Need help with getting the right amp for a 1200 watt sub

[Spyro]

I have a 12" Kicker Solo Baric L5 sub woofer in my 99 Civic already. It has a 1500 watt Autotek Street Machine sm1-1500 class A/B hooked up to it with a capacitor. I have an 86 Camaro I'm working on, I like the sub for the nice "Kick" and convenient space, but I need to find the right amp for it. Since I bought the system like 2 years ago, it's a little hard to find the same amp, especially at the price I paid for it. My cousin had an "o2" amp which worked out pretty good for him. The only choices I have for that model are 1240 watts or 1800 watts. I feel like one is too little while the other is just too much, and their both priced for $200. I can have the sub in my civic at it's full capacity with no problems at 1500 hooked up at just 1 Ohm Any suggestions? Any better amps out there for a good price?

 

[lethal6]

1200 is PEAK power. You don't buy an amp based on that you buy it based on the RMS which is only around 600. Any amp that is a true 600 watt RMS will do. An old school rule of thumb is that amps are $2 a watt, if you are buying a $200 amp, you are lucky to get 400 watt RMS out of it.

Almost all amp makers lie and up-sell their wattage. I can almost guarantee you that those amps that you claim are 1200 and 1800 are lucky to be getting half that if not less.

I think the L5's are 4 ohm. How are you going to draw 1ohm out of a 4ohm sub?

 

[Spyro]

1200 is PEAK power. You don't buy an amp based on that you buy it based on the RMS which is only around 600. Any amp that is a true 600 watt RMS will do. An old school rule of thumb is that amps are $2 a watt, if you are buying a $200 amp, you are lucky to get 400 watt RMS out of it.

Almost all amp makers lie and up-sell their wattage. I can almost guarantee you that those amps that you claim are 1200 and 1800 are lucky to be getting half that if not less.

I think the L5's are 4 ohm. How are you going to draw 1ohm out of a 4ohm sub?

LOL good question. I'm not really sure how the different watts and ohms and rms work. I've seen that people use a Kicker 750.1 amp to do the trick, but the numbers just confuse me based on the watts. I just want to make sure i'm not going to blow it. And to be honest I'm not really sure how my Civic is even wired I do know that there is plenty of cross wiring, and I'm going to get all of that fixed. I bought the car with a system already in it... all I did was put a different sub, amplifier and change the stereo. All the wires remained the same... The dude that sold me the sub told me I would need the 1500 watt amp to power it, since the max out put was "1200 watts", but now I see that it's based on the RMS output usually?

 

[EJ1 Coupe]

I would honestly just get a true 1000w rms amp and just turn the gain down so you don't fry the amp with full gain. I don't feel like looking up if the sub is duel voice coil. if so alpine mrp m1000 would get the job done and down to 2 ohms for 1000w. If you had TWO of the subs (if they were duel 4ohm voice coil) you could wire it to 1 ohm.

 

[Spyro]

I would honestly just get a true 1000w rms amp and just turn the gain down so you don't fry the amp with full gain. I don't feel like looking up if the sub is duel voice coil. if so alpine mrp m1000 would get the job done and down to 2 ohms for 1000w. If you had TWO of the subs (if they were duel 4ohm voice coil) you could wire it to 1 ohm.

I see what you mean. But generally like I said before the rms on the Kickers come with 750 watts, which is plenty for the sub. I just might have to find an amp with a close rms wattage.

 

[fanaticx]

you are way to worried about the watts. I once had an 800 watt sub that I pushed with a bad ass 80 watt amp and it did the trick for quite awhile. you are better off buying a good quality under powered amp than an over powered crap amp!