Rockford Fosgate Amps

[WINEGRAPEGROWER]

"You'll smoke a Rev10 quicker with less power, creating more distortion, then you will with more power."

In one sense I agree. But too little power never blew a speaker. You won't blow a Rev10 with HU power even when trying. Two signals, one distorted and one undistorted, at the same power level, create the same amount of potentially damaging heat at the speaker. Less power being dangerous is a myth.

The problem is that you can serious overdrive any amplifier into clipping and well past its rated clean power. And the byproduct of hard clipping is simply MORE continuous power. It's the continuous power that is the threat. So if someone is inclined to abuse their power, and they can't seem to hear distortion on their own, they will smoke a speaker twice as fast with twice the power.

YOu can NEVER have tooo much HP or too big of an amp...Does not mean you have to use all the power all the time. ANd as with HP in your car. AND a large amount of HP does not equate to pooor gas mileage. You can get 25-30 mpg with a new Corvette, yet still go near 200 mph and the 0-60 in 4-5 seconds!! A quality amp will run cooler, send less/fewer surges to your speakers, ultimately saving your speakers and allowing them to last longer and sound better!

Edited January 21, 2016 by WINEGRAPEGROWER

[DarkSide]

Wine,

Absolutely correct! Having a larger amp and running it at 75% is infinity better than a smaller amp pushed to its limits. The larger amp will have heat sinks sized to dissipate heat generated at full power, by running lower you are ensuring the amp will likely remain cool and clean.

You are also 100% correct that the power supplies in better amps regulate voltages better, are filtered better on the input, and more stable across a wider range of voltage.

Too much power only is an issue IF your pushing the envelope too far, everything has tollerences. In most cases people do not listen to thier system at max anyway, so this envelop is rarely pushed, so you can "overpower" the system and it will last longer and sound fantastic because you are not driving it over the edge.

[David]

Follow this:

The relative shape of the waveform and the distortion level at any given power level does not matter when it comes to speaker safety.

The power is what truly matters.

Most any amplifier can exceed its rated power level by a good margin if you no longer limit it to the distortion threshold at which it's rated.

You may successfully run a Rev10 with a 400 watt amplifier per each all day based on the amplifier specs, however that speaker NEVER sees anything close to 400 continuous watts. But that is just an amplifier rating and not what the speaker actually sees in the way of continuous power. Music content is not a sine wave, and is very transient in nature. So in real power terms the actual continuous power would only be a minor fraction. Now if you drive that 400 watt amplifier to 250 watts continuous for a sustained duration with ultra clean power you stand a good chance of smokin' the speaker, after all, the midbass driver has a 2-inch VC. 400 watts continuous would be a stretch. In the same way you can drive a 200 watt (CEA2006) amplifier to 250 watts at a very high distortion level. And it will also smoke the speaker. Not because of the waveform shape, or square wave, or distortion level, but because of the same 250 watts continuous power. You can achieve that 250 watts in a number of ways....a) a square wave that has a long duration but a limited peak, or b) a sine wave that has slightly less duration but a far greater peak, or c) a more musical transient having lots of brief bursts but enormous peaks.

In any case, when you reach a measured 250 continuous watts, regardless of the wave form shape, regardless of the distortion level, regardless of whether it is music power, sine wave power, or square wave power, regardless of whether it's a good or bad amplifier, the speaker smokes. There is simply more continuous power than the speaker can dissipate and as a direct result heat builds in the VC and bad things happen.

Clipping, or square waving an amplifier, is just another way of reaching an unacceptable power level. You may not produce the full peak to peak power but you have substituted duration for peak in arriving at the same measured continuous power. In the end, it's a just matter of continuous power regardless of the waveform shape.

Distortion as in hard clipping may be a means of creating more power. So technically POWER KILLS, NOT DISTORTION.

There is the myth that an amplifier that is clipped generates DC. That is impossible unless the amplifier is dead shorted and broken.

The hard edges of a square wave creates every conceivable frequency component across a huge bandwidth. Is it potentially damaging to a tweeter? Likely yes. But because of the inordinate power created at those frequencies. You can do the same with a larger amplifier and greater rotation of the volume control using a perfectly pristine signal.

[IXFE]

Can somebody summarize for me? Who's fault is it that Darkside's Rev10 blew...?

