2008 GS460 with NAV and Mark Levinson

I am interested in replacing my factory sub with one of these powered subs that comes in a small box. I am looking at the Rockford Fosgate Punch P300-10.

My worry is that, correct me if I am wrong, the factory amp powers all of the speakers so if I am taking an already crossed over signal and putting it to an amp that will cross it over, it is not going to be worth it.

I have replaced the factory one once and it seems to be failing again. I looked for the speaker foam replacement but most sites say they dont carry it for my car.

Any suggestions? I really dont want to replace the head unit with something aftermarket.

 

A quick check on Crutchfield website reviews showed that the P300-10 can be hooked up to the factory head unit. To be absolutely sure, I would send an email to Rockford Fosgate to confirm, and what additional parts are needed (if any). Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

Install an aftermarket sub in the factory location just check the OHM rating on the factory unit. I think the oem sub for the GS is a dual voice coil rated at 2.5 ohms per coil, with that being said you could run a dual 2 ohm sub wired in series and it would come out to a 4 ohm load and the factory amp should push it fine.

 

Thanks for the update. I actually found this sub on Crutchfied, however, their people say they never had a car like ours in so they have no specs on it. I took your advice and sent them an email, hopefully, they will get back to me with some good news.

At the end of the day I want something simple in there without doing a lot of modification to the car as I really like the door speakers, etc.

Thanks again for the input.

 

I heard from Rockford, they did not go into detail but said yes hook it up directly from the subwoofer speaker wire. I honestly am not sure this will work but I am thinking about ordering it anyway just to see.

If anyone else has any experience with this I would greatly appreciate any feedback!

 

I recently read something about a Line Out Converter or Hi/Low converter that will work when connecting to the factory speaker wire. I am by no means an audiophile and am not sure if this will solve the problem or not. Suggestions?

 

If your swapping it for a box/sub thats going in the trunk are you running a separate amp? If yes, you can use the line-out converter.
IMHO, you'll loose some sound quality, but when it comes to audio its all personal preference.

 

Being amplified sub, speaker impedance problem is non issue. Many different ways to hook up a sub. no matter what kind it is. Usually amplified sub. can be driven
via RCA plug off the left channel main amp or LFE output.. Good sub. amp. will have input level adjustment, cross over adjustment, input signal driven power on/off switch.

 

Hey is anyone here dealing with audio cutting off? When volume up? Mine is doing that. I'm posting on another thread but nobody really is saying anything enlightening to me. I see on here you guys are talking about the Amp and stuff. I think that's maybe what is wrong with mine..? When I put the volume up past 20 or so it makes a paper cut quick sound and goes in and out from there until I put it back down. I can only play music low. I listen to allot of bass music. Could my amp have been blown out and it interfering with me raising the volume?? Or does our cars have that safety feature when the subwoofer or amp blow?? Is there like any type of fuse for the subwoofer or amp that you fellas might have knowledge of? I'm tryna fix this myself if I can just don't know where to start. Also I have a 2006 GS430 with Mark Levinson sound system and navigation system.

 

Thanks! Yes it is a powered sub, one of those that has the amp built into it. Made by Rockford Fosgate. Does the Mark Levinson Amp have the RCA Out on it? If not, could I just splice the factory subwoofer wire and run it into the amp?

 

Sure.using splitter is OK.

 

Cutting in and out sounds like your sub voice coil is cooked causing shorts within coil due to burnt insulation between coil windings. Safety is thermal cut off when amp chip gets too hot driven too hard. In that case, once it is cut off, it won't come back until things cool off.

 

But it only does it when I attempt to put the volume up. Like right before sub bass about to kick in, it cuts off and won't come back until I put the volume back down. You think ima just need to change the Amp??

 

It can be a multiple of things.

Our systems have this thing called Bass Roll-off. However, it shouldn't shut off completely, bass should just be less intense as volume goes up.

What Htony said seems more accurate than the amp being bad. To test a bad subwoofer, you'll need to:

-take it off, take your sub leads
-put a multimeter to the leads (one to pos one to neg, it should read 2-8 ohms, i'm unsure what the ML subs impedance is).
-You'll set the multimeter to ohm load
-Push the subwoofer down and test to see if it will hit 0 ohms.

If it hits 0 then that means your sub is on its way out, and it is causing a short, or an ohm load so low your amp goes into protect mode.

Another possibility (I'm unsure if Lexus solders their ML subs like they do their pioneer subs), is that a wire might be loose, and the bass hitting causes vibrations, loosening the wires.

Either way I wouldn't play hard enough for it to cut in and out.... Cutting in and out is like you taking the positive and negative of a battery and tapping them together constantly.... You'll end up either damaging the subwoofer, or amp heavily.

 

My friends GS430 Mark Levinson was doing the same thing and it was a blown center channel speaker. He unhooked the speaker by removing the grill and detached the speaker wire from the speaker and that fix the cutting off at higher volumes.