I had a kick ass Alpine S-12 once, then sold it to reclaim trunk space and used my amp to power my front speakers, then missed the bass so picked up a shitty $100 box and 10" woofer combo on sale.

At first it was very, very acceptable. I had the gain on the amp turned down to 1/3rd, but over the last few months I've had to crank it up and up and up, and now I'm almost at full gain, and full sub-out on the head unit (seperate subout and control). The thump is gone.

What's dying here? Do woofers slowly turn to crap, or is it the amp? Amp is a Phoenix Gold QX-2180 (180 watts at 4ohm bridged), couldn't tell you what the woofer is. I think it's some MTX bottom of the barrel, probably used as the in-store demo before it got picked up by me.

Should I spring some bucks and get another sub?

well, if you bought it the box and sub for 100, that does sound kinda dirt cheap. You might be getting used to the bass, I mean hell, I have a 15" Kicker L7, had it for 3 weeks, and I'm used to it... But ya, it's probably the subwoofer, your probably just killing it considering it's price.

It's definitely not just the case of me getting used to it, the little thing used to rattle the outside of the truck at less than half gain, now I can barely move my rearview mirror at full pump.

Time to donate it to the girlfriend's car I guess! It'll give me a project, I've wanted to build my own box for awhile now.

Try this: (A simple test to determine if your woofer is dead)

• Take a new 9 volt square battery
• Detach speaker wires from amp
• Touch the speaker wires to the battery (positive to positive and negative to negative)
• If your woofer makes a noise your speaker is probably fine.

Another Test: (A simple test to determine if amp is dying)

• Try a different speaker in place of your current woofer. If you get the same results you have a bad amp.

Another Test: (A simple test to determine if your head unit pre outs are dying)

• Disconnect the RCA cables from your amp.
• Attach a new set of RCAs that are attached to a different source unit. I.E. - portable cd player, etc...
• Test to see if the problem persists. If it doesn't you may have a bad head unit. If it does your amp is bad.

Good luck.

Hey, I didn't even think about the pre-outs, entirely possible since it's probably 5 years old at this point. Right now I'm using the sub-out specific plugs, would the front and/or rear outs be affected the same way, if there is a problem?

The sub isn't dead, so the 9-volt trick will show positive. I should see if I can borrow a sub/box from a local store to test my amp, good point!