Can I just use one voice coil on a dual voice coil sub?

I'm trying to set up a friend with some old audio gear I have. I have a super cheap 2ch amp that I can bridge to get ~300W@4ohm and I have a 4ohm DVC sub that I'm about to replace. As I understand it, since only half of the sub is receiving power, then as long as I run it at half of the rated power, everything should work out fine.

Sub is rated at 500W rms and at half power, I think a 300W amp (which is likely overrating its true capabilities) would work nicely.

Anything I'm missing? I wanted to run it through you guys before I end up blowing a voice coil. Would I need to wire anything to the unused terminal or just leave it as it is?

 

Why not just run the amp in stereo with each channel going to 1 coil? Or if the amp is stable at 2ohms bridged you could connect both coils to the bridge amp.

Your method would work also and nothing would need to be done with the unused voice coil.

 

Would that work alright if each channel is 2ohm and the voice coils are 4ohm?

Specs on the amp are:
RMS Power Output - 100W x 2
Peak Power Output - 230W x 2
Power at 2 Ohms - 145W x 2
Bridged Power - 300W x 1
Minimum Impedance Bridged - 4Ω
Minimum Impedance Unbridged - 2Ω

Sub is a kicker CVR

I could run the coils in parallel to bring the sub down to 2ohm but that would only be running on one channel. I figured it would have more power if I bridged it and ran on one coil.

 

You'll not hear a real difference running 1 coil on each channel compared to running one coil on the amp bridged. There's simply not that big of a power difference. It takes a doubling of power to make a 3dB gain in output which just is really audible. Not to mention it's generally not a good idea to only put power to a single coil on a DVC driver. Issues with heat can arise and cause it to prematurely fail. The amp is stable to 2 ohms in stereo only, bridged is good for 4 ohms, or just one coil. If I were you I'd just stick it on there with one coil on each channel until I was able get another amp or something like that.

Just my .02

 

Alright sounds good. I'll wire it up both ways and see if we can tell any difference.

Thanks for your help guys