has anyone else had problems with hollywoods blowing up so fast? i was only running 300 watts rms w/ an 18db boost from my audiobahn. its supposed to handle 1000+ watts rms. do i just have bad luck, or are they over-rated? EDIT: it was a 15" DVC Hollywood Edge pics the sub box it came in the amp im running
A 1000 watt sub can be blown with 300 watts no problem....You just proved that. That same sub can be blown with 100 watts. Here is the deal. 18 DB of boost at around 40 Hz from your amp is NOT a good thing. The amp was CLIPPING severly i am sure. This CLIPPING allows the amp to send out DC voltage from the amps power supply, directly into your speaker. Speakers DO NOT like DC voltage, it is very bad for them!!! It tends to blow them up. The other thing is the possiblility that the driver was in the wrong kind of box, meaning The speaker DID NOT like the box it was in.....This can cause either thermal or mechanical failures of the speaker. Chances are good, And i would bet money on it, that you had the amp gain up quite a ways, and were listening to some sort of heavy bass music when this happened? Am I right? of course I am....... Listen double b26, I aint tryin to upset you or insult you, i am just sayin that i have scene this scenario countless times in my carrer. I may be wrong in my assumption of the problem, it could have been a bad speaker....but i doubt it. The bottom line is this....You have too know the limits of your amplifier, or this will most likely be a recurring problem.
of course your right...i like it loud, and if i didnt like heavy bass, i would have the sub. lol. but heres the thing. my roommate bought an identical sub at the same time, only a 12 instead of 15. his blew up in about a week. he was running a bazooka..dont remember the model even though i sold it to him. but it was single channel 300 watt rms, 2 ohm stable and had 12db boost. it wasnt that great of an amp, and he still blew his in less time than i did. and ive had that audiobahn amp for a year or so. that amp has pushed 2 orion 10's, that hollywood, and now im running a pair of infinity kappa 12s. ive had the infinity's for about 8 months or so, no problems. the orions never gave out on me either...they are xtc's...only rated for 500max (they suck). and im still running 300 rms with the gain and boost up all the way to the infinity's. i dont want to insult you either. i know youre a mod and apparently know your stuff. but ive had many, many systems..of all different brands. but ive never had a speaker blow up so easy. and i have a good ear for sound, i can hear when its clipping and distorting. i dont turn it so high that it sounds like crap. and the box was a big bigger than recommended...but only about .15 cu ft. the reason i wanted to ask about this was that i read somewere about counterfeit hollywoods being sold a year or so ago. and i was wondering if this was comnon for them, or if i got a bad or counterfeit one. but still, i appreciate you guy's input. thanks.
Fair enough! You may be the victom of a crap driver. I have not heard of any "counterfiet" hollywoods.... That might be the case however and the drivers were in fact junk from the git go.... Other members here may be more familiar with this than me...
imho id still drop your gain down i mean common why are you only pushing a imho audiobahn crap amp and one only rated at 300 watts to push subs which can handle alot more? buy a better amp one in which you dont need the gain and boosts up WAY high in order to get those subs to move, i mean you proved it yourself with burning your money on that Hollywood, youll save more money in the long run... i mean ive got 3 JL 12w6s running off a USAMPS DE-1000, capable of sending out more than 2000 watts at 1 ohm, am i pushing that, heck no. i have them wired for 4 ohm operation with the gain and boost at half way, why? because i spent alot of money on my system and id like it to last... 3 years later and 4 different cars, the system still pounds like theres no tomorrow...
The only way I can see to open a voice coil that fast is to seriously overheat it. "Clipping" like the Viking said is the fastest way to destroy a speaker. I could easily destroy CadillacETC1997's JLs in less than 5 minutes with a 150 Watt amp, no problem. My recommendation, way more power. You want it loud, get a better box. Hey CadillacETC1997, where have you been?
okay guys...ive had to search long and hard to find this. but just to prove my point about the bad subs, and that im not full of it, here is the web page from Hollywood's site that talks about the couterfeit subs. it was posted back in 6/2004. i bought the sub around 11/2005 (but didnt use it for a long time). i bought it from a guy i worked with. him and his sister used to run a car stereo shop (i had actually been there when it was open, come to find out..small world). but they had to close the doors, and he had some left-over merchandise at his house. i bought that hollywood and a ton of other stuff (all brand new or display items, and everything else still works fine) for dirt cheap. then, after my roommate blew his up (he hooked it up right after he bought it), i was asking the guy about it blowing so easy. and he was the one that told me that hollywood had sent him a letter talking about possible counterfeits. then i searched online about it and ran across that page i linked. i was posting on here to see if anyone knew more about the counterfeits. more specifically, if there was a way i can check mine to see if it authentic, or not. my roommate called that number and talked to customer service about his. it has a warranty, but since he bought it from ted (the guy), and not from a store, he doesnt have a receipt. no receipt, no warranty. ted was gonna make me one, but we both got laid off for winter and i have since quit working there. i lost his number...so pretty much im just stuck with it. i wanted to find out if anyone else had problems like this, and if maybe it was common for all or some hollywoods. or if im 'special' and got a bad one. also, i wanted to let people know about the problem. as far as my amp goes, thats your opinion. IMO, there is nothing wrong with it. the problem is that im only running it at 2 ohm. technically, its only a 75x2 @ 4ohm, rms. but when you drop to 1 ohm, it pushes 600 rms (300/channel). the hollywood was a dvc, so it would run at 300 rms. but i couldnt get it down to 1ohm. so its not that the amp is a pos, but its just not made to run at full power with one sub. but if you throw 2 dvc subs on it and drop to 1 ohm, it pounds the hell out of anything you put on it. right now with the pair of infinity 12's, im only running 2 ohm. but they are single coils. i have 4 of them, but only using 2 right now. amp and subs are in my g/f's neon...so im not that worried about it. also, i have the highs running from the head unit, not a 4 channel, so its not that loud. if i were to run at 1 ohm i couldnt hear the highs. and i like to hear all of the music... not just a bunch of bass, and thats it. but still, i appreciate you guys posting for me. and im not trying to be arrogant or anything like that. i know you ppl know your stuff. probably more than i do. but, i do know a fair amount. still, i will take your comments into consideration. what i would like to hear is some more detailed info about the DC current passing through to the coils. when, how, can i test for it with a multimeter or anything? thanks guys.