A) Rockdord Amp

B) WS Rev10

C) Darkside

And yes, that is very cool that WS replaced the speaker.

[David]

There is no way to answer that question accurately unless you have the speaker to dissect and inspect, and/or you witnessed or heard how the product is being used.

Not pertaining to Darkside's situation, and in no way would I speculate on his speaker, but in general there are a number of potential causes beyond the few mentioned. Tuning and installation would be two more.

Now if for example the voice coil is burnt and unraveled then that is a cause beyond Wetsounds control and not a defect in any way. The quality of copper windings and enamel insulators melt and burn at about the same temperature from any brand. And abuse, which is often quite audible, is just about the only way this happens. That wouldn't normally be covered by warranties but a manufacturer could elect to repair it under warranty until the problem becomes a habit.

[DarkSide]

Things to note this is occured during initial installation so no repeated abuse. Everything is installed all gains set to minimum. At initial power up port Rev 10 litteraly smokes, as in see and smell smoke and burned carbon. Starboard Rev 10 works like a champ. OK so at this point speaker is blown, one of two issues, bad speaker or bad amp. So I grab a junk speaker from my garage and connect it to the amp. That speaker immediately smokes as well. Tada bad amp.

This is not a tuning issue as tuning haso not taken place yet, all gains still set to minimum.

Not a REV 10 issue because smoked second speaker.

Amp was replaced by Rockford, under warranty. They did not tell me which component internal to the amp failed. I also don't care what failed, they replaced it at no cost.

Again wet sounds was awesome they covered the speaker, even though it was not thier defect. Unlike rockford they did return the diagnosis. The crossover was destroyed by excessive power.

I got the Rev10 back in about a week, when I got it back in installed it and used a smaller small amp from my garage. (P300x2) I used this amp for about 2 weeks until my replacement P1000x2 came back from rockford. Once I got it back in reinstalled and did a rough tune of the system.

No issues since.

Edited January 22, 2016 by DarkSide

[dielawn]

Short answer yes remove stickers and adjust.

Long answer, even after you adjust gains you are likely to be a little underwhelmed. The Rockford amps can sound great, but they need help. An EQ/line driver will likely solve your issues.

I used an Audio Control EQS. It provides separate EQ for cabins, towers, and Sub. Works like a champ, and will be way cheaper than switching even one amp. The problem is the RFX 6000 black box will only feed the amps a maximum of 3V, the amps can handle up to 12V, the EQS solves this and feeds the amps appropriately, allowing them to run at a lower gain, thus cleaner.

Here is mine, for reference.

Darkside has it right. If you already paid the money for the Rockford system in your new boat, instead of ripping it out just add 1 more amp Fockford fosgate amp to your setup. Its minimal work and will actually look and sound amazing. The fockford amps are actually pretty good but the amps the put int here are just too little for how much power the speakers require to get up to their base RMS.

This is my 2016 stereo project.

I will be moving the tower speaker AMP and connecting this amp to the four large 8" Rockford fosgate speakers in the cabin. These will then be fully powered. The original cabin speaker amp will now be dedicated to the remaining four 6" speakers in the cabin fully powering them.

The Sub amp and the subwoofer will go untouched. Although I will be resealing the stock box to see if it will sound any better, if it doesn't I will make the decision to either replace box, or replace the sub all together. But I will be trying to NOT have to do that if possible.

The new AMP will be this one : http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/products/details/t1000-4ad : This amp will be able to provide 250watts to my two pairs of REV 8 tower speakers. The rev 8s can handle 300 watts RMS but I feel 250 watts dedicated to those 4 speakers is going to sound really good.

I will also be adding a wetsounds WS 420 because once you have used one of these equalizers, you will never feel the same without it again. It really is awesome to be able to control the tower speakers and the cabin speakers individually and it makes all the difference when you don't necessarily need to blast the back of the boat while people are floating/chilling.

So for a 1000$ added amp, and 300$ for the WS420. Your boat system should be pretty dam clean and full powered. This will be much cheaper than ripping out 3 AMPS and redoing the entire system. And I will reiterate that selling your slightly used Fosgate amps is going to suck, you will not get much money for them, even though they are virtually brand new. The amps are good and they don't overheat. Malibu just messed up by putting a standard 4 CH amp in the boat thinking it would fully power 8 SPEAKERS! Its just insane.

