hey guys
Just picked up 2004 ls430. Sub is damaged and making cracking noises. For those guys who have changed to the 8" polk with 4ohm dvc unit and ran in 8ohms configuration, have you guys had any issues with your mark levinson amp?? After reading I know this amp is more suited to a 16ohm speaker however its kinda hard to find an 8" sub with 16ohms of impedance.

 

I cannot vouch for the Polk, but tons of people seem to be very positive about it. It should work great if you do get the Polk.

There are good quality 16-ohm ones however, see following:

 

 

Yours is probably blown, I was sure mine was when on a hot day with the car sitting there was suddenly thunder within the cabin after driving off. I'm not too worried about the factory amp when I finally replace mine because I'd like to do a complete sound system at some point

 

An 8 or 12 ohm sub should work just fine at reasonable volumes.

Multiple types of 16 ohm 8 inch woofers are available for about $50-60 bucks on ebay. I installed a similar spec'd speaker to one listed below a couple of years ago in the SC430 to replace the blown crappy OEM ML sub. The new sub sounds good and have had zero issues. Suggest sourcing a driver that has good sensitivity. The subs are listed at 89db and 90db at one watt which is pretty decent.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-8-DVC-S...oAAOxygPtS5phA

https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-2-8-DVC...sAAOxy~ilSRJXJ

 

It's good enough to blur the cars in my rear view mirror when there's bass, lol. Sounds fine to me although i never got the chance to compare it with the Mark Levinson OEM subwoofer since it was blown from the get go.

 

lexdemting: If the sub is buzzing, you can definitely repair it using a $25 USD SimplySpeakers repair kit (https://www.simplyspeakers.com/toyot...n-clsk-8m.html). This will maintain the original acoustic design of the ML system and maintain the original electrical load designed that the ML amp was designed for.

Generalizing, an effect of lower impedance is more current, more current is more heat, and more heat in the amp causes stress on the amp's components, either directly from the heat cooking materials off, or from heating/cooling cycling on components and soldering joints causing stress fractures. This is generally why higher heat on electronic components causes lower lifespan.

For reference, the original ML sub part number is 86160-0W260. Search the forums here for many posts of people replacing the ML sub with various aftermarkets, most of the pros and cons have already been discussed.