wait, you say its a 75 x 2 @ 4ohm. And each channel is 1 ohm stable? By wiring up your DVC sub to a 2ohm load then bridging to your channels.. thats a 1ohm load right there. So you have been running a 1ohm load the whole time.. which i don't think that amp is 1ohm stable.. which could be another problem in itself. The reason the infinity's sound much better is they have an RMS of around 350 and a high sensitiivty which means it doesnt take a lot of power to get them loud. With a sub with over 1000rms it takes a lot more power to really get it moving so you are prolly turning up your gain a bit to get more sound of it and bam cliporama. Thats just my take on the situation.
From the hollywood site.... t is true; unauthorized and counterfeit Hollywood branded products entered the US market. Attorneys and US customs special agents have helped end the infringement. We thank all who purchased Hollywood branded products and wish to help those defrauded; we have warranty programs for those Hollywood branded products. Call 626 301-7828 for more information. Have you called the number? I would think that would be your best bet. As far as the Clipping i was reffering too, it can be done whether the amp is running at 1 ohm or 32 ohms. What clipping is, is the audio output signal to your speakers (an AC waveform of varying frequency) that is driven beyond the limits of the power supplies capability. See, the power supply in an amp will take the 12 volts DC from your car and , convert it to AC, run it through a step up transformer to increse the voltage, then convert this higher voltage back to DC...lets say for example the DC power available to the output section of the amp is 80 volts. Well, when you clip the amp, or over drive it, the outputs will send short burts of this DC voltage from the power supply into your speaker. Not a good thing. The only real way to see it is on an Oscilliscope. Run a signal of say 50 Hz, and then turn up the volume while watching the scope....the wave form will be nice and rounded and smooth at its peaks, keep on turning it up...till you see the peaks start to flatten off, or "clip". This is where the term clipping comes from. And in the lower registers of the audio spectrum, this can be hard to distinguish from theactual music at times...
Good eye dave.... i didnt catch that. You are right. if the DVC woofer is run in mono with the voice coils in parallel, then the amp is essentially running at one ohm
I think it is serious clipping at 3db boost the amp is trying to put out twice the power at 6 db boost the amp is trying to put out 4 times the power at 9 db boost the amp is trying to put out 8 times it rated power Going by doubling power increases 3db. So how hard do you think the amp is working at 18db boost??
i didnt call. but my room mate did call about his identical 12" model. like i said in the post above, they told him that they would warranty it, but he had to have the original sales receipt. since he (and i) bought it from the guy after the store closed down, i got no receipt. but i did get it for only $200, instead of full price. so w/o that receipt, no warranty. and i dont work with the guy anymore, and i lost his phone number....so im pretty much stuck with it anyway. clipping.... so basically, the amp doesnt have time to re-convert the voltage back to dc?? it just sends little bits of ac strait thru when the demand is high?? it could be clipping, i dont have an oscilliscope to check it tho. the meters on the front dont peg out very often tho. but my old infinity 311a had a clip light built on it. but i could adjust settings on my head unit (turn the bass and mids down) and it wouldnt clip. and on my girls head unit, there is a sub adjustment (-6bd to +6db). i keep it at zero or lower, depending on the music...to try and not over drive things. and this amp has a pulse width modulated power supply. which i dont know everything about...some of that technical stuff is out of my league. but i know it regulates the power supply. helps keep lights from dimming and things. and as far as the amp not being 1 ohm stable, here is a page with the specs for it(wish i got it that cheap)...it is stable at 1 ohm...and it moved the hollywood pretty good. i see you guys point that it could be clipping, and that would contribute to the short life of the sub. its quite possible, but i think there is more to it than that. ive ran a few other speakers with the same amp, in the same car. and i have never had any of the other speakers blow up...in only one moth at that. but anyway...i take it that this is uncommon for a hollywood, and i just got a bunk one. i would like to inform everyone on the forum that there are counterfeit's out there (as there web page confirms), and beware!! again, thanks guys.
Hey Double... Check with Hollywood about getting the driver reconed....This is a great way to get the speaker back into shape!!! and is usually far less expensive than getting a whole new speaker. In case you font know what reconing is, they replace EVERYTHING except for the frame and magnet.....it will for all intents a purposes be a BRAND NEW driver
Also, a PWM type of power supply in a amp is OK, will pretty much guarantee you will get ratd power no matter the voltage of your electrical sytem (within limits of course) Alot of manufacturers use this method, not my favorite, but works well....I prefer an unregualted power supply, enables the amp to put out more power if you give it more voltage, The old Orions were this way....(electro, dont get any crazy ideas!!!!!! yours will shut down and or explode at around 18 volts )
Amplifiers put out AC voltage...it is not that there is not enough time to convert the high voltage dc to ac...Think of it like an engine...basically the engine can only rev to a certain rpm limit and put out so much horsepower. clipping can be thought of as going way beyond the redline and basically bad things are going to happen
ive been more of a vigilant person than a poster lol ive been really busy with alot of things but i have been checking on to make sure that spam and scam hasnt been a problem and i do post every so often haaha
