Sub cutting out

[HeavyD8086]

Just bought a little "experiment". I had an old 8" car sub woofer of my bro's kicking around and decided to try to add it to my system on the cheap. Bought a 8" box from ebay, and the cheapest 70 watt (4 ohm) sub amp from partsexpress.

Sounds good, until it shuts off! Is the amp too weak? Its a 200 watt (4 ohm, I imagine) sub, but powered by a 70 watt (4 ohm) amp.

Any suggestions? ie: amp is probably overheating? Its not even turned up very loud. . .

 

[Privateer]

It will be the amp.

 

[HeavyD8086]

Interesting. . .

Found something interesting. . . .

First, some background. I've got a 12" sub hooked up to my reciever's sub output. I then have my low-level outputs from my 12" going to my new 8"'s low-level inputs.

My 8" sub only works when I have my Yamaha RX-V440 sub-out set to "both" (ie: mains and sub deliver bass). The 8" doesn't work when I have my bass-output to sub only. Wierd, eh? How could my reciever's setting affect how my 12" sub outputs from its low-level out?

Not sure if this is the reason my 8" was crapping out or not. It hasn't crapped out since I found out of this little inigma. I'll try to drive the 8" hard and see if the amp still dies.

 

[HeavyD8086]

Update

Good news, everything seems to be working fine!

Since it was my first DIY sub, and I had no idea of what a dual-voice-coil was, I only had half of the sub hooked up.

Results: I'm hearing a lot of high-end bass that my Monitor 7s and 12" Omage just wern't able to reproduce. Interesting, because I've heard my Paradigms go down to 40Hz or so with test discs, but this seems to be the range they were missing (even with speakers in the reciever set to large).

This little 8" really fills that gap nicely, and appears to help a LOT on the lower frequencies. Before, my 12" used to warble a lot. The little 8 managed to get rid of that, resulting in smoother, more consistent and tighter bass all the way down to 30 Hz. . . even though the 8" isn't audible there. Perhaps it had helped out a lot with the room resonances and standing waves (do I have my terminology right here?).

I've heard a lot of talk about mounting second subs "stacked" on top other original woofers, but this results (for me) in little to no gains. When I have it on the opposite front corner of my original 12" it seems to really shine.

Hope this helps anyone looking to get a second sub. I've heard some stories about how it wasn't really beneficial, but its worked wonders for my bass.

Perhaps if I had originally bought a sub recommended here, I wouldn't have had to add the 8", ah well.