I have two JBL 10 inch 400 watt max subwoofers... I need an amp to power them and was thinking about getting a 400 watt bridgeable amp. Should i pay the $300 for a brand name amp ?? or can i just get the cheap $50 400 watt amps you see on ebay ?? i.e. super blue car amp, super bass, etc.

 

a brand name amp delivers 400 watts RMS..

a non-brand name amp usually delivers 400 watts peak (ie. if lightning strikes and you happen to also win the lottery in the same moment will it EVER deliver 400 watts and when it does, the world will instantly end.)

Depending on how cheap you go, your 400watt peak cheap amp will deliver anything from 50 watts rms x 2 or 150watts x 1 etc..

Expect to pay closer to a dollar per watt for high quality amps, you definetly get what you pay for in this end of the audio spectrum.

-Rage

 

when u are looking at watts don't look at max watts. that is where your sub will blow. You want to match up rms power of the sub and amp. that is the power a sub can continuously handle and how much an amp can continuously produce.
don't buy cheapo brands. heres a site that sells the good stuff cheap. My boy just picked up two lphoenix gold amps yesteday from them for dirt cheap!
http://www.carmedia1.com
hell u should buy one of the clearance phoenix golds they are bad *** amps.
If your subs are 400w max are they 200w rms? idf so look for an amp that produces 200wx2 rms.

 

its 100 watt rms... any amp suggestions ??

 

If the subs are 100w rms each you want an amp that is 200w rms. Hopefully you bought 8ohm subs not 4ohms, but it is not likely. if you bought 8 ohm subs your search will be a lot easier. With 8 ohm subs you could just buy a 2 channel amp that is 200w rms, and parallel the subs (which means you take the positive speaker wires from both subs and put it in the bridged positive terminal and take the two negative speaker leads and put them in the one negative bridged terminal.
this will drop the impedance down to 4 ohms which is the ideal load (this way the amp will run cooler and sound cleaner). If you have two 4 ohm subs I would suggest looking for a 4 channel amp that when bridged produces 100w x 2 rms (a good example is the rockford fosgate 200.4 which produces 25x4 or 100x2 rms, but this isnt the best amp for subs).
then follow the bridging diagram on the side of the amp. Any more questions feel free to ask.
P.S. did u check the link I gave u?


[Modified by incubus, 3:19 PM 10/4/2002]

 

if youre going cheap, Power Acoustik is usually a low price brand.