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MFW-15 W/ Stock Driver & Dayton SA1000 amp

post #1 of 56
1/9/11 at 7:35am
Thread Starter 
well...just for fun I wanted to find out if the MFW-15 driver was blown or not...it looks like the driver is FINE.

I hooked up the Turbo Dayton SA1000 amp to the stock driver leads...sub works fine. Actually it sounded great. I didn't want to turn the gain up too much so as to not blow the thing out of the cabinet, but...this has me thinking.

I think if you have a blown amp you could EASILY use almost any other external amp to power your MFW as long as your driver is good. I'm going to try later with an older Sansui 120wpc amp I have just to see how it works.

I think this is GOOD NEWS for those with blown amps that don't want to spend too much $$$ on getting their subs working again. It would be easy enough to leave the stock plate amp on, but remove the INPUT board so you could just run speaker wires into the sub and hook it up.

If you really wanted to give it some juice I'm thinking almost any Behringer A500 watt amp which can be had for around $100.00 would work great. I'll report back when I've done some more testing..inbetween Football of course!
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post #2 of 56
1/9/11 at 7:57am
Thread Starter 
well, just did some more testing...and YUP...works fine. So honestly I'm thinking that almost any decently powered amplifier will work for this sub. It's not like the stock driver is hard to push...just gotta put the plate back on to seal it up (lots of air escaping from the back with it off) and the sub is good to go.

I thought you guys might like to know this stuff....if you have a BLOWN MFW-15 amp...give this a try. I think you'll be very pleasantly suprised. and you can forget all that cap replacement crap and trying to fix an amp that might just start a fire and burn your house down....
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post #3 of 56
1/9/11 at 7:57am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

well...just for fun I wanted to find out if the MFW-15 driver was blown or not...it looks like the driver is FINE.

I hooked up the Turbo Dayton SA1000 amp to the stock driver leads...sub works fine. Actually it sounded great. I didn't want to turn the gain up too much so as to not blow the thing out of the cabinet, but...this has me thinking.

I think if you have a blown amp you could EASILY use almost any other external amp to power your MFW as long as your driver is good. I'm going to try later with an older Sansui 120wpc amp I have just to see how it works.

I think this is GOOD NEWS for those with blown amps that don't want to spend too much $$$ on getting their subs working again. It would be easy enough to leave the stock plate amp on, but remove the INPUT board so you could just run speaker wires into the sub and hook it up.

If you really wanted to give it some juice I'm thinking almost any Behringer A500 watt amp which can be had for around $100.00 would work great. I'll report back when I've done some more testing..inbetween Football of course!

No need to remove the input board (I know yours was already out) just unplug the speaker level in board and attach the driver (solder) to the binding posts.


Murrel
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post #4 of 56
1/9/11 at 7:59am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by murrel View Post

No need to remove the input board (I know yours was already out) just unplug the speaker level in board and attach the driver (solder) to the binding posts.


Murrel

ya, I know but since it leaves nice holes to put the speaker wires through....seemed like a good idea. and Murrel this works AWESOME! I'm actually shocked
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post #5 of 56
1/9/11 at 8:08am
Quote:
Originally Posted by murrel View Post

No need to remove the input board (I know yours was already out) just unplug the speaker level in board and attach the driver (solder) to the binding posts.


Murrel

Murrel,

I don't get it, can you explain this so that a dummy like me can understand it?

thanks...
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post #6 of 56
1/9/11 at 8:10am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

ya, I know but since it leaves nice holes to put the speaker wires through....seemed like a good idea. and Murrel this works AWESOME! I'm actually shocked

That is too much fun! One of the nice things about this hobby is when something like this happens.....its time for some experimentation!
Keep us posted as to what amp your using and how it works.

