JL 12w3 bottoming out?

[JDoggHSTX 10+ year member]

I got 3 12w3's in a truck box behind the seat of my ram. Lanzar Vibe 1200D running them. the outside 2 are running in series, but the middle one is in parallel. they all hit hard, but sometimes when i crank it up, the middle one will make a horrible noise when the bass hits (bottoming out???) the box is divided into 3 seperate compartments. what is my prob, and what can i do to fix it?

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[B&R Innovations]

Well

I doubt the JL is bottoming out with that amp...no offence

Eah, one thing i know is that lanzar amps are not as good as advertised. I for one would not leave my girlfriend for a lanzar amp.

Anyways, Make sure that you have the center JL ran correctly to the amp, cause unless its a 4 chan amp (which i doubt) then that means you have the center bridged. So just make sure that its wired correctly. Im leaning towards your amp just not capable of handeling that. Cause the JL w3's run Duel 2 Ohm so if u have the 2 sides ran in serisie, that would run them down to like 1 ohms... or is that parrelle im really tired righ tnow

I doubt its the sub, hook them up differently, run the center sub independet, and crank it and see how it sounds, then add another sub, then finally the last one. Im pretty sure its just your amp over powered

 

[JDoggHSTX 10+ year member]

thats parallel. series raises the ohms, like from 2 to 4. anyway, they are dual 4's. ive got them wired to about a 1.5 ohms load on the amp. the amp is mono, and yes, it is capable of handling the 3 w3's. they are 250w rms, and even though it isn't all 1200w, its still enough.

 

[B&R Innovations]

I appolgize

I wrote that about 2 in the morn

So i was pretty out of it

Well anyways

I still blame your amp

try tha tload on a different amp

and see if it still happens

 

[<jon>]

well i have heard of jl wo's bottomin out so i think that they could be but who knows man who knows

 

[JDoggHSTX 10+ year member]

truthfully, i believe that the sub is overextending, but ive had people tell me both. a friend of mine thought that it had too much air building up inside the box and suggested drilling a hole in the box to let out excess air, but i have never heard of anything like this. my box is a truck box which extends across the whole back of my cab. it is divided into 3 compartments, with a hole in the back of the center compartment for wiring and a hole in each of the dividing walls to run my wires to the outside pair. the only problem is with the middle sub, but they all have the same airspace.

 

[zane 10+ year member]

Originally posted by JDoggHSTX:truthfully, i believe that the sub is overextending, but ive had people tell me both. a friend of mine thought that it had too much air building up inside the box and suggested drilling a hole in the box to let out excess air, but i have never heard of anything like this. my box is a truck box which extends across the whole back of my cab. it is divided into 3 compartments, with a hole in the back of the center compartment for wiring and a hole in each of the dividing walls to run my wires to the outside pair. the only problem is with the middle sub, but they all have the same airspace.

Firstly- where are the gains set at on the amp?

Other than that------------>

Ok- your amp and the wiring are your main problem. The amp is not that versatile to hold the wiring and impedence loads you have it at. You are sending 2 ohm loads to the amp and they are not equal ohm loads. Naturally the paralel one will produce more output as it is at a lower ohm load and forcing the amp to work harder. You will need to run all of your subs mono 1 chanel or at least 2 channel with balanced (equal) impedence.

Also, stop me if I am reading this wrong. You said that you had holes in the center enclosure on the back then inside on the side walls of the enclosure to allow wiring to come into the box and then to each sub from the middle box. Are all of these holes sealed from the outside enclosures and from the rest of the truck. If not, you are likely recieving a good deal of cancellation and resonance from the outside subs and the excess air in the enclosure without a properly tuned port. These are sealed enclosures- they need to be completely sealed from the outside- and from each other. More than likely the unbalanced impedence and different levels of power that each sub is recieving is causing your bass to work against itself and in turn causing the bottoming out you are describing.

Loose the amp in favor of one more capable/versatile. The Lanzar WILL NOT cut it. The new amp Needs to be capable of mono bridging, able to handle low ohm loads, and have plenty of power.

A good place to start looking is with the Cadence A7HC.

Run all subs at the same impedence.

Seal the enclosure completely. Both externally and internally. Use one centralized output for the wiring. Most wiring should remain in the enclosure with no problems providing proper length with a little play is allowed.

This should resolve your problem.

Take it easy,

-zane

 

[<maddmatt02>]

I'd first like toi know if they are D2's D4's or D'6s. also, if the inside4 is par. and the outsides are series, that would be a pair of 8 ohm subs, and the center one is at 2(if they were the 4's) and the amp would have a much harder time feeding power through 8 ohms than 4(outsides are series, so it is 1 8 ohm lead, the middle is par. so it is like 2 4 ohm leads) so maybe that is why only the middle sounds like cra[p, the amp puts out thew power and thats the easiest trail and thats hjow it flows.

also for that amp not any gfood. what are you talking about?

It is inexpensive and pushes OVER what it ia rated at.

http://www.carsound.com/reviews/amps/vibe1200d.html

look at the blue at the right, 1262 watts at 1 ohm.

