I am thinking about replacing the 8" sub in my 2002 SC430 and was considering putting in the JL Audio 8W0 and JL e1200 amp to run it.
Specs on the e1200:
120 W RMS x 1 @ 4 ohm
200 W RMS x 1 @ 2 ohm

The stock sub is 12 Ohms. My question is, should I get the 8 ohm or 4 ohm 8W0? Sound quality is the most important. I just want a little more bass and don't need to rattle windows. The audio salesperson said go with the 4ohm because the amp is designed to run 4ohms. What do you guys think? Any help is highly appreciated.

 

He's right. Most amps would choke on an 8 Ohm load. In addition, that JL would only put out about 60-80 watts RMS at 8 Ohms. Go with the 4 ohm.

 

he's trying to blow your amp up and sell you another one. that amp is designed to run @ 8 to 12 ohms and anything else will fry it.

 

I don't know where you are getting your figures from but they are incorrect. Again, most amps are designed to run around 1 to 4 ohms. Most amps put out the most power on the lower end of that range due to the decreased resistance. At 8 to 12 ohms, that amp would put out 40 to 80 watts RMS for about 10 minutes before it fried it's circuits from the resistance.

 

I don't know where either of you get your information from. Look at an impedence curve at any speaker'ss Fs before you claim that a higher resistance will damage an amp.

I don't know of any car audio amplifiers that aren't stable to 4 ohms bridged. Get the 4 ohm model and use all of the power you can.

 

Gary, I stand corrected. I don't know what I was thinking but for some reason, I was thinking of the danger associated with the impedence being too LOW (not high). My bad. I still stick with my (our) recommendation of using the 4 ohm v. the 8 though (even though going with the 8 ohms would yield slightly better levels of distortion and might be a touch cleaner, one probably wouldn't be able to notice it especially in a sub application.)

 

The e1200 is easily stable down to 2 ohms and prob 1.5 !!!
Get a 4 ohm driver. The 8 is made for parallelling multiple subs and ending up with a 2 or 4 ohm total load, depending on how many you have and how they're wired.
For pete's sake, don't get an 8W0 if you're concerned about sound quality. The whole W0 series is horrible (according to me, sorry...) for sound quality - if that's what's important to you. Every single time I've heard them I've almost puked, I literally can't stay in the same room with them running. They are underdamped and flop like a fish out of water when stimulated. I've watched the 10's and 12's do their thing and the 8 can't be much different. There has to be something better you can put in there. I hate to beat up on JL 'cause I like most of their products, but the W0 series...
Though I haven't heard it in particular, the 8" W3v2 should be a better choice if you can fit it in (watch out for depth and room for excursion). Is there really only an 8" sub in the SC430? Can you squeeze a 10" in there? (10" W6v2 ?) That would open up much better choices.

 

nothing bigger than a w0 size 8" will fit.

 

Painful.

 

Muh Bad Buddy. I responded while half asleep and did not notice there was an aftermarket amp in the picture, my comments only reflect factory systems. (yawn)

 

Thanks for the insight guys. I chose the 8w0 because some of the SC guys have replaced the factory sub with the JL and have had great results. Again thanks.