i had it hooked up to a pyle amp and the sub wasnt in a box just wanted to make sure they both worked. i had the bass boost turned 3/4 the way down and i was playing a song and the subwoofer stopped. did i blow the sub out? or what do you think happened? thanks.
OK, if you want to test a speaker, get a 9V battery, and connect a pair of wires to the speaker terminals, then touch the wire leads to the battery terminals for just a moment (touch and release) and see if the speaker cone moves in or out. that's how you test a speaker.
never connect a sub to an amp without being in a obx. The box (and the air in the box) act as a cushion or a spring, to add resistance to the speaker movement. If you run the speaker without a box, there is nothing to add resistance to the speaker's movement, and the speaker "unloads" allowing the driver or over-excurt, and yes it can damage or "blow" the speaker.
test the speaker with a battery realy quick, to see if it still moves. If it doesn, the speaker is OK.
You can also use a DMM to test the DCR of the speaker. test the speaker across the coils (terminals) for resistance. a 4 ohm coil should read a DC resistance of about 3.6-3.6 ohms.
should be. and glass wolf would you agree that if you test the sub free air with 10-50 watts on a 50 Hz tone that it should be fine? << thats what i do then i throw it in the box after i made sure every thing is wired right and is happy.
yeah you can test a free air speaker with very low power.. sure. You just have to be very careful about not letting it over-excurt. I'm sure we've all run speakers free-air before. You just need to know that you can't crank the volume doing it. There's no suspension for the driver (subs) when doing so, thus no real protection for the driver.
also yeah the sub should be fine if it still moves with battery contact, nd the load across the terminals reads within spec.