 

[LegendZ28 10+ year member]

Originally posted by JDoggHSTX:I got 3 12w3's in a truck box behind the seat of my ram. Lanzar Vibe 1200D running them. the outside 2 are running in series, but the middle one is in parallel. they all hit hard, but sometimes when i crank it up, the middle one will make a horrible noise when the bass hits (bottoming out???) the box is divided into 3 seperate compartments. what is my prob, and what can i do to fix it?

Alright, to whoever said the 1200D is not capable it is a mono sub so he is not briding anything, that's just the way the amp is.

Secondly you should never mix ohms to an amp. Unless for some reason the amp is specifically designed to accept mixed ohms.

Running 3 DVC 4ohm subs in parallel will result in a .5 load I believe and the lanzar is not rated for that so I don't recommend that. You can either ditch one sub or get another amp to power one and run 2 off the lanzar.

The 1200D actually puts out the power it's rated for (actually a little more at 1 ohm), it is not a bad amp although it may not be entirely reliable. People are just quick to dismiss it because it's so cheap.

 

[zane 10+ year member]

Originally posted by LegendZ28:

Alright, to whoever said the 1200D is not capable it is a mono sub so he is not briding anything, that's just the way the amp is.

Secondly you should never mix ohms to an amp. Unless for some reason the amp is specifically designed to accept mixed ohms.

Running 3 DVC 4ohm subs in parallel will result in a .5 load I believe and the lanzar is not rated for that so I don't recommend that. You can either ditch one sub or get another amp to power one and run 2 off the lanzar.

The 1200D actually puts out the power it's rated for (actually a little more at 1 ohm), it is not a bad amp although it may not be entirely reliable. People are just quick to dismiss it because it's so cheap.

Based on my experience with this amp in 3 different installs is why I say it is not capable. Not once could I get the 1200D to handle 1ohm in each install without the amp getting so attrociously hot that it went into protection.

Otherwise- as for the wiring of the subs and multiple ohm loads- that is more of what I meant. I had been up for nearly 36hours straight when I posted, so mabey my statements needed a little clarity.

All I am saying is that In my opinion the vibe1200d isnt worth more than a wheel chock to me due to the problems I have encountered with it. I Realize that CSR's review was quite favorable for this amp, and if they thought it was good, they had good reason. However thier review alone does not mean that one should go out and purchase the amp right away because they say it it the next best thing since sliced bread. Take a look arround at some other forums online and actually get opinions from people who are using the same product as well. Quite often, the end user has a far better/valid comment due to firsthand experience in everyday installation.

Check out these links-------->

http://forum.sounddomain.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/018152.html

http://forum.soundillusions.net/showthread.php?s=cfb5fb6a944abf8f8ddad622b7cae79e&threadid=11070&highlight=Lanzar+Vibe+1200D

http://forum.soundillusions.net/showthread.php?s=cfb5fb6a944abf8f8ddad622b7cae79e&threadid=8918&highlight=Lanzar+Vibe+1200D

http://www.caraudioforum.com/vbb2/showthread.php?s=7998c7990413830e2df5cce6c6e378bc&threadid=70181&highlight=Lanzar+Vibe+1200d

Take it easy,

-zane

 

[LegendZ28 10+ year member]

Originally posted by zane:

Based on my experience with this amp in 3 different installs is why I say it is not capable. Not once could I get the 1200D to handle 1ohm in each install without the amp getting so attrociously hot that it went into protection....

Well I'm not basing my opinion of the amp on the review, I'm basing it on my experience alone cause I don't know anyone else that runs this particular amp.

I have them running 1ohm to my 2 audiobahns and I have yet to even have them feel warm, granted I have yet to run them for more than and hour at a time (I have only had them installed for a week) and I haven't had them for long enough to judge their reliability so all I will say is that they perform well for me. That doesn't mean anyone should run out and scoop them all up, I'm just giving the guy my experience with them.

 

[JDoggHSTX 10+ year member]

thanx for the help, but what do i need to do? wire them all in series? get 3 amps? port the box? what? please help me out here?

 

[ramos 5,000+ posts]

Originally posted by JDoggHSTX:I got 3 12w3's in a truck box behind the seat of my ram. Lanzar Vibe 1200D running them. the outside 2 are running in series, but the middle one is in parallel. they all hit hard, but sometimes when i crank it up, the middle one will make a horrible noise when the bass hits (bottoming out???) the box is divided into 3 seperate compartments. what is my prob, and what can i do to fix it?

Let's see here. You have 3 4ohm dvc two of which are wired in series, the other parallel.

Let's look at each driver individually. The two that you have wired in series would be 8ohm each.

The one that is parallel would be 2ohm.

But before we get into that. The way the subs are currently wired the subs will not get equal power. The middle sub could very well be overdriven. How are the drivers connected to each other?

My suggestion would be to wire the subs individualy in series. So each sub would be 8ohm. Now parallel all three subs. You will end up with a little more than a 2ohm mono load. Try it like this and see if the middle sub still makes the horrible noise. And if the holes you described aren't sealed completly already. Get some silicon and seal them up.

[ 01-02-2002: Message edited by: ramos ]