Car Stereos: SUB/AMP HOOK UP, dual voice coil, sony xplode

Question
I HAVE (2) 10DVC C.VEGA'S IN TWO SEPARATE TRUCK BOXES. JUST BOUGHT A SONY XPLODE 1200WATT 2/1 AMP. NO SOUND OUT OF THE SUBS.  THEY ARE HOOKED UP +/+ & -/- ON THE SUBS. THEN THE SAME ON THE AMP. I WANT 4OHM NOT 2OHM. PLEASE HELP ME OUT. THANKS BUDDY

Answer
Hi Buddy,

It's hard to say why you're not getting any output from the subs; there are several things that could be causing the problem.

If your subs are 4-ohm dual voice coil, then it won't be possible to get a 4-ohm impedance with each sub.  It sounds like you may have the voice coils wired in parallel.  In this case, the impedance of each sub will be 2 ohms.  This is okay if you're connecting one sub to the left channel of the amplifier, and the other sub to the right channel.  If you have both subs connected to the amplifier in "bridged" mode, however, the impedance will be too low for the amp, and it might be going into "protect" mode.

My advice would be to connect one sub to each amplifier channel if they're not wired that way already.  Make sure that your RCA cables are connected to the "input" jacks, not the "output"; and if you're using a head unit with a subwoofer output, make sure the sub setting is turned on.  

Hope this helps!

Brian