Issues, please help

[preal]

Here are my issues: Lights keep dimming, amp over heats in about 30 mins....

This is what I have:

Stock deck on a 2005 GMC Yukon

ONE 12" ALPINE TYPE-R SUBWOOFER (SWR-1243D
12 Inch Dual Voice Coil Subwoofer (4Ω)+(4Ω))

ONE ALPINE MRP-M1000 MONO POWER AMPLIFIER

2 Farad Cap

100 AMP FUSE WIRING KIT

I have the speaker wired at 2 ohms

I dont know what the problem is, any help will be appreciated.

 

[TnTahoe]

what gauge is the power and ground wire, and I personally would lose the cap, and also you might have your amp gain up too high

 

[preal]

8 Gauge, with the gain and db all the way up....One of the techs at best buy told me to turn it all the way up because he said "you dont want to under power your sub". I got to cap hoping it would help out with the lights dimming.

 

[TnTahoe]

the amp shouldnt be all the way up, and im thinking that 8 guage is too small i would suggest using 4 gauge, turn that gain down fo sho, thats probably the main cause of the overheating, i would suggest adjusting the gain by ear for now, turn the gain and bass boost all the way to zero, then turn your hu to your normal listening volume then adjust the gain to your liking but the amp should by no means be all the way up, i just looked and that amp is a 1000w rms @ 2 ohms and that sub is a 500rms subs, so by that you are actually overpowering the sub, that BEST BUY tech doesnt know what the hell he is doing

 

[preal]

Damn. I will try that when I get home. One more question: What is the difference between:
1-Power Handling (RMS/peak) 600W/1800W
2-Power Range (RMS) 300W-600W

Why does it say the sub can handle 1800W? Maybe thats what the Tech was thinking...dont know.

---------- Post added at 07:58 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:57 AM ----------

And if I am over powering the sub, would that cause all my issues? Should I wire the sub at 4 ohms? Thank you very much for the help

 

[TnTahoe]

rms is how much the speaker can handle continuosly
rms for amp is how much is can put out continuosly
max for speaker is how much it can handle at one instance( i usually ignore the max value)
you will damage your subs if you push them near the max value

you usually choose your system by rms, say my subs have 500 rms @ 1 ohm, i would find an amp that does at least 500rms @1 or more

the amp could be getting hot because its not getting the proper voltage caused by the smaller wire and having the gain all the way up will definately cause it to heat up faster and will make your lights dim

 

[preal]

So sorry, whats the difference between 2 and 4 ohm?

 

[TnTahoe]

the lower the resistance the more power the amp can put out using less effort

 

[preal]

Great thank you very much for all your help. I will try it today, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

[TnTahoe]

ok good luck