So I had a Kicker Comp VR dvc 4 ohm sub I let a buddy have for cheap.
This one
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_2067C10...kicker+comp+vr
Anyway, I hooked it up for him and it's no where near as loud as I remember it being in the car when I had it. Now I haven't listened to it in a while so but I don't think it was like this. He is using a different amp as the amp I had powering it got stolen. When I was powering it I was using a Profile California CA400m amp that put out 320 watts RMS at 2 ohms and I had it wired up for 2 ohms. I was also using a JVC Aresonal H/U which has bass and treble settings.

He is using a Alpine H/U where you can change frequency settings and adjust the sub volume but you can't change the bass or treble without messing with the frequency settings. I think the H/U is the big difference.

Anyway he also bought this amp.
http://www.crutchfield.com/p_500MRPM...rch=alpine+500

I set it up for him to run at 2ohms. So it's putting out 500 watts which is quite a bit more than the 300 watts the Kicker is rated for. I don't see how that could hurt though. Anyway, to get it to hit even halfway hard we had to turn the gain all the way up on the amp. I'm still not impressed with it even when turned all the way up. It hits decently hard if you leave the music really low as in like 10 or 11 on the h/u. Then the bass hits decent but the music volume is really low. Once you turn it up so the actual music is a decent volume it's like the sub doesn't hit near as hard.

What's going on here? Is it the settings with this H/U or the amp or what? Since this thing has 180watts more than the Profile I thought it would do really well. Maybe not.

I've run this amp in the past only I had it powering 2 12" subs and I liked it. I've never run it on one sub like this. Any suggestions as to how to make it sound better? Or is a single 10" sub just not going to hit that hard? I haven't even turned it on in probably 2 years so maybe I just don't remember what it sounded like. I thought it used to rattle the car though and it just does not do that now.

It's also in his truck with more airspace than a trunk. Would that matter?

 

Possible suspects:

1) You've overpowered the sub and it died. 500 watts peak is 353 watts RMS which is above the rated max for the sub.
2) The pre-outs for his head unit are lower voltage than your head unit.
3) The subwoofer volume on the Alpine is set to the lowest. The "max subwoofer volume" on Alpine head units is actually 0dB gain. The minimum sub volume therefore is some negative gain, I forgot how much.
4) Something plugged into the wrong channel, bad connection etc.

 

i was gonna suspect your #2, your #3 - because that setting may not be turned on yet, you have to turn it on and turn the sub level to 15.
i also suspect maybe accidently you have a VC out of phase..

 

Ditto the above^^^ first thing I would do is check the wiring of the subs VCs to make sure they are in phase, also check the VCs themselves.
The Alpine amp is 1x500W RMS into 2 ohms, but that's at 14.4V you will get a clean 1x400W RMS into 2 ohms at 13.5V.
The Kicker Comp VR, [CVR10] continuous power handling will depend on what year model it is, the 05 model was 300W the 07 model is 400W, previous to that it was a SVC sub, [200W].

The amp should have no problem driving the sub either 05 or 07, something else is not right. 94

 

05 sounds about like when I got the sub. It was soon after this newer style came out and 300watts rms sounds like what I remember it being rated for.

For the wiring of the voice coils I a wire from the amp to the positive and negative terminals on the first voice coil. Then I just ran one from the positive of the first voice coil to the positive of the second. Then I did this again with the negatives. Isn't this how I'd want it hooked up for 2 ohms? Or did I wire it up wrong?

How can you adjust the bass on these h/u's or is the sub volume all you can adjust? It's a older Alpine H/U. Probably 4 or 5 years old that just lets you go adjust the frequency if that's even what it's called.

 

The sub is wired properly if that's the way it is done, your sure you did not get the pos.(+) and neg.(-) of second VC mixed up?

Does the subs cone move a little or a lot when your playing it?

Need a model number of the Alpine HU, should be on the face plate. 94

 

Alpine 9830. I also had one of these h/u's at one time but never got mine exactly right either.

The cone will move a lot. I've got the sub right. I got a chance to play with it some more today for him and I got it better. I got it sounding pretty decent with the gain about 3/4th of the way up on the amp and the sub volume on the h/u at 12 or so instead of all the way up at 15 or whatever it is. It didn't hit super duper hard but with some rap music with low notes it did hit the pretty low notes and sounded decent. The other songs it just didn't hit the notes near as low but I'm thinking it's the songs as I found a few where it just hit super low.

I think the h/u just needs to fine tuning. When I had one of these I never got mine fine tuned like I wanted either. Other than that it was a great h/u but I could never figure out how to properly work the thing.

 

A CDA-9830 is a very good HU, I have it's granddaddy, [CDA-7893]

It can be a real PITA to set up if you don't know how and very easy to get wrong.
You definitely need the manual... http://vault.alpine-usa.com/products...20CDA-9830.pdf and a few hr of "tweaking" to get it right. 94

 

Yea that's the problem I had with mine and the problem I'm having with his. I don't really know what I'm doing.

That manual is nice to have but I'm still not sure how to set it exactly. Any idea what I should set the LPF and HPF on?

 

lpf gets rid of highs, hpf gets rid of lows.

 

hey what guage wire is he running. if its some cheap stuff that could be the part of the issue but it could be settings in the head unit. I used to work at crutchfield so heres the tech support phone number 434-817-1000 or the charlottesville store 434-817-1104. ask for devaughn

 

Is it in the same box that was in ur trunk car and now in a truck?

Got any pic?