question about subwoofer power wires..

[blackturbona]

alright so i got a free pair of subs and an amp from a friend. 2 JL 12" subs. i hooked them up with 4 gauge wire but no sound comes out, only slight vibration from the subs. my thought is 4 gauge isnt fat enough, my friend had 0 gauge in his car so im assuming they need that there fairly high wattage(dont ask me numbers). so i kinda wanna buy 0 gauge wire and try, but its expensive and i was wondering what the big diff is between "speaker wire" and normal cable u would use to strap things together or what not. does speaker wire just flow current extremly more efficiently and with much less ohms?


and ps theyre nto goin in the supra so dont try breakin in! happened before

 

[AF1JZ]

I take it you have them hooked up to an amp and RCA's and all that good stuff? since most of the JL's are dual voice coil, do you have them hooked up right? 4 gauge should be plenty big for the power and the speaker wire doesn't make too much of a difference.

 

[OfnaRcR4]

Don't go buy 0 guage wire. If you got those subs for free, i garantee that either your friend is really rich, or they can't outflow 4 guage wire. You should still get sound even if you are running some 16 guage wire, although the wire would get really hot.
To put it into perspective, i am running two phoenix gold 600.1's on 4 guage. Thats 1200 watts RMS or 2400 max (BTW, don't EVER look at MAX wattage as actual wattage, ALWAYS look at RMS).

My guess is that you have them hooked up wrong.

On a side note since it sounds like you are new to amps. If your amp says 1200watts on it but its rated at 300 watts RMS, its a 300 watt amp. Don't go telling your boys you have a 1200 watt amp. It makes you look dumb.

 

[speed]

0ga won't make any difference vs 4ga in your case. 4ga will power around 1kwrms,which will DEFINITELY get your subs moving. You have a problem with your gains somewhere, or a wiring issue. Be very specific: what headunit, amp, and subwoofers are they? This is NEEDED to help solve your issues.

And like OfnaRcR4, don't EVER go by what the "max" wattage is, its purely a marketing ploy. Anybody who actually knows something won't be able to take you seriously and you'll be the douche of the crowd.

 

[foreverpsycotic]

pictures of how you have hooked it up? did you "tune" the amp? did you "tune" the headunit?

 

[blackturbona]

i dunno they worked fine in my car, i dont actualyl own them we were messign around with them here and he left them but there as good as mine basically. i have a pioneer deck, a newer style like 250 bucks. i dunno anytihng about that gain business. i hooked up the rca the remote wire ground and everything. a JL e1400d amp? thats all i know really sorry cant describe much more since audio is something im clueless about

 

[speed]

Ok, but how did you wire up the subwoofer? we can't help you if you can't give us any info.