So I had a free amp sitting around (perks of working for a liquidating electronics retailer ), but it's only 150w RMS. I had also been wanting a sub to give me a little bass in the blazer. So I looked into different subs I could get at good prices now working at another consumer electronics retailer..and settled on a Rockford Fosgate P1. It is also rated at 150w RMS @ 4 ohms...sooo...now I have a 150w setup in the blazer. But..while it does give me some bass..its not the real deep bass I was looking for. It sounds great..just not..deep.

So I know its because its only 150w and on a entry level sub, but basically for ~$60 more I can get an Alpine Type R (I know there's plenty of other brands with better quality vs cost etc...but Im looking in the <$100 range on my employee cost). My question is, if for the time being I go with the Type R, but keep that same 150w RMS amp, will I get about the same amount of bass as with the P1? Or since I would only be supplying 10% of the rated power to the Type R, would it just be too little power?

I would be going up to a 500w RMS Alpine amp in the near future, but Ive got other projects Im working on, so the sub setup is a low cost investment for now.

Tl;dr -- Is 150w RMS going to give me the same or similar volume out of a Rockford Fostgate P1 (rated at 150w) as out of an Alpine Type R (rated at 500w)?

 

It really depends on the box you have if your looking for the low bass. I have a 15" L7 at 1200rms and had it in a sealed box at 3cubic feet and then I made a custom ported box at 4 cubic feet and its lows are rediculous. It made the biggest diffrence. You will see a noticeable difference in lows with upgrading the sub but if you want a really big difference go with a bigger ported box.

 

I agree with speterson in the box idea. But right off in the same box you may notice a bit of a difference with the higher quality sub, being that the spec are different. But yes a bigger box that is tuned and ported will make (almost) any sub sound 1000x better!

 

 

That looks like a good box, it looks like it has a lot to offer when it comes to hitting hard and its lows capabilities. The port is tuned if it came pre made. How many hertz it is tuned at im not sure you might have to research the box a little more. But if you want the low bass and make people turn heads for a decent price look for something around 400watts rms to 500watts rms and find an amp to match it, the power acoustik amps on ebay are good if you get the class d ones in a mono block amp. In that box something around those ratings will be very good and you will be very happy.

 

I will try to answer your questions with my own experience between subs and wattage. First I would expect the Rockford sub to sound better and louder with 150 watts than the Alpine type R. The reason is that low power subs like the Rockford P1 are more efficient because the cones and motor pieces of the woofer are lighter than higher power subwoofers. Higher power subs have heavy voice coils, thick cones, large surrounds and high excursion spiders. All of these elements allow the woofer to reach higher volume levels but require more power to move the motor. I think if you ran both subs on a 500 watt rms amp then the Alpine type R could get louder without distortion than the Rockford P1.

You also mention that you desire "deep bass". If you mean greater volume in the lower frequency range a sealed enclosure might sound better to you than various ported boxes. Also use the enclosure size specified by the woofer manufacturer to get the best sound.

 

isnt the P1 a SVC design, and the Type R is DVC?.

with 150w from the amp it will be hard to judge 150w of bass, because of various factors inside an enclosure.

The TypeR is a naturally deep basket design which takes up more airspace inside its enclosure. since it does this it sounds better because the type r is made for nice prefab enclosures that are on the "larger" side.

the P1 id assume is smaller and meant for smaller enclosures.

also gotta figure in XMax and other true factors of why one sub sounds bigger than the next.

when subs are in a really big enclosure and they arent meant for it, even the littlest amount of power could be bad for them regardless of how much they can take. and the same goes for when subs are in super small enclosures..

amp and subs should be as close as possible in each others power rating, and if you want even better sound amps>subs>enclosure must match

 

wow awesome info taba and zdf! That's exactly what I was looking for. And I hadnt considered switching to a sealed enclosure to get the bass I'm after...but...the sealed enclosures are all smaller than ported I currently have..I need to lookup the air space requirements for the Type R, but yea youre exactly right the Type R is DVC.

Maybe Ill switch a sealed box and keep my current set up, then when I decide to buy the new amp, ill go with the type R? I only went with the P1 to match the 150w amp, but I don't know why I didnt consider matching the box as well..haha..

thanks again for the info

 

Those boxes come tuned and untuned.The untuned ones you can remove the port from.