I have a single pioneer 10" 400 watt in a bandpass box with a 200 watt (peak) pioneer amp... It seems distorted when I turn it up... I want the car to sound good and clear.. not boomy, but it seems like it can't go very low when I turn it up. Any ideas? Thanks.

 

i would personally get a new amp and sub.. you can get an alpine type-r or polk momo for less than 200 bux, a good amp to power either for about 200-300 probably.. both subs rock and will be much better than your current pioneer setup

 

if you want something that is louder than any of the subs mentioned, an elemental design e12K sub. $135. don't let the price fool you though. i'll be suprised at how much this sub will bang. a JBL 600.1 on one is good enough.

sub=$135
amp=$189

 

Alright. So I like what I have, but is my sub underpowered or does my sub just suck? This is the first time I've had Pioneer stuff, I kinda miss my Fosgate set-up.

 

Your sub doesn't suck, it's not getting enough wattage from the amp. I don't have a ton of experience with subs and amps, but I have a 400W 10" MTX and a 500W 12" Jensen. First had them powered my a 300W amp, experienced same thing you're talking about. Tried a 800W amp, better, but still got distorted up loud, and I could tell that my subs could move some more. I now have a 1600W amp pushing these two subs with no distortion from low wattage. Very clear bass.

Hope this helps.

 

I had a feeling that the amp is the problem, I just wanted confirmation. Thanks.

 

When you run two different size subs they cancel each other out quite a bit, if you switched that 12" out for another 10" you will notice a increase in output. the same fact also holds true for running two different types of subs that are the same size.
My friend is going to run two 8" subs and one 10" but we are using a phoenix gold crossover (24db crossover slope) and running them off separate amps. their crossover points can't overlap at all though. The range of the 10" sub will be 20 hz- 80 hz and the 8" subs will be 81hz- 160hz.

 

You have a bandpass box.
there is a big part of your problem, band pass boxes tend to distort at louder volumes, if you used to have rockfords you are probably used to a sealed box sub, so you should probably go back to that. If you liked rockford then get rockfords again. there is a huge difference betweeen pioneer and rockford.




[Modified by incubus, 12:46 PM 10/13/2002]

 

i agree with incubus, i got a punch 700s running my jl 12's (in a sealed box) and a punch 250 running my mids and tweets. My whole setup sounds real good.