is that an Alpine MRP-M350? That amp will drive either a 2 ohm or 4 ohm sub without any problems. It produces 200 watts RMS at 4 ohms or 350 watts RMS at 2 ohms. You would want to select a sub that handles that amount of power. Either single or dual voicecoil subs would work, there are just a few different ways that you would need to wire it. The single voicecoil sub would be a bit easier to wire.

I could probably reccomend a few subs that would work if you provide me with the dimensions of that box and the price range you were looking at staying in. If you're looking for a budget sub and straight forward wiring, you wouldn't go wrong with this one: http://www.amazon.com/JL-AUDIO-SUBWOOFER-12W0V2-4-12W0V2/dp/B002PY8KD8 as long as that box is deep enough to support a 6.25" deep sub.

[Broccoli B]

Erik, PM me your address and I will send you a 12" sub I have in my garage, I can ship today. No guarentees on it's quality though, it has been sitting out in my garage for like 4 years. It is a 12 inch Rockford Fosgate.

[Erik]

Broccoli B, wow. Also, wow.

PM sent.

The amp that will push this is a several-year-old (2004-2006ish?) Alpine MRP-M350, jjaszkow. I had a couple of Jeeps and then an LR Defender 90 and was intensely impressed at the - ehh - marine-like tolerances of one of those amps the JVC head units, and Alpines' amps unadvertised marine products. They're just not white. But they can survive the elements to some degree.

In one instance that 500watt Alpine 4 channel amp (which I spliced a sub into because I knew next to nothing) was 1/4 submerged in water by accident. It was 1997, and if the town could hear my bass that was all I cared about. Yeah, I was one of those idiot kids with refined taste like that.

[Grit dog]

A single voice coil sub is likely 4 ohm, dual voice coil subs typically are wired in parallel, on the sub itself, so they present a 2ohm load to the amp when you wire up 1 pr of speaker wires to your amp.
This is a good reference: www.bcae1.com