by garbo41610 » Thu Aug 22, 2013 2:37 pm
chanham wrote:Yeah I understand, but I'm comparing it to the Polk audio one which is around 200w rms.
You really need to forget about the power handling, it don't mean diddley. Sensitivity will help make the most of the shitty power the McIntosh amp puts out. Your main concern is how you treat the sub. You can't (well you can, but if you do, you're an idiot) "overpower" a speaker because it's all in the tuning in the after market amps. Say your amp puts out 300wRMS, your speaker will see that very rarely. Music is dynamic. Like I mentioned, I have run an OEM McIntosh sub off a 300wRMS amp, with absolutely no issues.
However, underpowering a speaker is dangerous, you don't have any tuning capabilities with the McIntosh amp so you need to be mindful of how you run it. Run it at or near max volume for any extended period of time, and you will clip the shit out of it and cook the voice coil/s of the speaker. However, run it at a moderate level, and you'll be fine. I have had many, many, MANY systems over the years and have run 500wRMS subs off the rear channels of a Rockford Fosgate 4.6x rated at about 4 x 30wRMS and they performed impeccably.
One more thing, those Pioneer free air subs sound terrible.
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