Murrel
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post #7 of 56
1/9/11 at 9:34am
Thread Starter 
HAHAHAHA!!! Well I hooked up an OLD Sansui 100wpc amp to the sub...and although it doesn't POUND like it does with the Dayton SA1000 it actually works pretty well! I'm going to take a video and post it...but now I'm 100% convinced almost any amp (with gain knob) will be fine and dandy with the stock MFW-15 driver. I'll post pictures and video in a little bit.
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post #8 of 56
1/9/11 at 9:38am
Yea I tried it with an Samson S1000 on 1 of my MFW's and it ran fine for about the 30 minutes or so that I had it hooked up. These amps ran at peaks of 545WPC @4ohm. Seems to me that a decent 500WPC amp would do a stock MFW justice. It should be fine for the most part, you just have to watch out for those instances where you might be pushing the driver too hard in the most rarest of circumstances right? An expert should be able to hopefully provide some more detail as to what it is I'm talking about.
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post #9 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

HAHAHAHA!!! Well I hooked up an OLD Sansui 100wpc amp to the sub...and although it doesn't POUND like it does with the Dayton SA1000 it actually works pretty well! I'm going to take a video and post it...but now I'm 100% convinced almost any amp (with gain knob) will be fine and dandy with the stock MFW-15 driver. I'll post pictures and video in a little bit.

I have had an OAudio 500 running my MFW for the last 3 weeks with no problems.
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post #10 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by yadfgp View Post

Yea I tried it with an Samson S1000 on 1 of my MFW's and it ran fine for about the 30 minutes or so that I had it hooked up. These amps ran at peaks of 545WPC @4ohm. Seems to me that a decent 500WPC amp would do a stock MFW justice. It should be fine for the most part, you just have to watch out for those instances where you might be pushing the driver too hard in the most rarest of circumstances right? An expert should be able to hopefully provide some more detail as to what it is I'm talking about.

Well...I'm now CONVINCED that even if I blew the stock driver, a replacement 15" driver would work just fine. I'm sure it wouldn't be "perfect" but...it would slam just the same. As long as the crossover is handled in your receiver/pre/pro I'm thinking it will work "ok" as an extra sub. At least it won't be a paper weight.

I took a couple videos using the Dayton SA1000 with the gain set to 12 o'clock and the sub was just fine. it actually didn't pound as hard as I thought it might, but...and maybe someone can clear this up for me...is the stock MFW driver 8ohm or 4ohm? I thought it was 4ohm, but maybe it's not.

I sure wish I had another 15" sub to throw in this box and try....now that would be fun! I'm actually shocked no one (at least that I know of) has done this and posted any results.

Anyway, the videos don't show how deep the bass gets...but what do you want from a digital camera right? anyway...here they are!


http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i9...t=MOV00829.mp4
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post #11 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:08am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sepen View Post

I have had an OAudio 500 running my MFW for the last 3 weeks with no problems.

awesome! i think i'm going to buy a Behringer A500 for this, run it bridged to 600watts and see what happens....I think this will be the cheapest resurrection of my MFW that I can find.
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post #12 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:32am
Thread Starter 
Btw I should mention that the stock driver is no where near as good as the turbo. Not even close!!!
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post #13 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:36am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post


I took a couple videos using the Dayton SA1000 with the gain set to 12 o'clock and the sub was just fine. it actually didn't pound as hard as I thought it might, but...and maybe someone can clear this up for me...is the stock MFW driver 8ohm or 4ohm? I thought it was 4ohm, but maybe it's not.

Isn't this the amp you had trouble with clipping at low volumes? I thought the red light kept flashing, and you wanted others to tell you at what volume setting their SA1000 amps would clip at? Did you get it repaired, or maybe it still needs to get fixed? If the MFW driver is 8ohms, then you are only giving it a little under 500watts.
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post #14 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:43am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by sbdman View Post


Isn't this the amp you had trouble with clipping at low volumes? I thought the red light kept flashing, and you wanted others to tell you at what volume setting their SA1000 amps would clip at? Did you get it repaired, or maybe it still needs to get fixed? If the MFW driver is 8ohms, then you are only giving it a little under 500watts.

No. That was a friends amp he got from CHT with his 18.2 this is the modified SA1000 that comes with the mfw turbo kit. I'm borrowing a turbo'ed mfw from Kevin and since I had the amp I decided to try it with my stock mfw since the stock amp melted. Make sense?


Btw are you guys able to see the video?
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post #15 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:51am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

Well...I'm now CONVINCED that even if I blew the stock driver, a replacement 15" driver would work just fine. I'm sure it wouldn't be "perfect" but...it would slam just the same. As long as the crossover is handled in your receiver/pre/pro I'm thinking it will work "ok" as an extra sub. At least it won't be a paper weight.

