Hey guys, I'm new to this stuff and i was wondering if you could add a 10'' 250 watt sub woofer using the stock monsoon amp? if any of that makes any sense.
thanks

 

anybody?

 

I would say no. I would be surprised if you got this to work to any level of satisfaction.

You might as well just spring for an aftermarket amp and do it right. The monsoon amp isn't very good for what it does even IMO. I'm looking at replacing my monsoon amp solely because its the weakest link in my system right now.

 

I wouldn't.
I think the sub would draw too much power from the amp.
And the factory amp is a POS IMO.
If you did that the sub would never hit like it should and it would be desorted at high volume levels.

 

ok thanks guys

 

Tell us how you really feel.

 

LOL!! The Monsoon amp isn't bad for what it is made for. It is not made to run a 10" sub however. Basically the amp is getting fed a distorted signal from the stock CD player. So it amplifies a distorted signal. Give it a clean signal from a quality aftermarket unit and it does alot better, especially after you replace the stock speakers, then add a 10" or 12" sub with an amp to get the low end. It sounds pretty good after that.
For the best overall sound quality an aftermarket amp and speakers with a sub is recommended with an aftermarket HU.

 

A 10" sub from the stock amp will work better than the stock 6 3/4" subs as long as you get a fairly efficient one. Bigger speakers are generally more efficient, though you also have a tradeoff between frequency range and efficiency. An Eminence pro subwoofer like maybe a Beta 10 would be good (edit: that is, of course, if it models correctly in whatever box you'd be using) because it's quite efficient, but it won't hit down low like many other subs.

 

An Alpine MRP-M450 is a fairly inexpensive amp that does a really good job of being efficient and powering a quality 10" sub with a nice clean sound...if you want to keep the stock head unit, there are line level to RCA converters that you can wire in to connect to the amp...not the best solution, but not very expensive...

 

don't take this as a personal attack, but everything in this post is wrong (with the exception of the "i wouldn't" part).

the size of the sub itself or the sub's RMS power rating have absolutely nothing to do with how much power is being utilized......the key here is the impedance of the subwoofer.

there are two ways you could go with this (while utilizing the monsoon amp):

1) buy two subs that each have a single 2-ohm voice coil (SVC = Single Voice Coil), and connect one sub to each of the two sub channels, or
2) buy a single sub that has two 2-ohm voice coils (DVC = Dual Voice Coil), and hook one sub channel to each voice coil.

option 1 would be the better option, because on a DVC sub, if you try to play the left channel's output through one voice coil and the right channel's output through the other voice coil at the same time, and the two outputs are not exactly the same, the two coils will fight for control over the cone's movement, and bass output & clarity will suffer.

it's a common misconception that the monsoon amp sounds like ****....but it's only amplifying the signal that it's given. the amp can't help it if it is being fed **** to begin with......**** in = **** out. and on top of that, it's feeding the amplified shitty signal to shitty speakers, which makes it even worse.

if you were to upgrade the stock head unit to a quality one, and replace the stock bass drivers with quality speakers, you'd find that it would sound a LOT better, assuming you used speakers of the correct impedance (if you use speakers that present the amp with a 4-ohm load instead of a 2-ohm load like the stockers, the amp will only be pushing around 1/2 the power it is supposed to, and bass output will suffer).

as for the sub not hitting like it should, or having distortion at higher levels, that really just depends on the specific speaker (and of course, the enclosure that it's in). when you buy a speaker that can handle 250w RMS, it will still work just fine at low power levels, but you will be spending more money than you need to if you are only going to be pushing (for instance) 50w through it. that would be like buying a ferrari and never taking it over 55mph. you'd be better off paying less for a sub that has a lower RMS power rating (such as 75w or 100w RMS).

don't get me wrong, i would still highly recommend getting an aftermarket amp, because it will be better, but you can make the monsoon amp run a 10" (or even 12") sub, and if setup properly, it could even sound pretty good. not competition-level, by any means, but tons better than stock by far....

 

You're not supposed to do voice coils on different channels because you will get crossfeedback, one coil will drive the other when they are at different potentials.