Audio Systems: Subwoofer/amp, ohm voice coils, watts rms

Question
QUESTION: I have a 15"Kicker L7 Sub and i am having trouble deciding on what amp to get as far as how close should i get to the max amount of watts it can handle.
ANSWER: Go by the RMS (Continous Average) rating and buy a amp that will deliver that amount.

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QUESTION: Can i wire it at 2-ohms because then i would get 1000 rms out of the amp i'm looking at which is an Alpine MRD-M1005 mono amp. Someone else i asked said i could not wire my sub at 2 ohms.
ANSWER: IF the sub has Dual 4-ohm Voice Coils (I know Kicker offers an L7 that has this configuration, but I do not know if yours is one of them), you certainly CAN wire it at 2 ohms and if it is a Dual 4-ohm Voice Coil model, anyone telling you different is mistaken.
Simply wire the coils in parallel for a 2 ohm load on the mono amp.
Basically, you can get 2 ohms (parallel) or 8 ohms (series) if it is indeed a Dual 4-ohm Voice Coil sub.

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QUESTION: I do have the Dual 4-ohm Voice coils so thanks for your help and one last question. Is there a good chance i will blow my sub with it running at its max 1000W rms or should i back it down a little while using it.

Answer
I do not like running stuff at the edge..although it is possible to run it at 1000 if each coil can take 500 watts RMS. The problem lies in the amp level setting. IF you set it just a tad too high, it will lead to damage. The box will have a very large impact on how well it sounds and how loud it will get but if you try to eeek out an extra DB by setting the amp level too high (which does NOT work, btw), it will only lead to damage. Even if you set it 'correctly', you can damage it by adding some bass at the headunit and cranking it. The idea is to have some overhead, so that means to set the amp level just below optimum to allow some EQ with less clipping problems. But whenever you crank it to the wall, be sure the EQ settings are 'flat'. So set it up for 100% volume and NO equalization (or just a hair shy of that, for safety).

good luck and have fun!

JM