I took a couple videos using the Dayton SA1000 with the gain set to 12 o'clock and the sub was just fine. it actually didn't pound as hard as I thought it might, but...and maybe someone can clear this up for me...is the stock MFW driver 8ohm or 4ohm? I thought it was 4ohm, but maybe it's not.

I sure wish I had another 15" sub to throw in this box and try....now that would be fun! I'm actually shocked no one (at least that I know of) has done this and posted any results.

Anyway, the videos don't show how deep the bass gets...but what do you want from a digital camera right? anyway...here they are!


http://s70.photobucket.com/albums/i9...t=MOV00829.mp4

The stock MFW driver is 4ohm. I just realized something reading your thread here. Isn't that Dayton only 8ohm capable on a single channel? And it will only run at 4ohm's if you bridge it? If you read the specs on it that's how it appears to me.

Specifications: • Rated Power Output (0.92% THD): 497 watts into 8 ohms, 950 watts into 4 ohms •

http://www.parts-express.com/pe/show...number=300-811

Maybe you're able to run the stock driver with Kevin's amp because he modded it to run 4ohm's per channel?????

If all that's true it would be a bad idea to use that amp stock with a stock MFW. Maybe you should STOP using that amp till you find out from Kevin if this is a safe thing to be doing? Otherwise Kevin's amp might end up like your old stock amp?

I can see the video just fine. Seems to be working pretty well for you in any event.
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post #16 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:57am
Thread Starter 
No. As I understand it the amp will run 8 or 4 ohms. There's no bridging as even though it has 4 speaker connections on the back it's only a 2 channel amp. I asked that some time ago.

So I would think it's fine on the stock driver. Seems to be at least
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post #17 of 56
1/9/11 at 10:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

No. As I understand it the amp will run 8 or 4 ohms. There's no bridging as even though it has 4 speaker connections on the back it's only a 2 channel amp. I asked that some time ago.

So I would think it's fine on the stock driver. Seems to be at least

That's what I meant with bridging. Bridge the 2 channels into 1 channel. Some 2 channel amps will run at a certain ohm on 1 channel, but then bridging it will run it at a different ohm with both channels utilized. If I were you I'd still unplug it till you talk to Kevin.

Not that I don't appreciate you using his amp as a guinea pig.
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post #18 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:00am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by yadfgp View Post


That's what I meant with bridging. Bridge the 2 channels into 1 channel.

It's only a 1 channel amp even though it looks like 2 channels as I understand it
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post #19 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:05am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

It's only a 1 channel amp even though it looks like 2 channels as I understand it

I gotcha now sorry LOL. I just read the manual on it.

It's just kind of funky the way they have all the info listed.

Does look like a good alternative to the stock amp.

But I guess you can run 2 MFW's with it. Just not bridge 2 channels into 1 with it.
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post #20 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:11am
Thread Starter 
Yes is say you could easily hook up 2 mfw's to it since both sets of outputs are active. Not sure if that might make it run 2 ohm though?

If I had 2 here I'd try it but I don't. Sorry

But....I think the behringer A500 is a better choice cost wise but...no eq
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post #21 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:19am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

Yes is say you could easily hook up 2 mfw's to it since both sets of outputs are active. Not sure if that might make it run 2 ohm though?

But....I think the behringer A500 is a better choice cost wise but...no eq

Yea it's confusing how they list the WPC for the amp.

Specifications: • Rated Power Output (0.92% THD): 497 watts into 8 ohms, 950 watts into 4 ohms •

That's the only thing that states how many WPC it puts out as far as I can tell. 497 watts into 8ohms makes it sound like that's what you would get per channel, and that's ALL you would get per channel. And then the 950 watts into 4ohms makes it sound like that's what you would get if you were to bridge the amp. Because in my experience, with 2 channel amps, when you bridge the 2 channels, you get roughly twice as much juice into a single channel. Since the 2 channels are shared into 1 channel. I guess basically this amp will run both channels at 4ohms and 8ohms NP. It will just output up to 950 WPC with a 4ohm load. And only UP to 497WPC with an 8ohm load.

