To all MCE cert audio teks, a quick question...
 

I know that a 4 Ohm subwoofer is actually not 4 ohms all the time especially when it's thumping. My question is this. If, instead of using female quick disconnects, you solder the speaker leads directly to the tabs of the subwoofer, will this change the average resistive load seen by the amplifier enough that a bridged amp will see less than a 4 Ohm load enough to hurt it? Or make it run hot enough to trip the thermal protection? Inquiring minds would like to know...:confused:

If you solder and do a good job you will probably get less contact resistance and actually have a better connection. The problem for most is that you can overheat your subwoofer's voice coil and fry it. Also it doesn't allow for easy maintance if you need to pull the sub out of the box!

Oh yeah, I would guess not many MCEP installers would know this .... MCEP certified is like Microsoft certification to me ....

But it's not likely, then, to hurt the amp? Speakers are cheap. Amps are not. The manual says the speakers can't have less than 4 Ohms resistance or it'll damage the amp. We're tripping the thermal switch and I'm wondering if it's bcause of the soldered leads....:confused:

Won't make any noticable difference with the ohm impedance.
got a volt/ohm meter? hook it to the speaker leads in the OHM setting, now push the speaker in and out, you will see how much the Ohm reading can vary.

Ohm ratings are not any sort of set number. Just pickup any car audio mag. A typical 4 ohm subwoofer can range from 3 ohm to 100 ohm over a 100hz frequency band.

Soldered leads alone would not cause the amp to shutdown. Are you sure you have the sensitivity adjusted right? That's not a volume control you know. I always solder my connections. No matter how you figure it, you get more power to the speaker that way. I use a 5% silver solder. If you're worried about burning up your speaker voice coil, just pinch some pliers on the tinsel leads while you're soldering. The pliers will act as a heatsink and absorb the heat before it can travel down into the voice coil. But if you know what you're doing, that's really not necessary.

My suggestion is look at your sensitivity adjustments again. It can't hurt to set it to low, but it can hurt to set it to high. See what the real world output of your head is, and try to set the amp to match.

I'll take a look at the gain settings again, then. I didn't think we were set too high because there was no audible distortion in the subs even at 7/10ths of the headunit output before I set the gain. I'm thinking it's the amp itself (you don't wanna know what he bought, I don't choose this stuff...), but I'd like to eliminate other variables before I push him to a Hifonics amp. Thanks for the info, guys!:cool:

Well, you won't hear distortion in subs ... 5% distortion is not uncommon under normal playback conditions. Just turn it down and see what happens.