[OneZero81]

I am doing something similar to what dielawn has done.

My stock system came with a p500x2 for my 2 WS Icon 8's (tower) and a p400x4, which powers the 4 6.5's and the 4 8's inside.  8 speakers driven off of a p400x4!

I am keeping the p500x2 on the 2 tower speakers

The p400x4 will power the 4 6.5's in cabin

A new p600x4 will power the 4 8's in cabin

Also adding a 12JLW3v3 in a sealed box under drivers helm with a JL600/1V3 to drive it

Finishing it off with a WS-420SQ so i can control the levels of the cabin, sub and tower separately.  

total cost: around $1750

 

Edited April 22, 2016 by OneZero81

[dielawn]

The stock amps in the boat are not bad at all. They are quite nice actually. BUT, what you do have is not quite enough power for all the speakers in your boat. The cheapest way to be happy with your system is simply add 1 more badass  Rockford Fosgate amp to your system. Add 1 t800=4AD ( http://www.rockfordfosgate.com/products/details/t800-4ad) like this one. 

Follow this process

1. Take the current cabin speaker amp and dedicate that amp to the front 4 cabin speakers. This will fully power them.

2. Take the tower speaker amp and dedicate those 4 channels to the back 4 cabin speakers of the boat. (This amp is a bit more power and will get the big 8" speakers  nearly fully powered as well according to their RMS output)

3. Sub Amp - Leave the sub and sub amp dedicated to one another but, remove the sub enclosure and reseal it for much fuller sound.

4. Install your new t800-4AD 4 channel amp as your new dedicated amp for your tower speakers. This amp will provide 150 watts RMS to each tower speaker (4 Rev 8) this will get you to almost fully powered RMS.

Bottom Line: The amps are good, its just there is 8 cabin speakers in the boat , and only 1 mid size 4ch amp powering all of the cabin speakers, the power distribution is just spread too thin that is all. The speakers are good quality and have decent RMS handling and they just need the proper power to perform. Same with the tower speakers which usually have much higher RMS handling. Make sure all of the speakers are power to the correct RMS and you will be pleased with the results.

 

Also do what the others have said and make sure you tune and adjust the gains on the current amps. This is going to save you THOUSANDS of dollars by simply just adding 1 more amp to your system. Just realize if you were to redo the entire system your buying all new amps, and don't think for a second your going to sell your like  new fosgate amps for a decent price. Stereo equipment resell value is just trash even if its brand new.

Edited April 22, 2016 by dielawn

[OneZero81]

I see what you're saying but i think our stock setup's were different.  I have 1 pair of icon 8's that are powered by a p500x2.  not a 4 channel like you had.

icons are 150watts not 250 like yours

the current cabin amp (p400x4) will power the front 4 cabin 6.5"s and a new p600x4 will be added to power the rear 4 8's.

i have no sub today and i'm adding the jl amp and sub.

 

[MLA]

1081,

Does the JL 12w3 come in a 4 ohm? Get a single Wet Sounds Syn-DX6 for the woofer and 2 pair 6.5 = 600W rms for the woofer and 100+ rms for each 6.5

Relocate the two pair main cabin 8" to the 500.2 = 125W rms for each 8"

Rewire the icons bridged to the 400.4. = 200W rms to each icon

I think you will reduce that cost by about $300 and you are only swapping one amp off the wall.

[OneZero81]

Quote

On 4/22/2016 at 6:50 PM, MLA said:

1081,

Does the JL 12w3 come in a 4 ohm? Get a single Wet Sounds Syn-DX6 for the woofer and 2 pair 6.5 = 600W rms for the woofer and 100+ rms for each 6.5

Relocate the two pair main cabin 8" to the 500.2 = 125W rms for each 8"

Rewire the icons bridged to the 400.4. = 200W rms to each icon

I think you will reduce that cost by about $300 and you are only swapping one amp off the wall.

 

Thanks MLA.  All is already said and done....  The sub amp is a JL Audio M‑Series Marine M600/1 Class D Mono.  I haven't tuned the tower/icon amp yet.  Hopefully i can get more out of that 500.2.  I should be!  Can barely hear the icons while surfing. I notice you're local.  Let me know if you're ever out on Norman!