From a price point perspective that Behringer amp would be a better option.
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post #22 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:21am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by yadfgp View Post


Yea it's confusing how they list the WPC for the amp.

Specifications: Rated Power Output (0.92% THD): 497 watts into 8 ohms, 950 watts into 4 ohms

That's the only thing that states how many WPC it puts out as far as I can tell. 497 watts into 8ohms makes it sound like that's what you would get per channel, and that's ALL you would get per channel. And then the 950 watts into 4ohms makes it sound like that's what you would get if you were to bridge the amp. Because in my experience, with 2 channel amps, when you bridge the 2 channels, you get roughly twice as much juice into a single channel. Since the 2 channels are shared into 1 channel. I guess basically this amp will run both channels at 4ohms and 8ohms NP. It will just output up to 950 WPC with a 4ohm load. And only UP to 497WPC with an8ohm load.

From a price point perspective that Behringer amp would be a better option.

Yup. That's how it seems to me. Plus you could get a Behringer Feedback Destroyer for $60 used too!
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post #23 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pure-Evil View Post

Yup. That's how it seems to me. Plus you could get a Behringer Feedback Destroyer for $60 used too!

My Samson S1000 amp I think could make a really good choice also. I've been using it for the last few years to power up a pair of SVS passive cylinder subs. And I mean I've driven those 2 subs HARD! And both the subs took every bit of it and asked for more. And these 2 SVS subs are ported like the MFW. And I have never used anything like a Feedback Destroyer or any other similar device with this amp and these 2 SVS subs. It's an inexpensive amp as well. And very easy to use. I think you could get 1 on ebay for under $200 easy. And it's rated at 500WPC into 4ohms. I think it could be an excellent option for running 2 MFW's. It's a very generic amp, the only adjustments it has is a gain knob.

It's gotta be considered a good safe option for running subs because for years, it was the standard option offered by SVS for their passive subs.

I ran 1 of my MFW's on 1 of the channels of this amp like I said for about a half hour and it ran fine. I'd try it again but I don't have any more spare drivers laying around.

I'm taking a few weeks off next month, so who knows, maybe I'll rehook it back up and see what happens. Hopefully if all goes well I'll have 2 new subs to play with as well. Maybe a pair of 18.1's or a pair of A7S-450's.
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post #24 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:37am
I think the Samson SX1200 is basically an updated version of the S1000. The WPC is a tad lower on it than the S1000 though. Only 450 WPC on the SX1200 as opposed to 500WPC on the Samson S1000. So the SX1200 could be a really good option to.
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post #25 of 56
1/9/11 at 11:44am
Thread Starter 
Yikes!!! Ok this amp is way too powerful for the stock driver! Lol. Well it's ok as long as you leave the gain down around 1/4 and no more unless you want your stock driver launched out of the cabinet! Hahaha. That was close! Whew!

It's true you really need to match your amp w the driver. But at 1/4 this sounds pretty damned good! Way better than a stock amp that's for sure! ;-)
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post #26 of 56
1/9/11 at 1:17pm
Ahhh yeah, the Dayton amp is rated at 950w at 4 ohms, and the original amp is 350w stated...

You said the driver is 4ohm..... I would be careful as your dumping 3 times the amount of power into that driver.....
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post #27 of 56
1/9/11 at 1:21pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Warpdrv View Post

Ahhh yeah, the Dayton amp is rated at 950w at 4 ohms, and the original amp is 350w stated...

You said the driver is 4ohm..... I would be careful as your dumping 3 times the amount of power into that driver.....

Yea really LOL. I guess 500 watts should be fine since the v3 amps I have read from various sources are rated at around 500WPC.
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post #28 of 56
1/9/11 at 1:50pm
I'm still not understanding why this sub is not in the trash can where it belongs.
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post #29 of 56
1/9/11 at 1:57pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by diamonddelts View Post

I'm still not understanding why this sub is not in the trash can where it belongs.

Come on, all the other av666 haters have moved on with their lives, maybe it's time for you to move on as well.

You're the last of a dying breed.......!
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post #30 of 56
1/9/11 at 2:06pm
I agree, if these people are happy with their subs and the veneer isn't peeling - the box & driver is still good, this seems an inexpensive fix, maybe one could buy a driver without the amp of the turbo upgrade...
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