I'm a novice, will my setup work out?
 

ok so first off thank you for reading and hopefully giving advice. I'm on a budget and trying to set up an audio system as best i can with the money i have. so far i have a kenwood reciever kdcmp345u with some kicker ks600 two way coaxials up front and kicker ks69 two way 6x9s in the rear deck. I just bought a kicker CVR124 12'' rated 4 ohm and a kenwood monoblock amp kac8105d allegedly good for 500w rms at 2 ohm, which is what i will be running at. I bought a streetwires 4 gauge kit with supplied interconnects, rca cables whatever you want to call them. I havent set up the amp or subs yet obviously.

my question is will my setup thus far workout pretty well? I know im going to hear a lot of "buy another 4 channel amp or 2 2channels" but my question is will my SQ be decent as is? thanks in advance for any knowledgable advice you might give.

the speakers will sound better than stock and the sub will sound fine. it will all work as you have it. you will, as you said, want to save up and amp those speakers eventually to really get the potential out of them. but if you hook everything up as you have it, it will sound better than stock and it will all work.

that sub is a dual 4 ohm sub so you can either wire it at 2 ohms or 8 ohms. wire it parrellel at 2 ohms and you should be able to get the power needed to push that sub. the sub asks for 400w rms. if you are getting 14.4 volts (which is what kicker rates their amps at, and what most hondas put out) then you should be getting 500+ watts out of that amp. i would highly recomend using a dmm to set the output so that you do not blow the sub. or if you have access to a scope this would be even better.

i have read a lot of reviews about kenwood amps over heating. you probably dont want to run that thing at full tilt even if it doesnt produce the power to blow the sub.

awesome idea. thanks a lot. i bought a remote level control, so when i shoot the wires and figure out where to put my gain on my amp at max level should i turn the remote level control all the way up so i know when im sitting in the car wanting more bass i wont turn it up and accidentally blow the sub? that remote level control is pretty much like a secondary gain control right? thanks for the info btw

that is what i did with mine for my remote but i am not sure if it is a secondary gain control or not. i know it has some effect on the gain. it would have to to adjust the volume but i dont know how much of an effect. but to be safe that would be one way to do it. it is possible that the adjuster effects the signal level in which case it could cause clipping without turning the gain up much. i am not sure however to go about doing anything about it. like i said i am not sure. i would imagine if it is all the way up and you arent clipping when you test it then you will be fine. someone else (hmmhmm keep_hope_alive) maybe able to answer this better but i am sure there is some info somewhere on the internet about it.

hahaha, funny you say that cause we've been pming about the setup a bit. maybe he will chime in soon. you think if i don't hear any distortion that its probably safe?

i've heard that its better to overpower a sub than underpower it... that goes against my common sense but i dont know much abou tthis stuff yet

Sorry guys, been busy wiring a 69 corvette drag car during evenings. I should have time in the coming days to provide more input. Thaks for the input neo...

It is not that you want to overpower the sub, but that you want to have more power available than you will use so you dont push the amp to clipping.

this clipping you speak of...is it caused by the subwoofer trying to draw more power from the amp than is available?

Too Little Power Blowing Speakers

http://forum.sounddomain.com/ubbthre...r/65167/page/1

holy crap, thats some in depth stuff. i had to read it 3 times just to grasp what i could. would it be a good idea to shoot the wires with my dmm to see what my amp is actually putting out under load to figure out what i should actually have the gain set at? do you think that if it's only putting out 400 watts "average" (as i will use from now on when talking with you, lol i'm so naive)at 2 ohm, that that amount of output from the amp will be too much for that sub? reminder, sub is a kicker comp cvr124 12" 4 ohm rated at 50-400 watts "RMS".

on another note, i've learned more online today about basic electricity than i had learned in high school while attending well... basic electricity classes, haha.